A new Focus ST is sort of cheap; are they fun to Autocross?

I've thought about getting a FoST for a long time.  It looks like my old Protege5 only fast.  They look great, good gas mileage.  The hatchback layout is so useful.

Is it a fun car to autocross?  I'm new to that game, so probably I'd stick with stock class to start with.

I was looking and my local dealer has several for just over $20K.  I thought they'd be at least $5-10K higher.  And they're doing a 0% deal right now.  I have been thinking of ditching the Mustang convertible in favor of something more useful and fuel efficient.  Trading is a lot easier than trying to sell to a private party.  Maybe not a good deal for me, but gets the job done.

If you are not up to FWD handling, it might take awhile.    All of that power to the font wheel can be a hand full.   Learn how to control it and you will have fun.

I'm sure there are some on here that have driven one in anger and can give an update.

Invest in some good front brake pads as they use the front brakes as an ersatz limited slip and you can cook the brakes.

Otherwise they are great cars and known quantities.

In reply to iceracer :

I've had wimpy fwd cars, but nothing super fast.  So there'd be a learning curve for sure.  But I've not autocrossed at all, so there's a learning curve either way.

I drove one back around Christmas time, before I bought the FRS. Just took a relatively brief dealer test drive, so I can't speak to how it does at 10/10ths on the autocross course, but I found it very lively and a lot of fun to drive. Bet it would be a blast to hustle around the cones. Really wish they came with a mechanical LSD, as the e-diff brake fade thing seems to be about the biggest complaint most people have about them. 

And FWIW, last time I looked there were still plenty of leftover '17s around locally advertised for <$20k.

You'll enjoy it.  Lots of people with experience with autocrossing FWD cars, once you go; grab one or two and have them walk the course with you and/or offer to ride with you to help show you the ropes.  Many groups have forums or facebook groups where you can reach out for local help/tips.  Showing up early and helping to setup the course is always a good idea (and you get more time to walk the course).

You may even find fellow FoST owners who you could co-drive with or get a ride along before you jump in the deep end with a purchase, etc.

The fact that the FoST uses the brakes to reduce wheelspin will help since that is the major issue with autocrossing high powered FWD cars.

Most common adjustments for novices is to up the tire pressures quite a bit and toss the car around the course.

Finding the course is the important bit and start there.  From there its all about shaving time through driving and eventually adjusting the car to shave more time.

In reply to Furious_E :

FoST owners are upgrading their brakes to FoRS units to alleviate some of these issues, it bumps their class without the invasive installation of a mechanical diff.

In reply to Stefan :

Still a Band-Aid solution, IMO, but if I were spending my money on it, chances are I'd go the brake upgrade route as well. Just wish they would have made an LSD optional at least, like on the GTI. I would think brake fade wouldn't be too much of an issue on the auto x course anyway, probably a bigger deal for track days. 

In reply to Furious_E :

Yes, but isn't that amateur racing in general? 

The FoRS didn't get a mechanical front dif until the last of the run in 2018, so yeah we all wish that wasn't the case.

If, and that's a huge IF, I have to have the transaxle serviced in my FoRS, I'll have a LSD added.  The expense will hurt, especially if I'm paying for labor, but it would be silly not to do it while its out.

The LSD is the same for the ST and RS, so finding a wrecked '18 to grab the diff from will become a thing.  Though some may just order it from Ford or Quaiffe.

Didn't someone here have a brake fire at a track day on with their Fiesta ST because of that?  I had thought about getting a Fiesta but they are still kinda a lot of money for a cheap little car ($450 a month or so for payment and insurance), and it seems that it's not uncommon to have a clutch failure at around 12k miles that Ford won't warranty, and various other annoying issues.

There is a 17 RS at the Ford dealer across the street that is 2k under list... It is more money but it is also more car...

The cars I'm looking at basically have zero options.  Just the base model 2018, and those are listed on the dealer site at $20,600.

Not crazy about this year's colors, though.  The blue is bland compared the previous loud blues.  No yellows around here.  The reddish-orange might be nice - I'd have to see it in person.  At this point, I really like the white.  Somehow it works with those body lines.  With a dark tint and maybe some black wheels, that's a nice looking car.  These cars look good in stripes too!

In reply to USERNAMETAKEN :

Yea, hell of a difference between a $20k car and a $35k car.

I agree on the white actually, there's one with black wheels and a dark tint that I see on my way home from work once or twice a week on average and it looks good. 

