2023 Ford Focus ST Estate in Mean Green
Discussion
I've documented a few of my cars on here, unsure whether there'll be much interest in this one though - guess we'll see eh!
My 2015 Ford Focus MK3.5 ST-3 Estate in Stealh Grey thread:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
My 2016 Ford Focus MK3 RS in Nitrous Blue thread:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
My 2019 MINI Cooper JCW in Starlight Blue thread:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
As well as the 2 Foci above I've also had a brand-new Focus MK3 ST hatchback in 2013 - it was Race Red, an 11-plate MK2 Focus RS in Ultimate Green that I bought 2nd hand in 2012 and a 57-plate MK2 Focus Ghia in blue back in 2008 so this Mean Green one will be my 6th Focus.
My wife has also been through 4 brand-new Fiestas in the last 14 years and currently has a Puma so we are definitely a bit biased towards Fords!
The MINI was a great car, and if it had a heated steering wheel then it would probably still be sitting in my driveway. My previous Ford cars, and my wife's cars, all had heating steering wheels and I really missed having one in the MINI so after a cold Scottish winter I started looking at moving into something else.
In late March this year a lightly-used 8-month old Focus ST Estate in Mean Green appeared for sale on Autotrader at a Ford main dealer in Burton on Trent and initial contact was made.
The car has the 7-speed Auto and is an ex-Ford car, which I believe means it was used by someone at Ford HQ and it had done just shy of 6,800 miles.
It has the power tailgate, blind-spot assist, head-up display, panoramic glass roof, door edge protectors and rear camera so pretty much fully-loaded.
A couple of pics from the Autotrader ad:
Since Burton-on-Trent is a 280 mile each-way drive for me I got the dealer to send me LOTS of pictures and a few videos, and I even asked on PH if there was someone local in Burton that could pop in and have a look at the car - many thanks to 'SB' on here who went round to see the car and reassured me it wasn't tatty/scuffed.
On 4th April this year I drove down from central Scotland in the MINI and stayed overnight at a Travelodge, over to T C Harrison the next morning, inspected the Focus myself and did all the paperwork then drove back up to Scotland later that day.
More to follow...
My 2015 Ford Focus MK3.5 ST-3 Estate in Stealh Grey thread:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
My 2016 Ford Focus MK3 RS in Nitrous Blue thread:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
My 2019 MINI Cooper JCW in Starlight Blue thread:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
As well as the 2 Foci above I've also had a brand-new Focus MK3 ST hatchback in 2013 - it was Race Red, an 11-plate MK2 Focus RS in Ultimate Green that I bought 2nd hand in 2012 and a 57-plate MK2 Focus Ghia in blue back in 2008 so this Mean Green one will be my 6th Focus.
My wife has also been through 4 brand-new Fiestas in the last 14 years and currently has a Puma so we are definitely a bit biased towards Fords!
The MINI was a great car, and if it had a heated steering wheel then it would probably still be sitting in my driveway. My previous Ford cars, and my wife's cars, all had heating steering wheels and I really missed having one in the MINI so after a cold Scottish winter I started looking at moving into something else.
In late March this year a lightly-used 8-month old Focus ST Estate in Mean Green appeared for sale on Autotrader at a Ford main dealer in Burton on Trent and initial contact was made.
The car has the 7-speed Auto and is an ex-Ford car, which I believe means it was used by someone at Ford HQ and it had done just shy of 6,800 miles.
It has the power tailgate, blind-spot assist, head-up display, panoramic glass roof, door edge protectors and rear camera so pretty much fully-loaded.
A couple of pics from the Autotrader ad:
Since Burton-on-Trent is a 280 mile each-way drive for me I got the dealer to send me LOTS of pictures and a few videos, and I even asked on PH if there was someone local in Burton that could pop in and have a look at the car - many thanks to 'SB' on here who went round to see the car and reassured me it wasn't tatty/scuffed.
On 4th April this year I drove down from central Scotland in the MINI and stayed overnight at a Travelodge, over to T C Harrison the next morning, inspected the Focus myself and did all the paperwork then drove back up to Scotland later that day.
More to follow...
Excellent!
How do you find the road noise? I found the sunroof really didn't help, which as it's so big was a real shame to lose, so it's good yours has it.
