I dont recall anyone mentioning a remapped Fabia in this thread? :confused:

Anyway, I dont know about anyone else, but I find the *feeling* of speed is much more important for driving fun than actual speed. Whether or not the Fabia is quick, it DOES feel it, remapped or not.

In this day and age it HAS to be more important, unless all you care about is having the satisfaction of being able to brag about it.

as usual a remapped fabia is being compared to an unremapped std car... remap a focus and a golf gti and the fun factor / shove in the back would be way more than any supermini...

and we all knowwhat happened when a shove in the back fabia met a shove in the back Octy.

*couqh*

my original post:

"altho one things for sure... made my car feel **** "

Sounds like a certain BMW I went in on Thursday night - felt fast, but it wasn't really - easy pickings for a modded Fabia.

But, it was fun because it "felt" fast.

As for the Focus, I'd have one, I like the sound. Oh and I'd have it in white or blue (why pay extra for orange paint :confused: )

Moving on to the Clio. Felt like I was sitting on rather than in. Steering feel was pretty good and it was adjustable mid-corner. It just didn't drive how "I" wanted it to.

Give a medium sized family car a powerful, tubocharged engine in a firm chassis that can cope with the power and you're going to get similar results, whatever the car.

i.e. The laws of physics don't change.

If you're going to compete you'll try 100% and will see a performance difference against the clock, but on the road it is almost irrelevant.

I've seen a couple of the new Focus STs around Liverpool (the Halewood factory provides a lot of 'tickets' for cheap Ford ownership). It's just personal taste, but I think the old Focus still looks better than the new one and I prefer the relative subtlety of my vRS (with its good APRd kick in the back:) ) over an ST.

Untill you have thrashed a F355 or similar round a dry track you have no concept of good handling. IMO

Untill you have thrashed a F355 or similar round a dry track you have no concept of good handling. IMO

Looks like TaviaRS and Myself are more qualified to comment than most ......

Untill you have thrashed a F355 or similar round a dry track you have no concept of good handling. IMO

Thats a bit of silly thing to say. Why arent we, Joe Public, unable to differentiate between which normal every day car handles better than another, just because we have not driven a Ferrari?

Its not hard. I can tell whether one car handles better than another without having to drive a supercar. I admit I have not experienced the best handling, but thats not the issue...

So experience counts for nothing?

If you had driven 20-30 different fwd hatches you might not rave about a Clio 182. (Especially if one of them was an orig Williams.. )

If you were coming from Fabia vRS it would be best thing since sliced bread. Having said that I would have thought owning a Mk2 Golf would have given more perspective. ....

With regards supercars tbh I dont find the 355 that exceptionally good. Would take a 911 anyday.

Remember of course handling is what you make of it. Cars have to fit peoples styles.

So experience counts for nothing?

If you had driven 20-30 different fwd hatches you might not rave about a Clio 182. (Especially if one of them was an orig Williams.. )

If you were coming from Fabia vRS it would be best thing since sliced bread. Having said that I would have thought owning a Mk2 Golf would have given more perspective. ....

With regards supercars tbh I dont find the 355 that exceptionally good. Would take a 911 anyday.

Remember of course handling is what you make of it. Cars have to fit peoples styles.

i agree.. i prefer my furby now to my old clios... im a lazy driver

I was just pointing out that any hot hatch etc will not come close to a car designed purely around doing one job Of course each car will handle differently and this will be noticeable, but take the leap and take a 'supercar' for a track day and its capabilities will ruin every other car you can afford to buy. IMO people who say so and so hot hatch can beat any supercar on so and so road r talking crud, if u had the bottle to drive the supercar to 'its' limits then nothing produced by the likes of subaru etc would touch it. Just out of curiosity as anyone on here taken the plunge and driven a Formula 1 car on a track day? I was considering it myself but at the moment my bum is too big to fit in! good insentive to loose weight but would this experiaance ruin everything else you ever drove? ( even god forbid the fabia vRS :lol:

I drove a Formula Ford once, that handled quite well. The boot was a bit lacking though....

