Well, I'll put the bulk of the rant in this post but will also report each other alternator fail in other posts as well. I've got through 4, yes FOUR alternators since I've owned this car and 3 batteries. For a 2007??? I know I put a lot of miles on a car but this is ridiculous. I noticed the usual suspects (radio showing low battery, needs jumping and battery light on and off) in January and went straight to the shop. They tested and said that the alternator was going bad. Really?? Again??? So I reluctantly pay the repair costs and ensured that the battery that I had in the car tested good because it was less than a year old, they assured me it tested good. However, my battery light still goes on and off leaving me to worry where I'll be broken down the next time, I finally go to Auto-zone to get my battery tested and it came back as bad as well, luckily this was under warranty so I got that replaced for no cost. Again, a day passes and the battery light is still going on and off! This has happend FOUR times with this car and the alternator and 3 with the battery. Something has GOT to be done. I'll post about the other problems as well.

This is not how I wanted to spend my holiday weekend. I was on my way home from work on Friday in rush hour when my car lights started to dim and my radio starting resetting itself, plus the abs light started flashing. I was on the highway and there is tons of construction, not to mention this being a holiday weekend tons of people are in a rush to get home and are already leaving town. I took the first exit I could and then noticed my radio started saying battery low. While I tried to accelerate my car started making a humming noise under the hood and my radio then continued to reset itself and turn itself on and off again. Then while trying to pull off to a safe place my car just died I was stuck in a turn lane and I almost got hit over a dozen times. I hit the emergency lights, but they were not working on the outside for traffic, but were blinking on my dash. My car was completely dead. I almost got hit over a dozen times and with it being a Friday a holiday weekend and right after work traffic was horrible. I couldn't even get out of my car with traffic on both sides rushing 50 mph. I am a female and work full time and go to school. I was tricked into buying this car 5 years ago. I needed a dependable vehicle at the time and I have no help.I really didn't know any better and I am still paying it off. I have called the dealership now and in the past. They are no help telling me they will have a manager call me. yeah right! They never return your phone call and they tell you its not covered under your warranty. I finally had a polite motorist stop and block the cars zooming past me when my help arrived. We barely got my car home. We looked online and and to it to the auto store and had the battery and alternator checked. The battery tested at 22% and the Alternator at 11%. Thank god my boyfriend knows vehicles it took him 4 hours to change the alternator mainly because the location of it. We bought the alternator that was refurbished that ran around $200 dollars and a book just to be safe that ran $26. After we replaced the alternator the radio has no power and the lights inside my dash are very dim. I dunno what to think at this point after finding this website I definitely believe a recall on this issue. I am actually more upset with the dealership that I purchased my vehicle from I bought all of their extended warranties and none of my issues have been covered. This will be the last Ford I buy EVER!!!

I wish I had seen this site before we bought our focus. but too late for that, we bought the car in late 2007. and in October 2008 like the others, we were driving down the road and then the radio stopped, lights stop working and then we came to a stop, it was very scary. We got the alternator replaced and all was good til now January 2012 it goes out again. The mechanic says its because of were they have placed the alternator in the firewall behind motor it doesn't get any air and gets too hot, so unfortunately for us all this will probably continue. I just wanted everyone to know that ford does have a facebook page and now a days that's one way to let them know the problem and everyone else!!!!!!!!Maybe we can save a few from going through this..

I like so many of you was left stranded on a busy highway,in 95 degree weather w/my 2007 ford focus. Was cruising home at 75 mph from a Detroit Tiger game.All of a sudden my dash board lite up like a Christmas tree and the engine shut off.(Of course I have to be in the fast line with traffic all around me) Thank God I wasnt hit!!! Pulled over to the left shoulder....Waited a few minutes...and tried to restart it...my mileage meter was blank/and the warning lite for my gas cap was lite....Checked all my belts...radio/windows worked fine... but motor wouldnt turn over....called a tow $125.00 to get home....Called my repair shop the next day....they said comon for ford focus alterator to just puke without warning!!! Gotta call another tow today and get it in the shop :(

I bought a new car on 10-31-2006 from Rusty Eck Ford so I wouldn't have to work on an old car due to having to care for my elderly father instead of putting him in a nursing home. Well I guess I got burned because I bought a Ford instead of a Honda or Toyota because I thought that maybe their quality caught up somewhat close to them. Coming to this site and seeing all the complaints about the altenator explains why when reading the owners manual about the 6 year/100, 000 mile power train warranty that the altenator is not listed as a part of it. I expect to replace things like the battery or altenator eventually, but I never expected to replace the altenator within the first 36, 000 miles.

