LP Car/Automotive Thread

I've never really been a car guy when I was younger, but as I get older I am getting more and more into cars as a hobby. As it stands right now, GTR probably the car I'm trying to motivate myself to be able to afford as my next car and I've been kind of obsessing over it lately. This actually changes all the time. Before it was between Lexus RCF or something like an M3 or 4. My ideal car probably the new NSX but I don't think I'll be able to afford it maybe ever. I also like the idea of a used Lotus Evora, but probably prefer all of those other cars over it.

Anyway what do you think about the Tesla Model S. I mean I don't have anything against Teslas but there is something about fucking explosions going off in the engine that is just so satisfying.

I've wanted a Tesla Model X since it came out. I'm waiting to see how much Tesla advances in the next few years. I've heard a lot about inconsistencies in their build quality, like issues with panel gaps in their cars. They are still a pretty young company. I want to make sure they have all the bugs worked out before I spend $100k on one of their vehicles.

Been a car guy for a very long time and for me I'm not interested in the electric cars at all. Sure they are stupid quick, but the Tesla models are extremely heavy and are made to be comfortable, not sporty, which is what car guys typically want. Comparing a GT-R to a Model S in anything other than a drag race is like apples to oranges. They make no engine noise which is a large part of the drama when driving quickly and they handle like shit if you have any interest in actually going round a corner.

Of course, it is possible to make electric cars that can go round corners, such as the VW ID.R in terms of race cars and the Porsche Taycan is supposedly much better than the Teslas when it comes to handling, but still not my bag. I'd take the 911 in any guise over the Taycan any day.

My old E92 V8 M3 on the dyno

I also had a Mitsubishi Evo 6 as recently as a year ago but had a lot of problems with the car so eventually got rid of it, but I'd happily get myself into an Evo 8 or 9 at some point. This video here really makes me lust after one again actually:

That's how I wanna feel when I put my foot down

^ heh don't think I can pull off an Evo even though I think they are cool.

https://www.sheptrans.com/

"This is the highest mileage GTR in the country" - yeah most of the 100k+ ones are bought and resold in Eastern Europe :D

Electric engines generate more torque than combustion engines but their energy source is heavier, so they will win in acceleration but they will lose in braking and cornering, althought having the engine in each wheel that allows you to control the amount of power on each wheel without the need of complex differentials so I suppose driving electronic aids are far easier to implement in electric cars too which is good news for them in the future.

I didn't know you had an Evo VI Midian, probably my 2nd favourite Evo only behind the Evo 8.

^ Yeah, had it for almost 2 years. Blew up an engine driving to a date with 0 coolant in for ~40 miles. £2k for an engine, >£1k labour to have it fitted. Following engine had a leaking gasket and I sold it before repairing it. Sold it at least £2k cheaper than I should probably but just wanted rid of it. It was good fun while I had it, but just had no luck. My brother has a white Evo 5 and never had any problems with his despite the fact he paid a lot less for his than I did mine. Never lucky...



I have a shitty silver EP3 Civic Type-R premier edition now. It's staying completely stock cause you can only get maybe 40bhp crank horsepower from £2k+ of parts/labour which isn't really worth it and I don't want any more reliability issues. Also they sound wank with aftermarket exhausts imo

Here's some other cars I had, in no particular order:

Renault Sport Clio 200 Cup. Only mod was an Akrapovic catback. Fucking £900+ for 2bhp tops and a slight sound increase. The tips did look cool though.


Ford Focus ST-3 250. Had the Mountune MP275 kit and full Mongoose turbo back. Bought the mods as I hated the car stock. Mods did little to improve the car, it was the actual worst performance car I ever owned.


Renault Sport Megane 250 Cup. This was a much better hot hatch than the above Focus, but did ride kinda harsh and I didn't have the recaro seats. The standard seats were dogshit.


Ford Focus ST-3 225. First car I ever bought. Had something like 12,000 miles when I bought it. A 2009 model in 2011. Much better than the ST250 which replaced this model.