Typical dealer stuff.  I filled in their "What's your trade worth?" form and had a sales guy calling a half hour later.  I told him my Mustang is over at their service center getting the top worked on, if he wanted to have a look at it.

The car is in pretty nice shape for it's age - 75k on a 2007.  Couple hail dings, because it's Denver and every car has hail damage.  Otherwise it's clean.

The online form said trade-in of $7k or something, which doesn't seem very compelling to me.  That would make me want to go thru the trouble of a private party sale.  Though I'm not a great car salesman - I never do very well on sales.

I have the little brother of the FoST. I bought a new Fiesta ST last July, I have almost 17k miles on it now.  Love the car! It's been aptly named the Black Jellybean.

The "torque vectoring" braking that the car does is a little weird at first but I don't really notice it anymore.  This is all street driving, I haven't had it on the track or autocross yet, I'm sure it's much more apparent on the track.  I hope you like cleaning your wheels daily or are ok with a dirty car because the ST cars are very efficient brake dust generators.  Other than that it's a great car.

You may want to look at an ST2 package if you intend on doing and track events with it. I bought a base FiST and wish I would have sprung the extra cash for one with the Recaro seats option.

In reply to Ram50Ron :

I looked in to the ST2 package.  Looks like the Recaro seats are the only thing that I'd really want there.  The rest of it is all electronic add-ons.  I don't usually pay extra for that kind of thing.

I'll have to try the stock seats and see how good/bad they are.

I'm a little surprised they don't have a "track pack" or any similar upgrades.

There appears to be a lot of very well-informed Focus info above, but to the original question, I want to address an underlying point: Almost anything is fun to autocross. I'm currently running a bone stock '16 Mini Cooper. Not even an S, and the only change I've made is a set of RE71-Rs.

Sure, I'd rather have my Street Mod E30 back, have the 2002 running again, or, uh, this TVR I've been reading about... But you can have a blast in a lot of different machinery.

In reply to Ransom :

That's probably very true! 

I was planning on taking the Mustang GT to the autocrosses this summer, but I'm yearning for something that can carry more than 4 bags of groceries and doesn't get 14 mpg on premium.

So hence the Focus ST discussion.

A TVR would be nice though...

Have you tried the FiST?  Having driven both, I actually found the FiST to be way more fun than the Focus.  It has a much lighter, more nimble feel to it.  There's no question the FoST is significantly faster in a straight line, and we've had good drivers turn in decent raw and PAX times with them, but I thought it felt really heavy on it's feet, at least in stock form.  When I drove the FiST, I gave some serious thought to unloading the Miata and buying one.  If you care about being competitive at autox, I've also seen FiST's do well on the right course, and the HS multiplier puts "Top PAX" in range at a lot of events.  There are some (perhaps legitimate) concerns about them tipping over.  It wouldn't really scare me because I tend to have a fairly smooth (if slow) driving style.

One thing I will say for the FoST is it's "sneaky fast".  On my test drive, I looked down and realized it was turning 95mph with exactly zero drama.  The FiST lets you know when it's going fast.  

In reply to kazoospec :

I haven't driven either yet, so I'm coming at this topic in ignorance so far.

I'll have to compare the size.  This car will be first and foremost a daily driver / errand runner.  I would like something that comfortably holds stuff and my teen girls.  Bonus points for easily swallowing a road bike.

Unless I'm an autox savant I don't expect to be competing for a PAX trophy anytime soon.

My wife's daily FoST is my autoX stand in.

Even as a die-hard RWD guy, I can say yes this thing is fun to autoX! I am a hack driver and only use her car once or twice a season, but managed to PAX 3rd on BFG Comp2 A/S tires at the last event. It was cold and many fast regulars were not in their regular cars. Lift throttle over-steer is the norm and once you learn to control it, look out!

In reply to gumby :

Looks pretty awesome!

In reply to Tk8398 :

Clutch is a wear item.  Depends on the failure.

In reply to iceracer : 

You never really know for sure with stuff random people post on tbe internet, but my impression was that the owners thought it was a manufacturing defect and Ford thought it was abuse and refused to cover it.

In reply to Ransom :

I will freely admit that part of my interest in the Focus is having a working example of a 2.0 EcoBoost conveniently handy for reference.  I've been outside this morning trying to decipher the wiring harness, and my decoder-ring isn't as shiny as it could be.  Would definitely help in getting the TVR going, and I think it would be kinda cool to have two TOTALLY DIFFERENT cars running the same engine.