I knew something had to be wrong with the Ford Focus's electrical problems when I did a search about the accessory outlet going out and where to replace the fuse (replaced it but still not working). My car has the stock car stereo and the only thing I ever plugged into the accessory outlet was my TomTom gps unit and occasionally the Blackberry car charger on a log trip but I never plugged both in at once and it still went out (it's rated at 10 amps on the outlet sticker but Ford used a 20 amp fuse...). The outlet went out without any warning.

My car started to make a weird grinding noise in the last month and one time I smelled a little smoke, the problem was when I pulled over and looked under the hood it wouldn't make that strange sound and the smell wasn't directional. The day my altenator went out my car stereo display flashed "low battery" and I couldn't make the trip to my friend's home before the car died completely. Now this car didn't give a slight warning or stall, the power died like a switch was flipped, all the lights like the dash cluster, car stereo's clock, and signal lights simply stopped as did the engine. Little did I know this was one of two major problems I was going to have that day.

I called Ford's roadside service and got an operator who most likely is scored more for blowing people off the phone quickly than actually helping them. She asked for the nearest major intersection from where the car broke down and didn't want to wait on the line long enough to allow me to correct her and give a more detailed location on where to send the tow truck. This of course forced me to call back several times to check the status of the tow since I was waiting in 105F weather for over 2.5 hours. The tow service driver was given the wrong information and circled the major intersection instead of where I was which was about 250 yards from it because the operator wasn't willing to wait the extra one minute for me to walk close enough to the sign to be able to read off the street names. When I was speaking witht he tow truck driver he asked me and mentioned that the call center service Ford used typically gave the wrong information and most customers like me felt the person was rude, he apologized for the misinformation he was given and my long wait. Ford has roadside for up to 6 years/100k miles so i got my car towed home for free, but I would have rather dealt with my insurance company and pay to get my car towed and reimbursed if I knew what kind of experience this call was going to give me. I guess the minute the operator saved on the call was worth about 2h of my time according to her call center and Ford.

While I was waiting for the 2h+ for the tow it gave me plenty of time to go over the owner's manual and the details of the warranty. The warranty stipulates what Ford considers to be part of the power train and the altenator isn't a part of it. Go to youtube, search, and you can see a lot of videos on how to take out the altenator out of a Focus. Initially I thought Ford wouldn't cover the electrical due to the car audio aftermarket and the demands many of the amps will put on a car's charging system, but I came online to here only to find out that many others had a stock system, lower than 36, 000 miles, and all of them had the car dying in an unsafe manner while driving too.

This wasn't my first time dealing with Ford about my car either. Within the first year my rear tire developed a flat. I took it into them and the dealership's mechanics were using a spray bottle with water trying to detect the leak with no luck. They ended up remounting my tire back on the car, inflating it to proper pressure, and claiming they couldn't find anything wrong with it. I drove it home and when I got back it was completely flat again. I ended up putting the compact spare on the car, inflating the flat tire with my home compressor, filled my bath tub with water half way, and putting that filthy tire (it left a nasty ring around the tub which took a lot of effort to get rid of) in there to find the flat myself so I could mark it to show them where it leaked so they could plug it to fix it. After they patched it they insisted on wanting to mount it back on my car which I reluctantly allowed (I wasn't too happy to have to make a second trip to them and wasting a lot of my time, would have been better to pay somewhere else to fix it the first time). That should have been my prelude that dealing with Ford free will be so bad it's better to pay someone else to handle it instead.

The next problem I had was when my accessory outlet went out and replacing the fuse didn't fix it which happened within the first two years of owning the car (tbh I don't remember the exact date other than it was within the warranty period). I'll admit I took it in on a short notice on Friday about 3pm because it was the day off my job gave me and I was going to take an out of town trip on Satuday. One of the dealer's service tech gave a less than helpful solution of getting it repaired when I came back from the trip instead of suggesting to go to another Ford dealership in the city and have their techs repair it under warranty or even when out of town arranging one with a Ford service shop there if I was going to need it. I ended up buying a portable jump starter with an car accesory outlet to take along the trip since I didn't have time to fix it before it so I could power my gps unit. The reason why I mention this is when my brother's Toyota had a problem, his dealer called the other Toyota dealer's service shops and ended up setting up an arrangement with a non-dealer mechanic to fix the problem, to them the customer shouldn't wait for Toyota related problem to fixed only by their mechanics but for the customer's convenience instead, needless to say my brother, his wife, her siblings, and parents now drive Toyotas.