A mate who works at ford ordered one of them (red so not yours) as his co car, was treated like a god when it arrived! Not that any of his colleagues have them, they really have sold very few. Can see why they've stopped making them
How do you find the road noise? I found the sunroof really didn't help, which as it's so big was a real shame to lose, so it's good yours has it.
A mate who works at ford ordered one of them (red so not yours) as his co car, was treated like a god when it arrived! Not that any of his colleagues have them, they really have sold very few. Can see why they've stopped making them
Edited by macron on Tuesday 8th October 01:41
I've had my MK3 ST estate for about 9.5 years, it has been a great family wagon. I've been looking to replace for ages but just haven't got round to doing anything about it. It's been so good that I'm tempted to go down the MK4 route and this spec is probably exactly what I'd go for (I think it looks really dull in most of the colour options, though white is ok).
So I'm interested to know how you get on with it, or if there are any known issues... That said I'm under pressure from the family for a more 'high up' car
, so might end up with something like a Cuppa Ateca instead.
So I'm interested to know how you get on with it, or if there are any known issues... That said I'm under pressure from the family for a more 'high up' car
, so might end up with something like a Cuppa Ateca instead. Kuwahara said:
That colour suits it so well,how do you find the auto in these.
The auto box is very responsive during normal driving, if I was super-critical I’d say it’s a bit slow when reverse parking or doing a 3-point turn, there is a slight hesitation when going from Drive to Reverse and vice versa but it’s really a very minor annoyance. Kick-down is flawless and more or less instant, doesn’t seem to get itself confused which I’ve found is the case in other cars with auto boxes. In Sport mode it holds each gear for longer too but that mode also makes the accelerator travel less linear - more like an on/off switch - so isn’t something I use when pootling about locally. More suited to motorway/dual carriageway driving.
macron said:
Excellent!
How do you find the road noise? I found the sunroof really didn't help, which as it's so big was a real shame to lose, so it's good yours has it.
A mate who works at ford ordered one of them (red so not yours) as his co car, was treated like a god when it arrived! Not that any of his colleagues have them, they really have sold very few. Can see why they've stopped making them
I haven’t found any issues with road noise, it seems to be fairly well insulated. The panoramic roof has an integrated blind covering it and it’s nice to sometimes open the blind but leave the sunroof closed to let an extra bit of light in. How do you find the road noise? I found the sunroof really didn't help, which as it's so big was a real shame to lose, so it's good yours has it.
A mate who works at ford ordered one of them (red so not yours) as his co car, was treated like a god when it arrived! Not that any of his colleagues have them, they really have sold very few. Can see why they've stopped making them
When I was looking to change cars earlier this year there seemed to be almost no used MK4 estates on Autotrader and then 3 showed up all within the space of a week, the dealer I bought mine from said they were Ford Managers cars and they just have had to hand them back all around the same time.
Hub said:
I've had my MK3 ST estate for about 9.5 years, it has been a great family wagon. I've been looking to replace for ages but just haven't got round to doing anything about it. It's been so good that I'm tempted to go down the MK4 route and this spec is probably exactly what I'd go for (I think it looks really dull in most of the colour options, though white is ok).
So I'm interested to know how you get on with it, or if there are any known issues... That said I'm under pressure from the family for a more 'high up' car, so might end up with something like a Cuppa Ateca instead.
Once I’d bought the car I joined a MK4/4.5 Focus ST group on Facebook, it’s been a really good source of information on issues, fixes, modifications etc and two issues seem to crop up fairly regularly: So I'm interested to know how you get on with it, or if there are any known issues... That said I'm under pressure from the family for a more 'high up' car
, so might end up with something like a Cuppa Ateca instead. 1. The battery. Lots of people on the FB group report issues with their batteries going dead, as well as issues around the stop/start not working - the accepted route appears to be either booking the car into a Ford garage and asking them to replace the battery or just buying a higher capacity battery (Yuasa seems to be popular choice) and fitting it yourself - this involves some sort of battery reset procedure though which I believe can be done quite easily - to ‘tell’ the car it has a new battery installed. I haven’t had this issue with my car (yet!)
2. Door rattles. I’ll go into this in a bit more detail when I update this thread but my car DOES suffer from this and it seems it’s extremely common. It’s worse in colder weather. Again, people on the FB group have had their cars into Ford garages with this issue, some report the issue is then resolved, others say only limited resolution. I haven’t booked my car into a dealer to have this looked at (yet), unsure if I will do in the future
The door rattles are a shame as the rest of the interior appears to be fairly good quality (bear in mind it’s a Ford though, not a premium brand).
