Bartop

Sold the scoob earlier, this week.

Lots of reasons but ultimately wanted something less extreme, more refined and easier/cheaper to run.

Obviously have sacrificed a lot of performance but tbh I never got to use anywhere near it's potential on the road..

So the new Bartopmobile is...

A Ford Focus !! 8-) well, Ford Focus ST 500 actually - Special edition run of the last of the old shape.

First impressions - nice interior, big step up from the scoob. Performance, no slouch but not in the same league as the Scoob but I knew that. Still, fast enough and really easy to drive, controls feel light but not too bad, will miss the quick shift from the Sti though.

Some nice toys to play with - voice control of the telephone, stereo, aircon etc is a laugh but probably not something I would use much. Heated seats, park assist and dual zone aircon though will be nice..

Overall much more refined, quiet, easy to drive and easier to live with, cheaper to run and fast enough for the sort of driving I do day to day so all in all am happy so far !

Not mine but to show what's possible with just a bit of TLC









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Followme

Nice ST i had an ST2 last year bought a dreamscience unit(plug n play i think race + takes it to 275bhp) and it transformed the car well worth the money .

ScoobyDoo555

Nice car
Sorry though, couldn't live with that awful red interior (more about my taste)

In black leather, yummy

Dan

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

Another ST owner here too, I love it I thoroughly recommend the Magnex cat back exhaust, improves the pops and bangs, isn't stupidly loud and doesn't mask the lovely engine noise in the cab. If you're a paying member of the ST Owners forum you get a discount too

Mark1983

iTrader: (2)

Yep, Focus ST Owners Club is probably the best owners club, still a member on there even though my ST is long gone. I ran the Central England section of the site. Well worth the £10 membership. I would personally just change the downpipe and cat and keep the standard cat back. I had the full Magnex on mine and regretted buying the cat back.

Mine was 292bhp & 355lb/ft so no slouch but it's essensially a fast armchair.

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

Hello Mark How's the Scoob?

Mifo

iTrader: (10)

got to admit I like the look of it.
so whats the difference between the st500 and the st2??

Bartop

The ST 500 was a limited edition run of the last of the older shape cars. Basically an ST3 with a load of goodies plus the red leather with black livery and silver stripes..

Jamo

iTrader: (23)

have to say that is very nice mate

Terminator X

iTrader: (7)

Looks good I've never heard of the ST500 though ...

Will you really save any £'s though as it must be pretty juicy still (perhaps not quite as savage the the Scoob) & the car tax must still be up there

TX.

harry007

Not a fan of st's....but yours looks well tastey...with the stripes and those leathers.

Haroon

BOB.T

Get a Magnex

paulwrxboro

but as he says ITS NOT HIS CAR ..nice car tho

RobEvo5

iTrader: (9)

Told you, you would end up selling even with the extra mods Hope you got what you wanted for it.

Very nice car the focus, but interesting choice considering what you were looking for and considering what you came from. i.e In terms of refinment, image, build quality, I would have thought they would be fairly similar but the STI would be bonkers quick unlike the ST.

suprised you didn't go the german route. But I am sure you will enjoy and be interesting to see how you get on with it over time, as I have considered a 5 door ST2/3 on a few occassions now.

Janspeed

iTrader: (1)

Nice motor.

Dream Weaver

Lovely motor, now go and buy a Dreamscience Stratagem sharpish!!!

I thought the ST was fairly slow when I bought it after running my 200bhp 205 for 5 years, it didn't stand a chance against the 205 in std form.

Now with the DS unit, 271bhp and 330 torque it's the other way round, the ST will trounce most stuff out there, best £340 I ever spent (second hand with 4 lives left, they are £500 new).

Just buy one without a second thought, it makes the ST into the car it should have been from the factory.

Just after I fitted the DS I was up against a 300bhp STI with 3 of us in the car, all big lads, and we could keep up no issue!!

Bartop

Yep -looking at that right now

Still confused as to what's best, Bluefin, Dreamscience or Code Red...?

Will be keeping the car standard otherwise though this time

MooseRacer

Bluefin transformed my mk5 golf gti, but the dreamscience seems to be the tuning option of choice for the ST.

Dream Weaver

They all essentially do the same thing so it depends what you want.

Code:Red is done at Wolf straight onto the ECU and you have no handset for it AFAIK, Bluefin has a single map and handset, DS has 5 different maps that you can change whenever you want raning from 255bhp up to an unspecified but higher than 271 BHP figure for the DSCi map.

Plus the DS only takes 4 or 5 minutes to reprogramme the ECU so when its going in for service/warranty work its a simple swap back to std.

I'm going for the K&N and cat back next.

Dream Weaver

PS I was going to keep it std as well

Bartop

Lol - don't start me off !

Code Red comes with a Red handset as well I believe along with a performance filter according to their website - quoting 270 bhp / 410 nm for Stage 1

Code:Red Chiptuning - Code:Red Modultuning Stufe 1 für Ford Focus ST 225 310050


Think I will go for Dreamscience though..

Dream Weaver

Like a different car

I wasn't impressed much in std trim, you had to wait to 4k rpm and the turbo would kick in briefly at 0.6 bar.

Remapped, the turbo kicks in at 2500rpm with 1.2 bar and holds it until 6k rpm, maybe thats why i'm doing 19mpg though

It really is night and day from std to remapped, unreal!!

I'm really loving the Focus now - it's a million times nicer to drive than our family car, 2006 Civic 2.2 ctdi which I thought was great when we bought it. The ST is a quick car, cheap to run (except fuel) and is a very smooth vehicle to drive around in, you can make good progress very easily in it and the seats are excellent - I thought they were too high at first but they are very comfy.

All in all it's a great car to own so far.

ScoobyJawa

+ 1 with Simon

Had my ST for just over a month now and really liking the drive, very relaxed and comfy with nice handling. Miss some of the toys of my Z4 but not much!

As mentioned, feels a bit pokey in standard from, but with the Dreamscience on its a different car - has no problems keeping up with most things

Bartop

Just checking before I order - with DS Strategem, no other mods, can I still run normal UL ?

Dream Weaver

AFAIK yes, a few threads have said as much at focusstoc.com although I tend to run on Tesco 99 as its not much more and its local to me.

If you PM Jared on the Focus forum he will confirm it, username is Dreamscience Flash or something

ScoobyJawa

I hear yes too, but then others have said super, I wouldn't take the risk on NUL personally, always use V Power or nearest equivalent........

MrNoisy

iTrader: (28)

Sorry to hear you finally had to part with it mate - your Scoob was a beaut.

Still, the ST500 is a nice motor too - we had one along on the fuel protest Saturday just gone, was impressed at the pick up following in my WRX - it's not a slouch by any means and his was black with twin silver stripes - sounds tacky but actually looks nice; red interior wasn't really my cup of tea but the interior's still miles ahead of what I used to associate with Fords, Vauxhalls and the like...
and has more gadgetry than you can shake a stick at lol.

Hope you enjoy it.

+Doc+

Im still not sure about these cars, having read the above power figures i was quite suprised though, how does it transfer the power to the road, much torque steer etc?

Bartop

It's ok, bit squirmy at full throttle but to be expected, the DS though makes it so much quicker and fun all through the range which is the benefit..