So experience counts for nothing?

Where did I say that? You are putting words into my mouth.

If you had driven 20-30 different fwd hatches you might not rave about a Clio 182. (Especially if one of them was an orig Williams.. )

I'm sure all of the magazines that rave about the Clio have probably driven even more than 20 or 30 FWD hot hatches.... but again, you clearly know best.

If you were coming from Fabia vRS it would be best thing since sliced bread. Having said that I would have thought owning a Mk2 Golf would have given more perspective. ....

Actually, I happen to think that the Golf was perhaps an even better handler than the Clio, but you are jumping to conclusions as usual.

The boot was a bit lacking though....

Nice!!

I wrangled a 20 minute test drive earlier today. The car was a 3-door ST-3. Strangely though, it had been ordered with the cloth seats, rather than the leather. The leather on the showroom car looked and smelled nicer, but the cloth seats in the test car seemed closer fitting and held you in place better (presumably due to the greater friction of the cloth). The cloth seats aren't as adjustable.

Access to the rear seats seemed fine, about average for a 3-door car. Getting the little-one in and out of the back wouldn't be too troublesome unless it's parked in a tight space. If I do order one, it'll be a 3 door; better residuals, looks better, cheaper and isn't a whole lot less practical.

At the end of the drive, I had chance to try the Sony stereo out. Whomever ran the car on a daily basis had set the bass FAR too high. At this level, the speakers were struggling. However, when balanced, the sound system was fine.

Boot space is poor to be honest. The dealer said that MY 2006 cars would be coming optionally with a can of tyre-weld in exchange for a deeper boot. This sounds like a good idea, but if I do order, then I'm going to need some axle-stands or an extra wheel for swapping wheels about!

The alloys look fab. I frequently dislike OEM alloys, but manufacturers seem to really be getting their act together. The 18" wheels look slightly small, but the styling is great. Might be problematic to clean though!

Switch the engine on; it doesn't sound anything special. It's a quiet car at low revs, with none of the mad five-cylinder burble that the hype has made you expect. Set off properly though, and it's a different matter. Catch it just right and you get a lovely throaty roar. Overrun produces a suitably sexy set of pops and bangs.

The clutch was surprisingly light. I was finding it very difficult to judge the bite point, especially on the upshifts. The gearing caught me out a couple of times too, but I think that's mainly to do with not being used to the ratios.

Once you get chance to plant your foot, the car has bags of torque. Where my (chipped) Octavia vRS would have been running out of steam, it seemed to still be pulling hard. At 60/70ish, changing up into third gear, I was delighted to find just as much thrust as there was in second gear. Stopping power was good too. The brake pedal was a bit light and numb, but I could apply the brakes progressively and they dug in hard when pressed.

Grip was one of the things that impressed me most. The ESP didn't bat an eyelid as I powered through a sweeping left hander, damp and greasy after last nights rain. I didn't get chance to really push the chassis, but there weren't any glaring problems that stood out on the drive. The ride was smooth compared to my Octavia, although there was more road and wind noise than I expected. It'd certainly be more comfortable on a long run, but it's not the refined GT some people might make it out to be.

All in all, I was impressed. I'm going to see if I can try out the Golf GTI and the Astra VXR for comparison. At £17K from a broker, it looks like it's going to be very hard to beat for value! I don't think the MKII Octy vRS is going to even get a sniff from me.

EDIT: Hmm... Might try the Focus RS too, you can get those for about £14k now!

Didn't think I'd be saying this but YES I've driven one. Out with the wife at the Triumph dealers and she gets a text from her brother, 'how long you gonna be?'

That's strange, we're not expecting down (he lives in Cambridgeshire).

Get home and I can't park on my drive :eek: Cheeky buggers got his red 3 door ST parked there.