The first of two E92 M3s I owned which I bought with Stars concierge service (RIP that option). Obv way more performance than the hot hatches above, nice naturally aspirated V8 sound and linear power delivery, way more upmarket interior etc. This one stayed totally stock


The second E92 M3 with only mods being the Meisterschaft GT2 full exhaust (This cost £3.3k with import taxes etc!), M performance kidney grilles and M performance carbon fibre interior trim, which by itself was like £1k lol. It was mentally loud and I loved it. Sold this and replaced with the ST250 when poker started to go downhill as I wanted something with cheaper running costs. Sadly I lost almost £5k in depreciation in 1 year on the ST250 (It was <1 year old when I got it with like 8k miles on it) and I spent a further £2.5-3k on mods on the ST and I still hated it. Worst mistake ever really.

Nice, I've also had multiple Clio RS (MK2s tho) and I own a Focus ST now, why do you hate yours?

I like mine a lot, its stock so it just has has a blow off valve, I'm over my modding phase I suppose I'd upgrade the handling but Mexican roads are awful for stiff suspensions so nope

On August 25 2020 04:44 Baalim wrote: Nice, I've also had multiple Clio RS (MK2s tho) and I own a Focus ST now, why do you hate yours? I like mine a lot, its stock so it just has has a blow off valve, I'm over my modding phase I suppose I'd upgrade the handling but Mexican roads are awful for stiff suspensions so nope

I take it you mean the ST250 shape? I know there was a facelift released after I had mine, maybe that fixed some issues. I quite liked the ST225 with the old 2.5 engine, but even that did suffer some of the issues below which I found ruined the ST250 as a performance car

The electronically assisted steering feels noticeably artificial compared to every other car I've owned. It also seems to move about in my hands too much when driving over bumps etc, sometimes feel like it's pulling me into the curb even when I'm not accelerating hard.
Obviously it torquesteers a good amount under acceleration too, certainly more than any of the other FWD hot hatches I've owned. The Megane250 barely had any at all and performance figures were about the same.
Seating position too high.
Hated that fake induction noise you get through the speakers.
The traction was wank even stock, I could not go full throttle in first gear even on dry roads often times.
Hated the peddle feel.
Don't think it handled well - I was following a friend who was in a RB5 impreza to some car show and over 1 roundabout I lost something like 4 car lengths to him on that 1 roundabout alone. I mean I'm by no means a racing driver but the difference in handling between the 2 cars was incredible even though I had premium new tyres on the car.

I struggle to think of anything positive to say about it tbh. At least with the 225 the steering wasn't electronic and felt good, the traction was better, the engine sounded good and it didn't appear to handle any worse.

I bought the ST250 largely due to positive reviews, but the more time I've spent watching videos and being more and more interested in cars the more I realise that every review for every brand new car is a positive review. They are meaningless. I should have test drove the thing and a bunch of other different cars before making the change. Or just kept the E92 M3 that I had prior.

On August 24 2020 22:19 Spitfiree wrote: "This is the highest mileage GTR in the country" - yeah most of the 100k+ ones are bought and resold in Eastern Europe :D

I've always actually been curious if owning a car like a BMW or Mercedes that requires servicing/has reliability issues is easier in countries with lower cost-of-living since the labor cost is lower.

Not a car expert but thought I'd share since I started this thread. 2.4L Acura ILX with manual gearbox. I mainly chose that car since it is pretty cheap especially on the used market and extremely low maintenance and has reasonable performance. I'm not really a hardcore car guy like Midian so I didn't mind how the handling is designed for comfort rather than performance. I chose this over the Civic Si because I didn't want to look too ricer-ish lol. I had the car for about a year and more or less I'm happy with it.

I kind of liked that it had the manual transmission, but honestly I have heard great things about the Dual Clutch in the TLX both in terms of reliability and performance. What do you guys think about Dual-Clutch Transmissions? To me it feels a bit silly going with a manual transmission when these things shift far better than you can. I was actually talking to an Uber driver with a similar year TLX and he was raving about how well it shifts. He actually gets far better gas mileage than I do despite being heavier.

