Carson Lomax

This sounds like a problem an SHO owner was having on another board. Intermittant, loss of power, decreased performance, etc, etc. Turned out a wire for one of the knock sensors had chaffed against a bracket on the engine causing an intermittant short. When it shorted it made the computer think the engine was knocking so the PCM pulled fuel and spark causing the car to fall flat on it's face. I think this only affects the FWD based (transverse engine) vehicles due to the routing of the harness to that knock sensor.

The word from Ford via my dealer is that our delay is solely based on the car having nav, otherwise it could be scheduled much sooner. As it is now the car will be built early October and should arrive the first week in November; we ordered the car August 16th. Also I mis-stated our color...we got Sonic blue. I guess there was a change up at the last minute regarding which dark blue would be available (Kona or Sonic). I think that was also caused by problems getting the paint pigments due to the tsunami.

And why is that?

Looks to me like the belt "submerged in oil" is the oil pump drive belt. There's another belt in front of that one going around the crank that is the cam timing belt.

Really? I thought when I ordered my SHO I had my VIN within a week. It was the time from build complete to receiving at the dealer that took forever (about a month). How is your Focus configured? Ours is a Kona Blue Titanium sedan, pretty much everything except the handling package, moonroof, and park assist.

We ordered out 2012 Focus almost three weeks ago and it has yet to be assigned a VIN. I think the problems getting parts from Japan for Nav units is going to wind up hurting customer ordered units.

There's no "turbo lag" on my SHO and the ATAAC is mounted in front of the radiator.

And also the button for the power rear shade (if equipped) and the cigarette lighter/12v plug-in. Synch USB/line-in is housed under the arm rest in the storage compartment.

Collision Avoidance is always available but you have to get the adaptive cruise control to get collision avoidance because they use the same radar module.

The acceleration is deceptive, that's for sure. I've been watching my mpg and I'm starting to think the most efficient way to drive the car for best mileage is to do jackrabbit starts (quickly accelerate to speed and get off it). With the amount of torque available I think getting up to speed as quickly as possible is better than a long, drawn out pull to cruising speed. This car has exceeded all of my expectations. I love it.

The specific example I had read about was a trunk lid that wasn't quite aligned correctly.

My car doesn't have any panel issues although I've ready at least one story of panel gap issues that the dealer apparently didn't address during the PDI.

My SHO came in today. Got a call from the dealer at 1:00 that the transport just dropped it off. They got pictures of it coming off the trailer for me and will burn them to disk tomorrow. I picked it up tonight and it is AWESOME!!! The power is amazing and should only get better once I get past the 50 mile "nanny" limit in the PCM. Here's a couple of pics in PDI before I took it home.

Wish I had mine. Going on four weeks that the car's been built and still no SHO. Maybe it'll come this week.

You and I must've ordered our cars about the same time. I placed my order Aug 28th, had my VIN September 8th, was scheduled for build the week of Oct 5th then my build week was pushed to the 12th but car was finished the 9th. Been waiting since. What color is yours? I ordered red although lately I've been leaning more towards steel blue. Oh well, too late now.