Show Us Your Motors!

Howard said:
Here are some quick phone photos of my new car. I have today off to go for a nice drive and get to grips with it, and will get some proper photos with my camera.

So... After 7 years of faithful service from the Mondeo, it is time for a change. You all know how fond I have been of my Mondeos, so I won't wax lyrical in that respect. But now that my mileage is greatly reduced, I felt that it was time for something a little more 'playful'.

So here's my next Ford, a 2016 Focus ST3 in Deep Impact Blue. I'm a sucker for a high spec car, so it had to be the ST3. Standard features are, well, most things, and as far as I can tell it has a handful of options including the premium 10-speaker audio system, nav, appearance pack with tints and illuminated sill plates, and heated steering wheel.

I know it's not a patch on most peoples' upgrades here of late, but it's mine and I love it! Why have I waited this long to experience a decent hot hatch?

I am sure I will write some further thoughts in due course, but in short, it's brilliant. It is considerably faster than my Mondeo despite "only" being up 10bhp on paper. Again, "only" 250bhp but it makes me grin every time I floor it.

The chassis and handling is also much more pin-sharp and it really encourages you to enjoy the drive. I had a smile on my face pretty much straight away during the test drive. It felt right. Amusingly, it isn't even noticeably less refined than the Mondeo.

The interior is more modern, and the seats are absolutely amazing. The illuminated sill plates are chavtastic, and the whole car looks brilliant to me.

I'm hoping it will reignite some of the driving pleasure that I enjoyed in previous years, and I am pleased that there is a decent after-market for performance upgrades. Rest assured that it will stay 100% standard cosmetically. My first change will likely be to upgrade the infotainment system to Sync3 which allows Carplay and Android Auto.


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Farewell, old friend

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How's the sound system? I've been looking at these or a Golf GTI, the Dynaudio system of the golf is very good.
 
V_R said:
How's the sound system? I've been looking at these or a Golf GTI, the Dynaudio system of the golf is very good.
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It's good, very punchy. I'm still trying to tweak the EQ to my liking and it perhaps isn't as refined-sounding as the system in my old Mondeo, but it's a lot more powerful, and I am happy with the sound.
 
When I first stated I was purchasing a new mk3 back in 2011 I got massive amounts of stick in this forum for doing so, funny how things change. Still, to keep up with tradition I've purchased another vehicle, which also seems to equally elicit many opinions...
 
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grudas said:
There's something cool about them! They're just Micra's underneath but I much prefer that to your usual Corsa, fiesta
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They just look so right, somehow, especially on decent rims. A Copen is another daft thing I can't justify liking but dearly want. Is yours gone now? Seem to vaguely remember you having one for your partner.
 
Cookeh said:
They just look so right, somehow, especially on decent rims. A Copen is another daft thing I can't justify liking but dearly want. Is yours gone now? Seem to vaguely remember you having one for your partner.
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Funny you mention rims.. I may have bagged a set at Yahoo Japan :D they'll be here in 2-3 months hopefully. We did have the copen! Was my other halfs car too, good fun for me but she didn't get on with the manual box in it back when we lived in Croydon.. sold it soon after moving to west Sussex as it sat unused for weeks. The copen was slow and tiny. 3.4m and I believe 1.5m wide. Was a 660cc turbo 4 pot! Did not go fast but on country lanes it was fun to drive.
 
FrozenShivers said:
https://i.ibb.co/JtyYHdD/IMG-4797.jpg

My new to me Polo after giving her a clean after my previous one was written off :)
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How are you finding the MK6 over your previous Polo? Would be interested to know the real world fuel economy once you've got to grips with the car.

The car looks great, and considering the mis-fortune you recently had with your previous car it's nice to see how things have worked out.

I test drove one of these on two occasions and was very close to getting one but at the time I wanted a couple of minor options with no joy and build times were crazy due to the emissions scandal and even when I brought my expectations down and ignored the options the final nail in coffin was being unable to find one without the Red interior plastic as it was a free option to spec "Dark Iron" interior colour scheme.
 
Gilbert89 said:
How are you finding the MK6 over your previous Polo? Would be interested to know the real world fuel economy once you've got to grips with the car.

The car looks great, and considering the mis-fortune you recently had with your previous car it's nice to see how things have worked out.

I test drove one of these on two occasions and was very close to getting one but at the time I wanted a couple of minor options with no joy and build times were crazy due to the emissions scandal and even when I brought my expectations down and ignored the options the final nail in coffin was being unable to find one without the Red interior plastic as it was a free option to spec "Dark Iron" interior colour scheme.
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Hi Gilbert,

I'm finding economy is actually....improved! Especially at motorway speeds, my previous highest MPG was around 44 on a longish motorway run going 60-65. I recently managed to get 60MPG sitting at 60-65mph on a 1 hour or so motorway run, which I was pretty impressed with. Obviously this is not how I you're chilling with cruise control on at around 65mph and not breaking too often you can achieve pretty impressive results. Town has been improved also, clearing 30MPG far more often, Edinburgh traffic is pretty horrible too. I got a GTI+ spec, so it's fairly well optioned, only thing I would have liked which it doesn't have is climate control (which is an option on the Polo sadly). I was really put off by the red interior pre-purchase, but it's now somehow grown on me and I don't mind it, but I completely understand why many wouldn't like it! This is my first non-manual car, in an ideal world I would have 2 cars and one manual and one auto, but due to work etc the reality is I was only able to enjoy the manual box about 5% of the time, so going auto made sense for me as I'm often sitting in stop start traffic to and from work :)
 
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