Other notes I bought the car in a Southern state since I didn't want to deal with rust issues going forward, especially on a used vehicle. I stopped by MGM National Harbor on the drive up and played a session of poker there and it covered most of my travel expenses for the trip which was nice.

Also used a third-party company for my pre-purchase car inspection since I was basically buying the car sight unseen and I was impressed with how professional my guy was and I'd highly recommend for any Americans buying a used car. (https://lemonsquad.com)

I've only owned one car with a dual clutch transmission. It was just a Seat Ibiza FR DSG 140bhp that I used to commute to/from work, and it was great for that. In stop/start traffic or just cruising a dual clutch is great. No need to constantly put clutch in, move into 1st, roll forward a couple of meters, stop and move back to neutral over and over again.

In terms of driving quickly for pleasure it's a lot more entertaining to row the gears on a decent manual transmission imo, particularly in cars that don't have a tremendous amount of power where you simply can't keep up unless you're extremely skilled. I can't imagine driving a tuned GT-R or a 911 GT3 RS or something of that ilk with a manual transmission. Obv those cars don't even come with manual transmissions from the factory, but if I were to drive quick in a car with that kind of performance with a manual I'm just gonna be bashing the limiter or in the wrong gear a lot of the time. No human, no matter how good, can match the shifting speed of a dual clutch. For me though, for most cars on the road the performance improvement isn't really worth the trade off of the involvement with a manual.

However, there's also the question of how good the manual transmission is. One of the things I like most about my EP3 Civic Type-R is the manual transmission, it's a joy to use. The manual in my Evo 6 was also a joy to use. The manual in my E92 M3s were the weakest part of that car and if I am to ever own another one of those cars I'd get the DCT option just because that manual was shit.

And also the question of how good the automatic gearbox is also. A car I've lusted after for years is the E60 M5 or E63 M6, largely for that 5.0L V10 sound, but in the UK they only come in SMG options and that gearbox is supposedly extremely jerky when travelling slow and also very unreliable. That gearbox is old technology though and modern dual clutch transmissions are far better. Another similar car I lusted after with a shit gearbox is the W204 C63 AMG. I probably would have had one of those instead of my 2nd E92 M3 if it wasn't for the gearboxes being old and slow.

So for me I would choose dual clutch if I'm mostly using the car for commuting, the manual option sucks, the car's performance warrants the dual clutch option over the manual option or if I am drag racing/tracking the car and care about the addition few tenths gained. Otherwise, I would go for the manual.

On August 25 2020 16:16 hiems wrote: Show nested quote + On August 24 2020 22:19 Spitfiree wrote: "This is the highest mileage GTR in the country" - yeah most of the 100k+ ones are bought and resold in Eastern Europe :D I've always actually been curious if owning a car like a BMW or Mercedes that requires servicing/has reliability issues is easier in countries with lower cost-of-living since the labor cost is lower.

I'd say generally - no. I feel like every 3rd car here is exactly a BMW or a Mercedes so the market also has shittons of supply in terms of parts/service but they still charge extra. On top of that its extremely risky to buy a 2ndhand car of that class simply because all of them have fake data and they are all promoted in the 100k to 140k kilometers area but are in fact on at least 300-400k+. Now newer models cannot be faked due to the data being pushed into a centralized manufacturer DB, but the average dude here doesn't know that. Also the cars themselves are more expensive compared to Western Europe for example and much much much more expensive compared to the US ( Actually considering importing a car from the US even with taxes and transportation its cheaper )

All that being said, I'd feel safer buying something new for 25-40k$ rather than spending 20k$ on a 2ndhand BMW/Mercedes that ends up making your life miserable. Plus all new cars are pretty good,