Oh... look at all these people who are interested in your car, who could have predicted this Andy?! 
Car looks great, I didn't realise you got an ST in automatic.. you've chosen such a brilliant colour for it too, it would be a total Q-car in black/white/grey but it stands out nicely in the green.
Car looks great, I didn't realise you got an ST in automatic.. you've chosen such a brilliant colour for it too, it would be a total Q-car in black/white/grey but it stands out nicely in the green.
One of these around the corner from me, looks cracking in green...great choice OP.
It will be an ex-Management Role Car; Ford lease them to their managers at favourable rates for six months\six thousand miles (ish), Ford then sell them through their dealer network or direct to employees from Frog Island at Dagenham.
It will be an ex-Management Role Car; Ford lease them to their managers at favourable rates for six months\six thousand miles (ish), Ford then sell them through their dealer network or direct to employees from Frog Island at Dagenham.
Thanks for all the positive comments folks, appreciate it.
I didn't/don't plan on doing much to the car, I went over my budget when buying it and the £600 road tax is a kick in the balls for sure.
The first, relatively cheap, modification to the car was to do something about the exhaust tail pipes. I (almost definitely) won't be changing the exhaust but the bare rusty-looking tips were rubbish:
It seemed, from multipe posts on the MK4/4.5 Focus ST facebook group, that I wasn't alone in thinking this and there were lots of recommendations for a pair of chrome exhaust tips for an Audi Q7 on AliExpress and they were only £31.62 delivered. I had visions of them arriving and being cheap rubbish but I placed an order and they arrive about 10 days later and they seemed really solid.
They only took a minute to fit, I've had them on the car now for over 1000 miles and about 5 months and there's been no issue with them - no tarnishing etc.
Much better!
I didn't/don't plan on doing much to the car, I went over my budget when buying it and the £600 road tax is a kick in the balls for sure.
The first, relatively cheap, modification to the car was to do something about the exhaust tail pipes. I (almost definitely) won't be changing the exhaust but the bare rusty-looking tips were rubbish:
It seemed, from multipe posts on the MK4/4.5 Focus ST facebook group, that I wasn't alone in thinking this and there were lots of recommendations for a pair of chrome exhaust tips for an Audi Q7 on AliExpress and they were only £31.62 delivered. I had visions of them arriving and being cheap rubbish but I placed an order and they arrive about 10 days later and they seemed really solid.
They only took a minute to fit, I've had them on the car now for over 1000 miles and about 5 months and there's been no issue with them - no tarnishing etc.
Much better!
The next bit of expenditure was £239.19 for a new 19" alloy wheel.
A few days after I got the car home from Burton I had a vague thought that the OSR wheel was a different shade from the other three, in some lights.
The thought wouldn't go away, and I then found a sheet in the glovebox that had been left there by the dealer that was some sort of job card from a smart repairer that included respray of an alloy wheel. That would explain it then! Opinions of wife/daughter and friends confirmed my thoughts too, the OSR alloy was definitely darker than the other 3.
I was quite annoyed with myself for not noticing this when I was at the dealer. I took the time to inspect the car thoroughly, however it was a dull/overcast day and i simply must have missed it.
I toyed with the idea of getting all 4 wheels repainted, I considered possibly gold or bronze, but finally decided just to buy another brand-new wheel which was fitted back in late April and now all 4 definitely match.
I've kept the shade-out wheel as a spare in the garage should I ever need it, I did also consider contacting the dealer I bought it from and ask them for a contribution but figured they'd tell me to foxtrot oscar, saying I could have damaged the wheel myself etc.
A few days after I got the car home from Burton I had a vague thought that the OSR wheel was a different shade from the other three, in some lights.
The thought wouldn't go away, and I then found a sheet in the glovebox that had been left there by the dealer that was some sort of job card from a smart repairer that included respray of an alloy wheel. That would explain it then! Opinions of wife/daughter and friends confirmed my thoughts too, the OSR alloy was definitely darker than the other 3.
I was quite annoyed with myself for not noticing this when I was at the dealer. I took the time to inspect the car thoroughly, however it was a dull/overcast day and i simply must have missed it.
I toyed with the idea of getting all 4 wheels repainted, I considered possibly gold or bronze, but finally decided just to buy another brand-new wheel which was fitted back in late April and now all 4 definitely match.