I used to own a Geo Metro and the only reason why I don't have it was due to it being totaled in a wreck. That car had some very hard driving mileage done on it because I was a pizza delivery driver at the time and racked 70k miles on it with no problems. I thought Ford would be similar, but I was very wrong. At least I learned my lesson on this one, I'll buy something else the next time around and it won't be a Ford product. You won't have Ford support you, you will have the dealer support you at their convenience of making a profit from you or Ford, keep this in mind if you make the mistake of buying one of their products.

I'd like to add my say of the Ford Focus alternator dying out while on the highway. I was on a very busy stretch of highway where the cars are moving relentlessly fast when the radio went out, then about a minute later the speedometer dropped to zero when I'm still moving at 50mph. There was no dashboard warning of this problem coming. I was just lucky that I was able to switch to the far right lane and pull over to the shoulder of the highway. I turned the car off and tried to restart it but it would not start. The city has a free towing truck that patrols for stalled vehicles and renders limited aid and they got me off the highway to where I could call AAA for towing back home. The AAA guy tested my battery and found it was the alternator that was bad. I removed the alternator (which required two trips to the auto parts store for the right wrenches), and had an alternator repair shop fix the burnt out regulator and diodes at a cost of $150. I also bought a new battery thinking that maybe the 4 year old battery was somehow at fault in the demise of the alternator, another $116 spent. Turned out the old battery is still good. The car now runs OK. The rebuilt alternator now has a stronger than original regulator and set of diodes which I hope will prevent the same problem from recurring (My thanks to the rebuilder).

To anybody thinking of doing the alternator replacement yourself, you'll need metric and inch socket sets. The alternator holding nuts require a spark plug deep socket wrench, and there are the holding stem bolts that require a star type socket to remove. The belt tensioner requires a 1/2" 'o' wrench with a 15deg angle. And I hope you will not be cursing so much trying to pull that infernal alternator out from all the obstructions.

I've never had any problems with my Ford Focus up until now (I love this little car). I got it brand new in April of 2007.

Over the past 1-2 months I have noticed that its been hiccuping a bit when I accelerate (and I figured something would eventually go wrong). The only checkups I've done have been your standard oil changes. My current mileage is about 56,600.

Then Friday, I took my boyfriend to work and came home. The "check engine" and "battery" light both turned on right before I parked in the garage.

I turned the car off, turned it back on and noticed the "check engine" light had turned off but the "check battery" light was still on.

I'd never replaced the battery since it was new, so I figured it was a simple issue of replacing it (it was about time). Then later that night I went to go pick up my boyfriend from work and the "ABS" light turned on... followed by the emergency brake light a minute later.

All 3 lights (now lit) all in a matter of driving about 15-20 miles. Pretty scary how fast this all happened, I'd just gotten back from a road trip a week earlier so I'm glad this didn't all happen then.

I told my boyfriend to check the glove box for the manual and turned the light on in the car (it was very dim). We pulled into our apartment complex and the car started to make funny noises like it was running out of power (and the headlights started to dim).

I parked the car, opened the hood and hosed off everything (I figured maybe dust had gotten under the hood or something after that crazy duststorm we had in Phoenix).

Then I came online and found this site and all the complaints about this year of Ford Focus having issues with the alternator. I had no idea what an alternator was (I know nothing about cars) but I had a feeling that all of these complaints were onto something.

I went to Autozone the next morning (it was close to my house) and had the battery replaced. The battery light was still on so I had them check the alternator (they confirmed it was bad).

I purchased the best alternator they had in stock for about $160 and the battery for about $120 (which I'm still not sure if I needed to replace, but after 4 years of using the same battery I figured it was about time).

I decided not to drive my car anywhere else until I could have the alternator installed the next morning, so we went home.

I made an appointment with my favorite shop for the next morning and that was about $200 to install (plus an additional $18 for the oil change while I was there).

Maybe I could have found all these parts and labor for cheaper but this autoshop is rated pretty highly on Yelp and I didn't have time to shop around for cheap parts on ebay or whatever.

Pretty annoying to have to deal with, but now my AC runs cooler and the music in my car sounds better (weird). I'd just replaced all 4 tires about 2 weeks prior, so hoping this is all I need to invest for a while.

Hope this helps someone, and hope you have about $500 to spare.

Good luck.

Update from Sep 24, 2011: The engine light had stayed on this entire time, since the repair, and yesterday the battery light came on again.

I took it in and decided to purchase a different brand of alternator. They said the reason my engine light had been on this entire time was from a separate problem. I guess my custom "lockable" gas cap was not properly sealing and was causing some pressure issues (probably been getting bad gas mileage because of that too).

