We bought it

“It” is a 2004 Ford Focus ZTS sedan.  The red 4-door in the picture is the same configuration and color as ours; Ford calls the color sangría.  I dashed home from work (got off a late call at 7:45 instead of 7:30, and there was a wreck on the southbound Interstate north of Parmer Lane where somebody had flipped a cafe-racer bike—bet that one turned out to be a fatality, the number of cop cars and stuph there were and the way they had one lane of the Interstate and two of the frontage road blocked off), picked up L and the checkbook, and fought my way back up Lamar Boulevard to Pflugerville.  We got to the dealership at 8:30, just time enough for a short test drive. L let me drive, although I offered to give her a turn too.

The car’s handling is nice and tight, the shifting and clutch feel are snappy, and the four-cylinder 2.3 liter engine (biggest that comes in the Focus, and even so it meets the California PZEV emission standard) makes for nice pickup-and-run.  Even when I forgot to downshift going into a turnaround from an off-ramp, the worst it did was shudder a bit to remind me I wasn’t driving an automatic—for a few moments, it was so smooth that I forgot.  Front-passenger legroom was good, although the back was tight as is so often the case in small modern cars.  L had to ask me to scoot my seat forward a little to give her room.

I’d been slightly worried about the low mileage advertised on the car, since the Tracer had later turned out to be a 30,000 mile rollback, but all was explained once I found it was a reposession.  At that point the 4,500 miles on the clock made a lot more sense.  It has a nice options package, too:  A/C, AM/FM/CD, power locks, windows, and mirrors, PS/PB, cruise control, sun roof, and alloy wheels.  EPA mileage is advertised at 25 city/33 highway, which is comparable to what the Merc got.  All this for $11,998 plus TTL.

So we’re very pleased, ’cos now we have another car to run into the ground the same way we do all our cars.  (Any car we get through with, it’s over!)  L can safely call someone to haul away the Merc, as soon as she goes to get its title out of the safe deposit box on Monday.

(ETA:  Sure enough, the bike wreck killed someone.  The news today reported the passenger dead and the driver seriously injured and in hospital.  The car that hit them has been found, but without a driver and nobody’s come forward to take responsibility.)

Some polyvinyl BBs left an overwritten trail in the paper mill.  Fnord.