I have been a GM person my whole life.

Recently my family decided to purchase a 2009 Focus SES during the Cash for Clunkers program. My reasoning was that Ford has made some big steps in quality lately and they also did not accept or need tax payer bail out money.

After driving the Focus for 3 months, I am very impressed with it. It is leaps and bounds ahead of our 2008 Chevy Cobalt (granted, the Cobalt is at the end of of its product cycle, and the focus is just getting started).

But I do have some gripes about Ford being a complete penny pincher. The focus did not come with a trunk release button anywhere in the car. You have to use either the key or the keyless remote. I would understand this on a base model, but this car is the "top-of-the-line" as far as Focui go.

They also left out a dome light! I cannot believe that a newly designed car would not include a dome light! It does have two map lights in the front, but these are of little help to back seat passengers.

In the end these are small complaints and I'm proud that Ford is making it work without tax-payer money.

i have heard the reason for just idiot lights and gauages that always read normal is that manufactures not want warrantly claims off small gauge flucations

I find it comical, in this case in more ways than one, when mechanical functions or automotive procedures are compared to the human body and it's function. As breathing is part of the autonomic nervous system, it's basically involuntary and therefore no thought is generally required. As for urination, the body is actually has a signal sent to the brain when the bladder is full. Call it an FBM or full bladder monitor if you will, with pain being an end result of ignoring the monitor signal.

Unfortunately, for some not on Bitog, changing the oil in one's car doesn't fit into the above categories. For those folks the OLM serves an important function in maintaining a vehicle. For those on Bitog it provides conversation about accuracy and related topics, in addition to a guide for OCI.

To the OP's comment about Ford no having an OLM. My son owns an 05 Explorer, with an OLM as shown in a previous post, that indicates with in dash display the % of OCI left, and when a change is needed. fwiw, the average OCI, is 5k.

Our old 2000 Mercury Mountaineer had an oil life monitor as does our 2007 Mercury Montego sedan.

The dealer, however, always seems to forget to reset it on the rare occasions we actually have them change the oil. The car came with free oil changes every 5,000 miles, but we usually just change it ourselves. The free changes come in handy in the dead of Winter when a change is due and it is 20degrees outside.

FWIW, GM and many other automakers are doing away with gauges now. My buddy's Cobalt doesn't even have a coolant temperature gauge. 90% of the car buying public don't even know what half of those gauges do anyway. I went to the auto show last month, and only a handful of cars had oil pressure and voltage gauges.

i really dont understand the gripes about labor time on a 6.0. just pop the cab off and everything is right there, maybe a half hour at most to pull the cab off.

Ford's gauges are pretty useless. That's a big reason why I got a ScanGaugeII. It's weird driving the truck without it now. The lack of an OLM does not bother me at all though. I wouldn't go by it anyway.

Ford can be pretty bad about decontenting too. Most of their models steadily lose features over the course of their life cycle. Most of the time it's not that big of a deal, but still, if my truck has slots for a cargo cover in the back of the cab, why not just give me one?

Probably my biggest gripe is the complexity of some fairly basic repairs and maintenance. Replacing the heater core on 95+ Rangers and Explorers is a 6 hour job that involves removing the entire dash. On 94 and older models it's about a 10 minute job. Ford also loves engine compartments with hoses, vacuum lines, and wiring harnesses running everywhere. It's hard to avoid a lot of this with modern vehicles, but Fords tend to be more of a mess than many other brands. [censored], my truck has a coolant line wrapped around the PCV valve!

But I put up with the gripes because certain Ford models are very reliable, well designed, durable vehicles, even if the usual idiosyncrasies are there.

The only gauge that is a complete dummy gauge on the Expy is the oil pressure. The others (voltage, coolant temp, fuel) all "work".

Though they are heavily buffered.

Ford has had an OLM for a while. They just do not put it on a lot of vehicles. I have no idea why. My dad's '03 Town Car has an OLM, and it is interesting to see the role the time of the year and driving style have on how long it wants him to run the oil for. It has been as long as 18,000Km and as short as 7,000.

Not true of all GM's. I have an 05 Chevy Trailblazer with the I6 engine. The gauge is basically a dummy light. There is an old pressure switch that closes at something like 8 psi, and from there the PCM "guesses" at what the "oil pressure" should be.
One member ran their vehicle 6 quarts low on oil (the I6 holds 7 quarts) and said his oil pressure gauge was showing "normal" pressure between 50 - 60 psi. (Yes the engine ended up being toast)

At trailvoy.com we researched this extensively. Some found that the 5.3 V8 oil pressure gauge was real, but not the I6.
My oil pressure gauge ALWAYS reads 40 psi at idle (hot or cold) and about 50 - 55 at cruise - again hot or cold and it reads the same if you use 5W-30 or 20W-50 oil.

Also we found that the temp. gauge "lies" quite a bit too. Many have found that when it is reading 210 - the ACTUAL temp (according to a scanguage) can be anywhere from 176 to about 225 degrees F.

I agree - the Ford "OLM" is nothing more than a mileage reminder - my wife's Camry does that too. The GM OLM actually uses an algorithm based on various engines parameters and operating conditions to determine the OCI.
I have always been happy with my Ford vehicles, but I have to pat GM on the back in this respect!

Ford's oil pressure gauges are lame and I have never cared for the lack of an A/C on/off button on the manual controls, other than than that I have no real complaints with Ford. They do more things "right" in my book than just about anybody. I could care less about an OLM, I wouldn't go by that anyway.

I went to a car show today in Freezelanta and there was a beautiful 1963 Impala with a 409. It was fully restored and the owner had just bought it. He started it for me and I noticed something on the dash I had not seen since I was a kid - a COLD light. When the engine is cold, a light comes on and tells you. When the engine gets to a certain temp, the light goes out. Just above it is a HOT light.

The only gauges the car had was a fuel gauge and a huge speedometer. Everything else was idiot lights, including the COLD light.

Idiots lights have been around for decades, and I'm sure will be around longer still.

VW TDI stripper models came with "cold" lights in lieu of temp gauges. If I paid several grand extra for that fancy powertrain I'd want to keep an eye on it.

My work lost a cherokee to overheating; it only had a "hot" light that probably comes on at 235-240. An astute driver would have noticed temp creeping above its own normal self if they had a real temp gauge. I bought its twin at auction and the just-starting-to-leak rad was chock full of rust and other nasties.

My only complaint about Ford is that I didn't buy WAY more of their stock when it was the price of a Big Mac!!

I'll second that. At the time I repeatedly told my wife we need to seriously invest in the company.
She resisted.
Several times since then I have commented on the price of Ford stock to her.

But there is no simple way for a do it yourselfer to pull a cab off. I've never done it and I don't want to learn now. Plus pulling a cab off to acess a small part thats a 5 minute job on many other cars is idiotic.