2016 Ford Focus ST

[MiniDave]

I have a part time job driving a local dealer group's auction and wholesale cars, a couple days a week we move a bunch of cars from the various dealer's lots to a wholesale outlet, and from there whatever is deemed unsellable goes to the auction. Most of the cars we get from the Toyota and Honda stores are absolutely thrashed, high mile worn out POS, which can make it "interesting" as it's a 35 mile one way trip, however from the Acura dealer most of the cars we get are later model and much nicer.

Yesterday I drove a 2016 Ford Focus ST.

The ST is a 2.0 liter 4 cylinder with 252 HP, front wheel drive, 5 dr sedan, to me the looks are a little meh, but I will give it credit for one thing - you can actually see out of the damn thing - all the sight lines are good, even out the back when reversing, which surprised me when I got out and saw the big wing on the back.



The engine is another sweet spot, torquey as all small bore turbo engines are these days, but it also had a really nice sound to it - very reminiscent of a Ford DHV F1 engine when you were on it hard, in a slightly muted way - very nice and very powerful - easy to get in trouble too. The gearbox was a little notchy, and it was easy to go into 4th when headed for sixth until you got used to the gate, but it shifted well and I like the close ratios - 6th was a nice 2800 @ 70 mph, with bags of power under your toe.....and this thing is fast!

Unlike modern MINIs, Ford has decided instruments are a good thing, not something to be eschewed, so the Focus has them all including oil temp and boost - what a nice change. They're also quite readable with the oil temp, boost and oil pressure mounted in a somewhat tacked on looking binnacle above the dash and angled toward the driver. It also has a very readable and useful digital display in between the speedo and tach, big enough to be easy to read but small enough to not be obtrusive...it had a speed readout and al the other useful info like outside temp, TPMS and so on....nicely done dash if a little Buck Rodgers in the 21st century looking - but I was OK with it because it all worked well.

Price all in was $25,200 (the sticker was in the glovebox) which seems like a pretty good deal for all you get - until you drive it.



The handling is very good, sharp steering , quick turn in, easy to control goes exactly where you point it kind of driving. Torque steer was available, but very well controlled, it would try to steer but always came back to the straight line easily. It also goes over big bumps and undulations very well - very German sedan feeling. The car is also very quiet, no loud tire noise, no wind noise, no squeaks or rattles (the one I drove had 16K miles on it - enough to shake loose anything that was going to rattle) all in all a great driving car - except......

The best way I can describe it is "jiggly", every road ripple or tiny bump of any kind sends the car up and down - constantly - not floaty like bad shocks, just constant vertical movement - it's very annoying because the rest of the car's behavior is so good. It's the one thing that would keep me from owning one - I couldn't stand to drive it! On track the car would be fantastic, but even on what to most cars is a billiard smooth road it still jumped up and down constantly. 35 miles in this car and I was completely ready to park it....great fun when carving corners or standing on the loud pedal on a highway onramp, but for just going down the road - it sucked! Sad thing too.......cause the car is a great value for the bux.

on a side note, two weeks before that I drove a 2016 WRX STi with 6K on it - another trade in to the Acura store - they do get some interesting nice cars. Anyway, this car had a similar ride problem - I think James May might be right when he says that the Nurburgring is the worst thing that's happened to new cars suspension design - while the Mfrs are all bragging about how quickly their car can do a lap the cars are becoming shit to drive in the real world. This 6K WRX was also notable for a few other things - it had been "modified" with aftermarket boost controller and a tune - and it ran like crap. It also had 4 bald tires and a terrible horrible driveline noise - I didn't know if it would make it the 35 miles to the outlet it sounded that bad. On top of that the Subaru dealer said "no warranty" when they took it in to have that driveline problem fixed as it had been modified!

[94touring]

I wonder if different shock or spring rates would fix it up.

[MPlayle]

It looks to me to have been lowered a little bit, which seems to make lots of the newer "hot hatches" do the up/down jiggly thing down the road.

Almost all of the "slammed" cars I see on the road around here seem to "jiggle" over every tiny bump in the roads.

[94touring]

Yeah lowering springs not done properly in conjunction with shocks will make a car bounce bad.

[MiniDave]

The car was dead stock...the pic I posted was just off the net to show the wing.....

I think they've tuned the suspension for handling - which it does in spades - but in doing so they lost the every day drivability. I also think that's why it was traded in!

I agree some different shocks/springs might cure it but might take away the edge in the handing. This engine in a MINI chassis would be incredible! Oh wait, they already do that....but it's sold at BMW stores!   :D

[MiniDave]

I've only "lost" one car on the 35 mile run up to the outlet store, a thrashed Jeep Grand Cherokee that was only running on 4 or 5 cylinders when I left the lot, lunched it's head gasket and seized on the side of the road, about 10 miles from the outlet, when I parked on the shoulder it proceeded to ooze out about a gallon of "chocolate milk shake" looking oil/water mix. Turns out that Jeep wasn't supposed to go to the outlet anyway as it had a salvage title - those cars go straight to CoPart.

We have had a few auto transmissions give up on the drive, not all of them are old high mile cars either - we've had later model (2007-2010) BMW's, Range Rovers and even Honda's give up their trannies on the run.

We have had one engine actually blow up - a Dodge Ram sent a rod out the side of the block......we always check the oil before we head out - it's a rule - and the Dodge had plenty of oil on the stick but it decided to scatter itself on the road.

Some of the cars have suspensions that are just toast, brakes that are metal to metal and so on. If a car is unsafe we don't take it, but sometimes you can't tell till you get it out on the highway, by then it's too late. I did have an old trashed Camry that when I backed out of the parking place it had NO brakes! That one stayed right where it was.....in fact that was three weeks ago and it's still right where I left it.

[MiniDave]

One thing that is fun about this job is the wide variety of cars we get to drive - sure most of them are the same cars that you see en masse on the road - SUVs, pick ups, Camrys and Accords out the ying yang, but occasionally something interesting pops up. I've driven several BMW "M" cars, some Jags, Fiat 500's, a Smart or two, some MINIs, including a 2015 JCW, but no Porsches strangely enough as I thought one might get traded on an NSX. I guess they keep those or already have a wholesale buyer for them.

It is amazing to me just how many cars we take to auction every week - usually from 40-60 cars and trucks. Apparently that's a big profit side to the biz too. I didn't know this before but Manheim pays $45 for each car you bring to them to sell.....that's $100K a year right there!