Supposedly my new battery is still good but I lucked out on the new refurbished alternator. Boo.

Another $350 after parts and labor...

My car is a very low mileage 07, only 33400. One day I left my car running, went in to my moms house, stayed a few minutes and when I came back out my car was dead. Totally dead. My nephew gave it a jump and it was fine until, the next day.... a Sunday. Again at my moms, when I got ready to leave, wouldn't start. Dead. My nephew jumped it again and suggested we go to the local auto zone and have it tested. The battery wasn't at full charge, so they couldn't really tell if there was anything wrong there, but the alternator tested bad... Thank goodness for a nephew with a good job and a great heart! I am a single mom, and there is no way I could have fixed it when it went bad! I have only had the car 4 1/2 months and purchased it for the express reason that I wouldn't be having to pay for costly repairs all the time like I was in my old car. So, this morning my nephew replaced the alternator and when we took back the old one for the core charge, We had them test the battery.... it had a bad cell. Had we not had them test it, we would have been in the same boat in a few months with another bad alternator! This happened at 140,000 miles on my Ford Explorer, so we knew to replace the battery too... I just wish I didn't have this problem on a car with only 33 thousand miles on it!!! Other than that, the car has been just what I asked for when I bought it, cheap, good gas mileage, low miles, and just big enough for my daughter and I!!

Never had a problem until now. Used to be such a great car.

For about a month my battery light started to come on. I was thinking I will get a new battery when I get the money. So right before I'm about to get a new battery, the car left me stranded. Everything dimmed as cars do when their battery goes dead. Then I started to hear "clicks".

The gauges stopped working to save electricity I would guess and the car was dead. The safety light was on and I wasn't too mad b/c I knew the battery needed replacing b/c the battery light was on for about a month. My fault. What I didn't know is that the same night I bought a new battery it would do the exact same thing!!

Not even hours after getting a new battery I was back to square one. How the hell can a car that's 3 years old with only 70,000 miles need a new alternator?

I am royally pissed. Reading the complaints from this site makes me nervous. Happy Thanksgiving to me I guess. Never had any problems until now. I am scared about the costs and more nervous that I'll have to go through this at least once a year as someone put it on this site.

As I read on here, my car is doin the exact same thing mine is doing. First it just wouldn't start. I would have to "wiggle" the power wire I have installed to power my amp and have my girlfriend start the car while I was doing this. Did this a few times. Had it looked at and it was the battery. Had it "fixed" and it was fine for a few days. Now here comes the bullshit. My girlfriend was driving the car while we were on a Michigan Highway, we had two other people with us. Driving 70-75 mph the car lost all power and all the dash lights were flashing, the gas and brake pedal were useless, and the radio was cutting in & out. We had to cut across 4 lanes of traffic or we were going to get hit. I thought it was my system interfering with the battery so I disconnected it on the side on the highway. The car started fine then and was fine for about an hour when it did the same thing again. We made a few stops and the car would not start unless I "wiggle" the positive connection metal on the battery. Yesterday morning I was dropping my girlfriend off at school the car died on me. I live 20 minutes away so this really was a pain in my ass. The damn FORD would click and the lights, radio, a/c would come on but wouldn't start. I had my dad come out to try to jump it but nothing, I had to wait for a tow truck for thirty minutes and have it brought home. My dad and I tried fixing it but nothing. So I had to have it towed again but this time to the shop. Thank god for Allstate Roadside Assistance. The car is currently being fixed but I do not know how much it will cost. I I hope its nothing too costly because I don't even like this car.

Driving home in the rain, heavy down pour, the engine light came on, The radio went out and flashed alternator/battery problem across the display window. It happened while it was raining, I had the wipers going, headlights on, defrost on, which had depleted the battery life quicker than normal. I lost all the dash board electrical systems, speedometer, blinkers, defrost, warning lights, had to turnoff headlights to try and save/eich all the remaining power from battery to make it home. This electrical problem occurred during a 30 mile drive home in a rain storm which started during my drive home. If rain can cause an alternator to go out, it dosen't make me feel good about driving my 3 yr old car with only 6100 miles on it, how do I know it wont go out again next week, next month, or next year?? I don't have any confidence in the quality assurance in driving a new car as opposed to an older clunker, at this point. I'm sure it will go out again a month after the extended/ 5 year coverage runs out in less than 2 years from now. An alternator went bad on a newer 3 year old car with 6100 miles on it ,...is unacceptable, it's BS. My 2007 focus is advertised as being built FORD TOUGH, but only when the sun is shining, don't drive it in the rain. What a dam joke,huh??