MK4 focus st estate as a family car - good plan?

[drgoatboy]

Hi everyone, I'm toying with replacing my trusty Skoda Octavia with an Mark 4 focus st estate.
Seems to tick a lot of boxes, roomy, sensible, towbar compatible but still fun and capable of the occasional track day.
Any reasons that would be a bad idea?
Pretty rare car which makes me wonder why they didn't sell many.... I don't know anything about fords so this would be a new adventure for me!

Thanks all!

Edited by drgoatboy on Saturday 21st September 22:23

[oobster]

I've got one, a 2023 MK4.5 ST Estate in Mean Green, it's an Auto.



I've joined a MK4/4.5 Focus ST Owners page on FB and the main issues that seem to crop up are:

a) Batteries go flat, touch wood this hasn't happened to mine yet but lots seem to resolve by fitting a larger-capacity battery from Yuasa
b) Door rattles - my car isn't great for this - apparently the car can be booked into a Ford dealer and some sort of fix applied, I haven't bothered yet.

Unsure if it's the same for the MK4 version but on the MK4.5 the door speakers and tweeters aren't the fancy B&O option - only the subwoofer in the boot and the centre speaker in the middle of the dash is B&O (and, I believe, the sound processor) - the rest are all just standard ford junk so turning up the stereo to drown out the door rattles isn't really an option!

This is my 2nd Focus Estate (previous one was a Stealth Grey MK3.5 petrol ST, manual) and my 5th Focus (including a Ultimate Green MK2 RS, a MK3 red ST hatch and a Nitrous Blue MK3 RS) so I might be a bit biased, they are good cars but if you want a really good quality interior then I'd recommend looking elsewhere, perhaps a proper German brand (Audi, BMW, Merc).

[drgoatboy]

oobster said:

I've got one, a 2023 MK4.5 ST Estate in Mean Green, it's an Auto.



I've joined a MK4/4.5 Focus ST Owners page on FB and the main issues that seem to crop up are:

a) Batteries go flat, touch wood this hasn't happened to mine yet but lots seem to resolve by fitting a larger-capacity battery from Yuasa
b) Door rattles - my car isn't great for this - apparently the car can be booked into a Ford dealer and some sort of fix applied, I haven't bothered yet.

Unsure if it's the same for the MK4 version but on the MK4.5 the door speakers and tweeters aren't the fancy B&O option - only the subwoofer in the boot and the centre speaker in the middle of the dash is B&O (and, I believe, the sound processor) - the rest are all just standard ford junk so turning up the stereo to drown out the door rattles isn't really an option!

This is my 2nd Focus Estate (previous one was a Stealth Grey MK3.5 petrol ST, manual) and my 5th Focus (including a Ultimate Green MK2 RS, a MK3 red ST hatch and a Nitrous Blue MK3 RS) so I might be a bit biased, they are good cars but if you want a really good quality interior then I'd recommend looking elsewhere, perhaps a proper German brand (Audi, BMW, Merc).

Thanks oobster, that's really helpful.
How do you find the auto? After driving and M4 on track recently it's really put me off. And I thought the BMW auto was meant to be one of the best!

[oobster]

I've only had the MK4.5 ST Estate Auto since the start of April this year but I've had no issues with the auto box, nice smooth changes, never seems to get itself confused and 'hunting' for gears, kickdown is instant.

It is, however, not ideal when pootling around town in Sport mode, it makes the accelerator less progressive and more like a all-or-nothing on-off switch but it does hold each gear for longer when proper booting it.

[drgoatboy]

Thanks oobster!