Sorry. Was that supposed to be insightful ? If so, that's yet another fail. Anyone with 2.5 brain cells will be using discounted transaction real world prices. Given the Focus's lack of discount, the actual results are as follows: 5. Ford Focus RS - £90/bhp 4.Mini Cooper S - £88/bhp (£18.5K / 210hp) 3. Honda Civic Type R - £88/bhp (£26.4K / 300hp) 2. BMW M140i 5dr - £73/bhp (£25K / 340hp) Winner: Megane RS - £65/bhp (£18K / 275hp) - sadly discontinued At least try and use a bit of critical thinking when trolling. Actually, just a bit of thinking will do.
Some companies need to lower their prices to sell cars. It also helps the crippling depreciation and allows people to have nice things when they wouldn't normally be able to. Goes to show what certain cars are REALLY worth.
Audi takes it overall, for the price quite rightly so, that 5 pot sounds immense. Can't escape that FWDish understeer though, even with the wider front tyres.
A bit like the Focus then not that understeer/oversteer has anything to do with which wheels are driven. http://www.vorshlag.com/forums/showthread.php?p=58381#post58381
Like that a lot - the first vid I've seen that shows the back doing some work. Beautiful driving, although it still doesn't look that easy a drifter.
Interesting read. In summary, the Focus RS is a disappointing track car. Issues with overweight, over stressed and over temperatures. And after all that Ford pre-release marketing and hype with drifting, track work and associations with Ken Block.
Yup I know what you mean. The only journalist not to have raved about it and criticised the under steer is Chris Harris to my knowledge. The same journo's give the Megane a great write up though and of course they were right on that
Yes, although I believe he's yet to release his own review on his YouTube channel. "Apparently" that was some kind of banter between him and Rory Reid because he went nuts for it, we'll see soon as I think he had one a week ago.
I was having thoughts of getting one a while back and searched YouTube for any evidence of the RS being a good drifter. All the review footage I saw just seems like mild power oversteer without corrective lock just on the exit of the corner. Was hoping it would be more like the old cosworths.. Just wish some manufacturer would make a track ready rwd car with lsd that is affordable. M135i has open diff.. All the cheaper porkers have open diffs. Leaving the gt86/Subaru which is ridiculously underpowered in today's market. If only renaultsport did rwd...
From the videos it looks good, but it's certainly a faux drift, essentially a sales gimmic, just like line lock on the Mustang. Nothing wrong with enjoying it though. I understand the interest in RWD, oversteer is very exciting, I have to say I've had no trouble getting the rear to liven up, but as you say the front wheels do a good/bad job of correcting it. You didn't fancy a Clio V6 then?
Would love a Clio v6! Too special a car though for my intended use though. Great you're having fun with the RS... It's probably difficult not to
BMW have now started to offer /sorry did offer m135i with Lsd as an optional extra. It's the m140i now
You just have to go used and then the choice is endless or consider semi road use cars like a Ginetta.
Yes the m135 was definitely on my radar... I never considered buying a new one though and the thought of modifying doesn't appeal. The people I've spoken to about these cars have said it's not as good on track as an E46 M3. Have to say I didn't find the M3 that great as a track car. It's the only car with all the 'right' ingredients though.
That's a really great suggestion. Probably the fastest car for the money and cheapest to run.. It's just too expensive for me and a bit small. The attraction with the focus for me originally was that I could have one car for all purposes. Instead of the 3 I now have lol!
Dropped into my local'ish ford dealer in Edinburgh today for a nosey as seriously considering changing soon. All the September cars waiting to go out. Never got a run as they were busy, but will be booking a test drive this week. Dealer demo of nitrous blue, forged alloys and shell recaros looks so bloody good, but stealth grey made me wobble as it looks stunning. Realistically I'll wait and see what the new Meg RS turns out to be and I'll decide from there. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
The thing for me about Stealth grey is how different it can look under certain lighting conditions. Same with Nitrous blue. Ford really should've made Red available, that and black wheels would look immense.
