Gadgetory

Hots a funny word it can refer to the temperature of tap water or a blowtorch this is more of the latter let's drive the 2013 Ford Focus ST and check the tech now the all-new st is called that because it's built on the all-new focus this is now a global car no more of that envy of the cooler when they get in England or somewhere some visual cues for the spotter the Aston Martin desk front mouth the big y spoke alloy wheels and nice low stance subtle but effective body kit the twinned outlet exhaust in that tidy rump those are among the most obvious cues as are these Recaro sports seats these guys are real narrow try them before you order them look at these bolsters real deep and so narrow it's like they're meant for sitting sideways not facing forward these are not flexible or adjustable they really grab you in there I kind of barely fit luckily these are also available in all black you don't have to suffer the indignity of yellow or blue inserts now you'll recognize my Ford touch up here on the optional 8 inch color LCD this is part of a package and unless I'm imagining things Ford's definitely been working on optimizing the touch response that's one of the biggest gripes folks have had about this system is that it's a little too slow or it doesn't get it every time that seems to be improving quite a bit even from a few months ago but you know what's really interesting about my Ford touch that people don't always realize it's not so much about what's on the screen but what's around it this is what I've noticed driving a lot of forward cars depending on these bezels and how deeply this thing is inset and whether your hand is going to bump into this stuff that dramatically changes its usefulness because notice what they do they use every inch around the perimeter of the screen there are very few places where they don't go right to the edge with things and the buttons are fairly small so precise hand on contact is critical but look if you've got this plastic stuff here getting in your way or if it's too far to reach even for a long arm guy like me that ends up being a bigger problem than what's actually on the screen and of course sync always has great array of sources from satellite radio optical discs USB bluetooth streaming SD card really well option for that kind of thing but notice a couple of these are options HD radio have to option in and the same thing goes for satellite radio beyond that we're talking pretty standard focus cabin stuff high trim focus cabin stuff great materials all around I think this is different though on the esti that eyebrow display of three performance gauges oil temperature on the Left turbo boost and your oil pressure that's unique to this trim level of course oh this is new little street signs floating in mid-air instead of some of those tortured diagonal reading lines of font this is very good at a glance and finally this little screen here in the middle is very simple on this car it doesn't have all these elaborate different layers of how you can set the vehicle up it's basically a glorified trip odometer at no point are you going to be able to get an ST that is really kind of stripped or bare-bones and that's an interesting part of the story this vehicles got real hot hatch cred but at all times it's a very civilized focus at the end of the ST engine bay where things are very interesting now under here lies a two liter inline four-cylinder all aluminum engine that is very similar in its architecture to any old garden-variety Focus it's got direct injection and turbo charging you're thinking oh that's an EcoBoost motor but they pervert it in this formula and that's good for us they tune it for performance as opposed to efficiency so that means numbers of 252 on the horsepower that's about a hundred more than a bass focus to 70 on the torque that's 124 more foot-pounds these are life-changing numbers folks zero to 60 in about six point six seconds front wheel drive only by the way and the mpg while well down from an EcoBoost car isn't bad 23:32 for a hot little hatch sanim a nice performance from wheel drive car is usually this wheel hop the front end comes up the front wheels get all pigeon-toed it all starts to spin and kind of go nowhere and then it finally bites and shatters left and right it's a real undignified mess this is our doesn't really exhibit much of that it's doing rather well electronically-controlled front differentials as I mentioned front-wheel drive only on this car there's no sort of all-wheel drive rally version yet why on the sestina is how there is and I rarely say this no turbo lag I'm not finding any you can actually read it in the boost gauge when you tip in there is boost there immediately but most importantly you feel it in the vehicle dynamics this is also a fun car whoa to toss it is very nicely turning on Center it's just dialed in that way I don't know if you can hear that very well but this car has one of the great engine notes in an affordable car different than exhaust note any car can be allowed it's much harder to get an engine to sound good most manufacturers just kind of cover it up hope it all goes away but this car has a great engine note when you get on it and then it's very quiet when you're off it so it can be an everyday car now controversially you can only get this car with a 6-speed manual the purists the driving enthusiast will say well of course the Nestea but in this day and age that's limiting sales there's no two ways about it so I would be surprised if they get like a sport automatic or a dual clutch really on this car in the succeeding model year that would make sense to me it's a good transmission nice clutch engagement nothing too lighter rubbery the throws on the gearbox are a little long for my tastes but the engagement is real clean and positive let's price this 2013 st base is twenty four five delivered but you're not quite seen that style yet you got to add twenty four hundred bucks for the in elegantly named package 201a that gets you HD radio satellite radio the eight inch LCD with myford touch kind of want that ten speaker Sony audio dual zone automatic temperature control and those Recaro seats now for another twenty two hundred bucks you can get the navigation as part of a package but note that you can all a cart that navigation by just buying an SD card from the Ford dealer I think I would do that