... would seem to be a bit of a disappointment!! I watched Tiff Needell test it on 5th Gear tonight and along with Clarkson from the night before, he blasted the car for twitchy, dangerous steering when on anything but a billiard- table- smooth surface!! Anyone sense a recall happening here very very quickly???

It was good to see the CTR coming out top in the hot hatch shoot-out, and coming from Mr. Needell that's praise indeed! No porkers in the shoot-out though!!

 

Surely a ford boffin must've tested the car on non billiard table roads and thought 'hmmm, this isn't too good' and got the engineers to make some improvements. Or do they actually think that the car is ok??
I know manufacturers get close to getting it right but to be that far off is not good (for ford).

 

Appaarently the car has some sort of new hi tech limited slip differential . It seems the roadholding is fantastic on the track, but awful once you get onto typical 'B' roads. As you say, it's quite amazing that the car has been launched with this glaring problem with it's handling. It does seem to be a genuine problem too, unlike the early TT which was undoubtedly dumbed down to curb the excesses of some of it's drivers.

 

I'm going to enjoy giving the Focus a good run for it's money (

 

The interior of the Focus RS is a bit tackt too, should suit Kevin and Tracey just fine.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cedric Tomkinson
[B]... would seem to be a bit of a disappointment!! I watched Tiff Needell test it on 5th Gear tonight and along with Clarkson from the night before, he blasted the car for twitchy, dangerous steering when on anything but a billiard- table- smooth surface!!

 

Very strange indeed. Evo picked up on it in it's review an issue or so ago. They thought is was great until they got onto slightly more dodgy B roads

Full story here

Robster

 

When Ford announced the Focus RS, they claimed it would be 4wd and 300+bhp - a proper rally special to compete directly with Subaru and Mitsubishi. Oh, and that it would be out a year after the launch of the Focus too.
Three years later and they release a flawed FWD car with 212bhp, Ford really would seem to be in financial difficulty, they always used to produce something a bit special under the RS badge (think of the last car, the Escort RS Cosworth - hugely powerful for it's time and changing hands for over-list proces for a long time after it's launch) - this car seems to have been launched because people were beginning to wonder if the RS Focus was ever going to see the light of day.