On August 25 2020 14:12 ToT)MidiaN( wrote: I take it you mean the ST250 shape? I know there was a facelift released after I had mine, maybe that fixed some issues. I quite liked the ST225 with the old 2.5 engine, but even that did suffer some of the issues below which I found ruined the ST250 as a performance car The electronically assisted steering feels noticeably artificial compared to every other car I've owned. It also seems to move about in my hands too much when driving over bumps etc, sometimes feel like it's pulling me into the curb even when I'm not accelerating hard. Obviously it torquesteers a good amount under acceleration too, certainly more than any of the other FWD hot hatches I've owned. The Megane250 barely had any at all and performance figures were about the same. Seating position too high. Hated that fake induction noise you get through the speakers. The traction was wank even stock, I could not go full throttle in first gear even on dry roads often times. Hated the peddle feel. Don't think it handled well - I was following a friend who was in a RB5 impreza to some car show and over 1 roundabout I lost something like 4 car lengths to him on that 1 roundabout alone. I mean I'm by no means a racing driver but the difference in handling between the 2 cars was incredible even though I had premium new tyres on the car. I struggle to think of anything positive to say about it tbh. At least with the 225 the steering wasn't electronic and felt good, the traction was better, the engine sounded good and it didn't appear to handle any worse. I bought the ST250 largely due to positive reviews, but the more time I've spent watching videos and being more and more interested in cars the more I realise that every review for every brand new car is a positive review. They are meaningless. I should have test drove the thing and a bunch of other different cars before making the change. Or just kept the E92 M3 that I had prior.

Yeah I own a ST250.

-The electronically assisted direction is interesting, it's smooth and very precise it makes you feel like you hit perfectly every apex but at the same time it makes it feel disconnected and like a heavier car, I get sudden oversteer mid-corner its not very strong but it feels sudden and non progressive, not sure if its because of the steering through, I've never felt that pulling to curb sensation you talk about.
- It has very little torque steer, compare it to a bigger turbo hatchback like the Mazdaspeed 3 and you will see what torque steer feels like.
- What noise through the speakers?
- acceleration traction is exclusively a tire thing (guess alignment too), I replace the stock tires for better ones in any car.
- What about the pedals specifically? a firm brake would be good but its a rare thing t find in street cars.
- You shouldn't be losing 4 cars in just 1 roundabout to an old impreza, perhaps you were overdriving it and understeering due to excessive acceleration, long tight corners like a roundabout on a FF car are tricky and require discipine in the acceleration pedal.
- I like seating high, driving in the streets is more like a rally than a track, high and close to the wheel is how you should be seated.


My complains about the ST250 is the pedal position, but again that is normal since 90%+ of people dont left foot brake or heel-toe.
The ECU shuts down acceleration if you press both pedals at the same time hard for a few seconds... this makes left foot braking a pain in the ass since you can only do it midly.


But yeah if you compare it mostly to an M3 ofcourse its going to be dissapointing but you gotta keep the price in mind.

On August 25 2020 16:16 hiems wrote: Show nested quote + On August 24 2020 22:19 Spitfiree wrote: "This is the highest mileage GTR in the country" - yeah most of the 100k+ ones are bought and resold in Eastern Europe :D I've always actually been curious if owning a car like a BMW or Mercedes that requires servicing/has reliability issues is easier in countries with lower cost-of-living since the labor cost is lower.

BMWs and Mercedes are way more reliable than cheap cars, their maintenence cost is higher mostly due to the price of the parts.

Cars in poor countries actually cost more than in 1st world countries due to heavy taxation, for example in México you can't just import a car from the US and even less so if its used, only in the states in the border can and thats why you would see a lot of used cars there bought from the US because thats much cheaper than buy in the controlled auto market in México, this also happens with electronics (TV, Phones, computers etc) and that is without taking into account the average income discrepancy between countries.

Cheap labor costs things are seen in other things for example, all the american DUI culture doesn't exist in here, nobody fixes their own house, car or build their own porch, or even mow their lawns, we hire people because its much cheaper, every middle-class family has a maid, often the maid lives in a back room in the house 5 days a week, years ago when I lived with my parents for a time we had 2 maids, one living in, another came in daily and a 3rd one twice a week that only ironed clothing and we weren't even high class, just upper middle class.