Kept that quiet. Took it out for a charge and boy is that roar addictive, hear the turbo spooling and pulls like a train

He got a ticket from his uncle,

Seeing as it's the thing to do here's my road test report:

I arranged to go down to the local Ford dealer this morning to take their Orange ST-2 demo out for a testdrive. I had a good run out in it along a mixture of roads through the town, dual carriageway and a couple of backroads for good measure. First impressions were very good and I know it’s been said a million times before but the car sounds awesome, the noise from the 5 cylinder motor is infectious and as the revs rise it gets better and better. I also really like the way it looks (not in orange though). It’s squat and fairly aggressive stance is really appealing and I’m a real sucker for things like the twin exhausts and the aux gauges mounted on top of the dash to name but a few.

Generally there are no problems to report in the way it drives as it goes, stops and corners very well indeed. The clutch is light and the gearbox reasonably precise although the 6 speed unit can take a bit of getting used to!! However, it didn’t quite have the shove in the back feel of my Octavia which was a surprise. It is quicker though as a rather unscientific test from 50 mph upwards in third gear confirmed to me anyway that the car is faster as 90 mph came round in no time at all. Somehow though the way it just gathers speed without actually feeling that quick was a bit of a disappointment. Where it does score though is in the handling dept. The roads were fairly greasy so it was difficult to ‘give it some’ on the twisties but the car felt very planted indeed which was very impressive. Couple that with really good low down grunt and you can’t really fault the performance that the car has to offer for the money.

Inside though things were less impressive. Equipment levels were good as you would expect from a car in this price range but the expanse of cheap plastic on the dash didn’t befit a car costing £18k (dealer price) and the positioning of some of the switchgear looked like an afterthought. The biggest issue for me though was the seating position. The std fit Recaros were excellent but no matter how many adjustments I made to the seating position I always felt I was sitting on top of the car rather than in it and that lets the whole car down in a big way in my opinion.

So would I buy one? I’m not sure. I actually came away from the experience feeling somewhat disappointed. For me the driving position is a major letdown and I just didn’t feel comfortable. I would even go as far to say that I felt a bit ‘exposed’. Another issue for me personally is that there have been reports recently that the 2005 Focus (new shape one) is suffering from problems with paint colour mis-match between the major body panels and the plastic bumpers which is especially noticeable on the front of the car. I had a good look round the Performance blue one in the showroom as that’s the colour I would want and I can only describe the paint colour match as shocking!! In my opinion it was totally unacceptable for a modern car from a mass market manufacturer.

I really wanted to come away with that ‘I want one’ feeling this morning but taking everything into consideration I just couldn’t justify selling what I’ve got and stumping up a significant amount of extra cash to buy one. Sadly, the Ford Focus ST isn’t as good as all the hype would make you believe and for me, at least it disappoints………… but I still want one, sort of

I really wanted to come away with that

Hopefully at the weekend I am going to test drive a mini ASBO (Fiesta ST) with the intention of buying one

I'm sure all of the magazines that rave about the Clio have probably driven even more than 20 or 30 FWD hot hatches.... but again' date=' you clearly know best.

[/quote']

Actually' date=' I happen to think that the Golf was perhaps an even better handler than the Clio, but you are jumping to conclusions as usual.[/quote']

quite agree mate, not just because i love mk2 golfs either

PS maybe we should all except we have views, not always the same, and maybe read whats written and stop second guessing each other:thumbup:

certain cars will suit certain drivers. certain drivers wont suit certain cars

certain cars will suit certain drivers. certain drivers wont suit certain cars

Here,here!!! If everyone thought the same it would be a borng old world.

Jimmy, I'd put the "slow" feel down to the way the torque is chucked out. Look at the curve in the brochure. It hits 320 NM (as much as the 2.0 TDI!) at 1500 RPM and holds it steady to nearly 5000 RPM. Now there's got to be potential there for tuning.

The paint "mismatch" problem, from what I understand, is a coating they put on the bumpers for protection. Apparently you won't notice it as much on a black one, which is good news