ST with extra bite
Tasty, literally. By Curtis Moldrich
That was quick. Just four days after the carefully sanitised Focus ST arrived, it was on its way back to Ford HQ with an engine warning light glowing on the dash.
The error had reared its head without warning after just a few hundred miles. Apart from a slight whiff of brakes after one drive, there was nothing unusual to report in the days I had it.
I’d barely begun to scratch the surface of the warmed-up Focus, having done most of my few miles on the motorway. There, the ST was able to show its more civilised side, with the head-up display, adaptive cruise and blindspot warnings making the journey positively painless.
On slip roads, however, I got a taste of the Focus ST’s other aspect – and it’s certainly promising.
Its mix of direct steering and minimal-lag, light-switch acceleration is something I’m looking forward to experiencing on more challenging roads.
After a day at the garage, the diagnosis was in, and it had nothing to do with my driving – but it wasn’t a car fault, either.
‘It looks like something had bitten through a cable on the exhaust sensor.’ Weird.