After I sold my Fabia Vrs I was undecided on what to go for. In the meantime I purchased a 100k Mondeo which did me for a couple of months.

My other car is a little Fiesta which I love and I wanted a good handling car. I kept on thinking about a Focus or Astra. So I took a few Focuses

hmmm, gone over to the dark side, eh Tony?

you'll probably have found them already, but the guys over at Fordstownersclub.co.uk are a friendly bunch

Thanks

Found the Focus forum but not this one, excellent!

Hope you enjoy the Focus Tony.

I treat the Fabia to a clay bar session, polish, and Megs. wax today.

Tomorrow it's the full leather clean and wheel polishing day.

I wouldn't swap you.

nice car, i'd have a focus any day over a fabia simply down to the facts its lovely to drive and the handling is awesome. my octavia with its coilovers and biggerer fatterer tyres still isn't as nice to drive or handle as well as my brothers focus with eibach lowering springs

best of luck

If you get 30mpg then your doing better than I did with my regular 2.0 Focus. I averaged about 28mpg!!! Was pretty shocking really, but it was a lovely car to drive.

despite what certain people reckon, I find my focus a most enjoyable drive and as the ST170 has slightly tweaked steering and poly bushes for the rear drop links I can only imagine it's better still group 15 is only one lower than an FRS though...:eek:

Yeah I often think the ST170 is very overshadowed by the FRS, but still a very nice car in its own right!

Chris

Ive often wondered what one of these would be like , nice mini review!

Thanks for all your positive remarks. Still getting used to the car and I will post a full review in the next month or so.

Cheers

I've just found your thread whilst looking for something else, which is really funny as I'm doing the exact opposite and trading gin my silver ST170 with Xenons etc for a Fabia VRS Limited Edition, this Wednesday! I must say I enjoyed owning the ST but insurance and tax was getting me down and I was getting a bit bored with it. Hope the car's still going well and the silver is definitely the best colour!

I'm surprised Ford dont do a comaprable model in the new Focus range , something 160-180BHP and non turbo'd , not everyone can afford the Turbo ST , and the Focus Sport isn't much of an option....how about a Focus XR , Ford?

Just seen this also, I had to get something for the missis to drive around as my leon sold so quickly and spotted a 1 owner mint comfort pack st170, thought this will do, dont look to bad, and cheap to buy admit the insurance group is stupid at 15 but there you go.

OMG IT WAS ****, I dont like ragging cars to make them do anything, the best part was my missis didnt feel comfortable overtaking it was that underpowered.

Yep sure no comparison against the turbo cars were both used to driving, but I have to see this was the most borning cars either of us have owned.

Sold within 5 months !!

Good look.

duh, sounds like you completely failed to do your homework before buying...why buy an st170 if you don't like to rev a car???

obviously a ST170 isn't going to pull like a fricking 265bhp cupra R DUH!!

your leon had about 100bhp more and over twice the torque, if you think the ST170 is boring to drive then you weren't driving it right mate

RE READ WHAT I WROTE BENGIE

LMAO, i love forums !!!

I never even said there was any sort of comparsion with my leon, but thanks for the duh !! and insulting the way I drive, anyway MY MISSIS, not me drove the Focus, I wanted 5 door, non turbo low miles, better on juice, new as poss for my money the st was perfect at the time, I just thought it will be something we will have to get used to a high reving car.

I have had a focus ST170, there for if there is a thread on it a can comment on the ownership I had, why is it when you say anything neg you get hurled abuse !!!

As for not driving it right, I have had many performance cars naturally aspriated or not, IMO the focus bored me !!!!

i read what you said, i understood it as it was written and here it is again for you:

"OMG IT WAS ****, I dont like ragging cars to make them do anything, the best part was my missis didnt feel comfortable overtaking it was that underpowered.

Yep sure no comparison against the turbo cars were both used to driving, but I have to see this was the most borning cars either of us have owned"

apparently its underpowerd, no you just need to rev it higher than 5k to get he power.

and i cannot understand how it could be boring, i drive a 1.8T octavia running more power and torque than your leon on coil overs and the leon brembos, despite being technically better than the focus it isn't as involving or enjoyable to drive, it doesn't make me smile like a focus does. my brother has a 1.8 zetec hatch and i owned a 1.6 LX estate that i changed a couple things on, the only reason i sold it and got the octavia was for more power.

you say that you never drove it yet you claim it was boring and unpowered which is odd if you never drove it.

and where di i hurl abuse? i could if you like if thats what you consider being abusive then good luck owning a fabia :P

RE READ WHAT I WROTE BENGIE

LMAO, i love forums !!!

I never even said there was any sort of comparsion with my leon, but thanks for the duh !! and insulting the way I drive, anyway MY MISSIS, not me drove the Focus, I wanted 5 door, non turbo low miles, better on juice, new as poss for my money the st was perfect at the time, I just thought it will be something we will have to get used to a high reving car.

I have had a focus ST170, there for if there is a thread on it a can comment on the ownership I had, why is it when you say anything neg you get hurled abuse !!!

As for not driving it right, I have had many performance cars naturally aspriated or not, IMO the focus bored me !!!!

no need to get in a bloody strop, you bought the wrong car for your/her driving style...

as for the focus boring you, i don't particularly find accelerating in a straight line exciting - it's all about horses for courses

Says the white hurst driver !!!!

WHY has it turned into this ? WHY do you like focuses so much ?

YOU havent drove a st170 for 5 months or so, yep my missis drove it 95% of the time before a smart **** comment comes my way, but still you feel you can comment/argue about how an ST170 drives.

Again I clearly wrote no comparison against the turbo cars, but you wrote "DUH as if it going to be as quick as your 265 cupra" !

Chill out !!!!!

I'm not insulting anyone take a rest from typing for a while.

WHY has it turned into this ?

cos you drive a fabia vrs, you're all the same...

fyi, he drives an octavia, not one of these:

As for not driving it right, I have had many performance cars naturally aspriated or not, IMO the focus bored me !!!!

You must have had a lot better cars than I've driven cos I thought the Focus was spot on to drive and the handling leaves most (if not all) the competition behind! Interestingly, I found the Fabia vRS a bit dull to drive (and underpowered)! Horses for courses, eh?

Chris

The Fabia and the Focus are two different characters all together to be honest. As I have stated the Fabia feels fast because of the torque curve were as the Focus does feel underpowered but this isn't, its the fact that the power band is very linear and there is no push in the back of the seat. You only realize that you are going fast when you look at the speedo. Yes beyond 5k you are on the cam and the car feels great.

I never wanted this thread to be a Focus vrs Fabia, as stated in my original post the Fabia is a great car and for value nothing touched it even now. The focus is an excellent and refined package that suits me down to the ground because of the small mileage that I do I can overlook 30mpg fuel consumption.

I suppose if they fitted the 155ps 2.2 litre diesel engine(from the Mondeo ST if it fitted) in the Focus that would be very interesting indeed.