I've kept the shade-out wheel as a spare in the garage should I ever need it, I did also consider contacting the dealer I bought it from and ask them for a contribution but figured they'd tell me to foxtrot oscar, saying I could have damaged the wheel myself etc.
The next thing I had to do was sort the speakers...
Ford advertise the car as having 'B&O Premium Audio' but the speakers in the doors are just the standard Ford rubbish ones, the only B&O parts of the system are the centre speaker in the dash, the sub in the boot and - I believe - the sound processor.
The car has a 6.5" speaker in each rear door with separate tweeters, in the front doors it's the same 6.5" speaker and there are tweeters in the corner of the dash board. The Ford 6.5" speakers are rated at 25W.
I decided, for now, to upgrade the front speakers only, I'd read some posts on socal media from other MK4/4.5 Focus owners that had upgraded their speakers and both Focal and Power Bass seemed popular. I had FOCAL speakers in an Audi A4 I had several years ago and I was impressed with them so went with these, FOCAL IS FORD 165.
These are 60W RMS, 120W Maximum.
I also bought half a dozen sheets of KILLMAT too.
Fitting the door speakers was fairly simple, no messing about with cables either - unscrew & unclip the door card, unplug the connector for the Ford speaker then unscrew that speaker, then the cable just clips straight into the Focal speaker. I put a couple of sheets of KILLMAT on each door (both behind the new speaker and around the inside of the door + on the inside of the door card too).
I managed to refit the passenger-side door card without reconnecting the ambient lighting plug though, didn't notice until it was dark outside, so had to whip the door card back off again the following day. D'oh!
Getting the speaker grilles off the tweeters in the corners of the dash was tricky, depsite having all sorts of plastic trim tools. Didn't want to mark the dash and was also slightly worried about cracking the windscreen but fortunately managed it without any damage. Once the grilles are off it takes seconds to swap the tweeters over and clip them back in.
Once everything was put back together it was time to try them out and I was pleased to hear a HUGE difference, both in clarity and bass response.
But - did i cure the door rattles - unfortunately not 100% gone but much better than before and now I can, when I am in the car by myself, turn the volume up to such a level that I can't hear the rattles.
I didn't take many pictures during the work, just this one:
I am unsure whether it's worth the expense bothering with upgrading the rear door speakers, I think it sounds pretty good how it is just now.
Ford advertise the car as having 'B&O Premium Audio' but the speakers in the doors are just the standard Ford rubbish ones, the only B&O parts of the system are the centre speaker in the dash, the sub in the boot and - I believe - the sound processor.
The car has a 6.5" speaker in each rear door with separate tweeters, in the front doors it's the same 6.5" speaker and there are tweeters in the corner of the dash board. The Ford 6.5" speakers are rated at 25W.
I decided, for now, to upgrade the front speakers only, I'd read some posts on socal media from other MK4/4.5 Focus owners that had upgraded their speakers and both Focal and Power Bass seemed popular. I had FOCAL speakers in an Audi A4 I had several years ago and I was impressed with them so went with these, FOCAL IS FORD 165.
These are 60W RMS, 120W Maximum.
I also bought half a dozen sheets of KILLMAT too.
Fitting the door speakers was fairly simple, no messing about with cables either - unscrew & unclip the door card, unplug the connector for the Ford speaker then unscrew that speaker, then the cable just clips straight into the Focal speaker. I put a couple of sheets of KILLMAT on each door (both behind the new speaker and around the inside of the door + on the inside of the door card too).
I managed to refit the passenger-side door card without reconnecting the ambient lighting plug though, didn't notice until it was dark outside, so had to whip the door card back off again the following day. D'oh!
Getting the speaker grilles off the tweeters in the corners of the dash was tricky, depsite having all sorts of plastic trim tools. Didn't want to mark the dash and was also slightly worried about cracking the windscreen but fortunately managed it without any damage. Once the grilles are off it takes seconds to swap the tweeters over and clip them back in.
Once everything was put back together it was time to try them out and I was pleased to hear a HUGE difference, both in clarity and bass response.
But - did i cure the door rattles - unfortunately not 100% gone but much better than before and now I can, when I am in the car by myself, turn the volume up to such a level that I can't hear the rattles.
I didn't take many pictures during the work, just this one:
I am unsure whether it's worth the expense bothering with upgrading the rear door speakers, I think it sounds pretty good how it is just now.
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