Interestingly autocar track tested it back to back with the CSL and posted an identical lap time to the iconic CSL so its way faster than a standard E46 M3. I think it would make sense with a nice set of coilovers, Birds Quaffe LSD and track brake pads. Seems from that youtube comparison vid it really does need the coilovers, doesn't look nice at all on the limit due a lack of body control from suspension tuned for brisk road driving only. Spotted a nice one on autotrader yesterday for 21 grand, its certainly got me thinking about cars to buy in a year or two.
Will need to have a look at that vid Amazed it did the same lap time as a CSL - that certainly makes me think I've been given not such good advice! The tuning potential for the engine is fantastic. A friend runs the same engine in a 3 series estate and it's running well over 400bhp with a different set of turbos. Apparently the stock engine is good for 500+!
This vid here (sorry 235 not 135 but almost the same car anyway): The engine does indeed have huge potential (M2 for example), ISTR they run very low boost but I remember reading somewhere you would need much better intercooling to boost it more.
Just before Owen Mildenhall lost his job at Auto Express after being nabbed and banned by the Scottish pigs for speeding.
2 X new Focus RS MK3' were competing at a hillclimb I did on Sunday. 1 was well driven by an experienced competitor & was on semis & did a best of 80.16sec. The other was brand new on road tyres (cup2s) & did an 82.98sec. I was competing in my 6 year old Clio RS200 (well sorted) on semis & managed a best of 83.67sec. Both the Focus' were very consistent across the 5 x runs & looked to be doing it fairly comfortably. I have not run the 275R on this climb yet so can only speculate but from experience I would expect a time in the 80.sec area on the cup2s.
Interesting. I think the focus would be great at sprinting. Wouldn't fancy my chances against one in a Megane or any other renaultsport car but with the same driver I doubt it'd be much quicker. Was searching YouTube again for focus vids and came across Ben Elliott driving one at spa (sorry I can't link the vid). I don't know Ben but he's an instructor and dives the focus beautifully. He does sub 3 mins which is pretty quick but his comments are that it's a fantastic car with RWD handling. Which kind of contradicts my experience lol and I can't drive compared to him! I then watched Ben Collins (aka the stig) in a video that was supposed to show him drifting. It didn't look very good tbh, he was driving it brilliantly of course but when he did manage to get it sideways it wouldn't really hold the drift, he could get turn in oversteer after some pretty big provocation but it looked like the front wheels were pulling it straight all the time. All this is irrelevant if you're not interested in going sideways, but if like me you were drawn to this car because of the drift mode and rwd handling it may disappoint. It's brilliant they've built it, all other manufactures will have to raise their game and fingers crossed it won't be long before we see more 'affordable' cars that are great on track that aren't fwd. Personally all I want is a car about the same weight as the Megane, same power, same brakes BUT RWD!! Build this car renaultsport please please please!!!
where can you actually use drift mode? you be black flagged straight away on any track day,on the road? not very often.
Absolutely - drift on track days and you soon become familiar with the black flag! It's ok at some places though.. I have huge experience of this lol! Part of the attraction is that if the car is driving the rear, front tyre wear is vastly less along with temperatures... This make it cheaper, means you can stay out longer and.... Be faster... That's the idea anyway.. Looking at the tyres of the focus after a track day it looks like it's doing a lot at the front unfortunately. Once the transmission overheats and it goes into fwd only there doesn't seem to be much difference in how it drives.
Yeah, the gt86 is a great car. Wouldn't want the potential headaches that may come with running an aftermarket turbo system though. I know how quick they can be made, remember seeing the fensport car a few years ago at a sprint. Looked ace, then it broke, then it looked ace again Quite happy with my meggy, also have something that satisfies my sideways needs. The meggy feels a lot more special than it cost, still in honeymoon phase with it lol!
Cosworth supercharger kit for me if I was contemplating that route, one would expect Cosworth to have done the job right.
