Are this reliable high milage cars i am looking to get one for my first car how many years and miles do they usually last?
Fording a river.
Those are decent - the manual transmission is a big benefit. If you're talking about buying a higher mileage one, I would not recommend it. They're usually pretty trouble free until around 90K or so miles but then stuff starts to break. Check out this Focus ST forum page for more info:
https://www.focusst.org/threads/common-issues-to-look-out-for.152361/
If you want a fun-to-drive little car, I suggest you look at a 2013-2015 Honda Civic Si. They are not as fast as a Focus ST, but they will last much much longer with minimal issues - they can easily go 150K+ miles trouble free.
See here:
https://carkiller.com/scottykilmer/qa/2016-ford-focus/#post-38000
They can be OK with the manual and much cheaper than a Toyota/Honda, but for a first car and making it into high mileage relatively trouble free I’d still look at a Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic if budget permits: those are better built and at the higher mileages you won’t feel the rattles as much as that Focus.
The combination of that weird ecoboost engine + automatic transmission makes it an absolute trash in terms of reliability, but at least it's the manual version.
If that's what you want, take advantage of the depreciation and go for not too high mileage and low price. Do not overpay these.