Random fact that might surprise you, dishwasher machines don't exist here, poor people wash their dishes by hand, and middleclass + have maids

On August 25 2020 20:13 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On August 25 2020 14:12 ToT)MidiaN( wrote: I take it you mean the ST250 shape? I know there was a facelift released after I had mine, maybe that fixed some issues. I quite liked the ST225 with the old 2.5 engine, but even that did suffer some of the issues below which I found ruined the ST250 as a performance car The electronically assisted steering feels noticeably artificial compared to every other car I've owned. It also seems to move about in my hands too much when driving over bumps etc, sometimes feel like it's pulling me into the curb even when I'm not accelerating hard. Obviously it torquesteers a good amount under acceleration too, certainly more than any of the other FWD hot hatches I've owned. The Megane250 barely had any at all and performance figures were about the same. Seating position too high. Hated that fake induction noise you get through the speakers. The traction was wank even stock, I could not go full throttle in first gear even on dry roads often times. Hated the peddle feel. Don't think it handled well - I was following a friend who was in a RB5 impreza to some car show and over 1 roundabout I lost something like 4 car lengths to him on that 1 roundabout alone. I mean I'm by no means a racing driver but the difference in handling between the 2 cars was incredible even though I had premium new tyres on the car. I struggle to think of anything positive to say about it tbh. At least with the 225 the steering wasn't electronic and felt good, the traction was better, the engine sounded good and it didn't appear to handle any worse. I bought the ST250 largely due to positive reviews, but the more time I've spent watching videos and being more and more interested in cars the more I realise that every review for every brand new car is a positive review. They are meaningless. I should have test drove the thing and a bunch of other different cars before making the change. Or just kept the E92 M3 that I had prior. Yeah I own a ST250. -The electronically assisted direction is interesting, it's smooth and very precise it makes you feel like you hit perfectly every apex but at the same time it makes it feel disconnected and like a heavier car, I get sudden oversteer mid-corner its not very strong but it feels sudden and non progressive, not sure if its because of the steering through, I've never felt that pulling to curb sensation you talk about. - It has very little torque steer, compare it to a bigger turbo hatchback like the Mazdaspeed 3 and you will see what torque steer feels like. - What noise through the speakers? - acceleration traction is exclusively a tire thing (guess alignment too), I replace the stock tires for better ones in any car. - What about the pedals specifically? a firm brake would be good but its a rare thing t find in street cars. - You shouldn't be losing 4 cars in just 1 roundabout to an old impreza, perhaps you were overdriving it and understeering due to excessive acceleration, long tight corners like a roundabout on a FF car are tricky and require discipine in the acceleration pedal. - I like seating high, driving in the streets is more like a rally than a track, high and close to the wheel is how you should be seated. My complains about the ST250 is the pedal position, but again that is normal since 90%+ of people dont left foot brake or heel-toe. The ECU shuts down acceleration if you press both pedals at the same time hard for a few seconds... this makes left foot braking a pain in the ass since you can only do it midly. But yeah if you compare it mostly to an M3 ofcourse its going to be dissapointing but you gotta keep the price in mind.

Clearly our experiences are different. Perhaps you have the facelift one? I mean everything I said is how I felt it, so if you have had different experiences it has to be because of something. The steering definitely pulled hard on mine on potholes, it was sketchy at times and the torque steer was a lot worse than in all of the other hot hatches I've had. I've heard the Mazda 3 MPS is bad for it, but I haven't tried that car so can't compare to that, but my ST250 was much worse than the prior ST225 and all the other hot hatches I've owned. I had good new tyres on, so traction issues wasn't due to that, again it was much worse than all of the other hot hatches I've owned. When following my friends RB5 it seemed I was suffering understeer before even getting on power so it wasn't due to that, it just seemed reluctant to get into the apex. My line or steering input might have been off, but I am confident that every other car I've owned above would have performed better with the same inputs.

https://www.motor1.com/news/34263/for...g-engine-sound-in-the-focus-st-video/

This is the fake engine noise I mean. If you got above a certain throttle position the engine pipes fake noises into the cabin. Unsure if perhaps the ST250 in your country don't have these from factory, but it's impossible not to notice it if you have it.

Happy you enjoy your car, that's all that matters at the end of the day, but to me I really wasn't a fan and thought it was a giant waste of cash. Not even comparing just to the M3, to every other hot hatch I've had aswell.

On August 25 2020 22:43 Baalim wrote: Show nested quote + On August 25 2020 16:16 hiems wrote:   On August 24 2020 22:19 Spitfiree wrote: "This is the highest mileage GTR in the country" - yeah most of the 100k+ ones are bought and resold in Eastern Europe :D I've always actually been curious if owning a car like a BMW or Mercedes that requires servicing/has reliability issues is easier in countries with lower cost-of-living since the labor cost is lower. BMWs and Mercedes are way more reliable than cheap cars, their maintenence cost is higher mostly due to the price of the parts. Cars in poor countries actually cost more than in 1st world countries due to heavy taxation, for example in México you can't just import a car from the US and even less so if its used, only in the states in the border can and thats why you would see a lot of used cars there bought from the US because thats much cheaper than buy in the controlled auto market in México, this also happens with electronics (TV, Phones, computers etc) and that is without taking into account the average income discrepancy between countries. Cheap labor costs things are seen in other things for example, all the american DUI culture doesn't exist in here, nobody fixes their own house, car or build their own porch, or even mow their lawns, we hire people because its much cheaper, every middle-class family has a maid, often the maid lives in a back room in the house 5 days a week, years ago when I lived with my parents for a time we had 2 maids, one living in, another came in daily and a 3rd one twice a week that only ironed clothing and we weren't even high class, just upper middle class. Random fact that might surprise you, dishwasher machines don't exist here, poor people wash their dishes by hand, and middleclass + have maids

Yeah I knew that about import taxes on cars/electronics. I actually spent a decent amount of time in Latin America. I guess you're right about the parts still being expensive.

I'd love to have a maid/personal chef one day. I'm actually kind of obsessed with cost-of-living arbitrage and fantasize about retiring in a low-cost of living country all the time.

On August 26 2020 01:33 ToT)MidiaN( wrote: Show nested quote + On August 25 2020 20:13 Baalim wrote:   On August 25 2020 14:12 ToT)MidiaN( wrote: I take it you mean the ST250 shape? I know there was a facelift released after I had mine, maybe that fixed some issues. I quite liked the ST225 with the old 2.5 engine, but even that did suffer some of the issues below which I found ruined the ST250 as a performance car The electronically assisted steering feels noticeably artificial compared to every other car I've owned. It also seems to move about in my hands too much when driving over bumps etc, sometimes feel like it's pulling me into the curb even when I'm not accelerating hard. Obviously it torquesteers a good amount under acceleration too, certainly more than any of the other FWD hot hatches I've owned. The Megane250 barely had any at all and performance figures were about the same. Seating position too high. Hated that fake induction noise you get through the speakers. The traction was wank even stock, I could not go full throttle in first gear even on dry roads often times. Hated the peddle feel. Don't think it handled well - I was following a friend who was in a RB5 impreza to some car show and over 1 roundabout I lost something like 4 car lengths to him on that 1 roundabout alone. I mean I'm by no means a racing driver but the difference in handling between the 2 cars was incredible even though I had premium new tyres on the car. I struggle to think of anything positive to say about it tbh. At least with the 225 the steering wasn't electronic and felt good, the traction was better, the engine sounded good and it didn't appear to handle any worse. I bought the ST250 largely due to positive reviews, but the more time I've spent watching videos and being more and more interested in cars the more I realise that every review for every brand new car is a positive review. They are meaningless. I should have test drove the thing and a bunch of other different cars before making the change. Or just kept the E92 M3 that I had prior. Yeah I own a ST250. -The electronically assisted direction is interesting, it's smooth and very precise it makes you feel like you hit perfectly every apex but at the same time it makes it feel disconnected and like a heavier car, I get sudden oversteer mid-corner its not very strong but it feels sudden and non progressive, not sure if its because of the steering through, I've never felt that pulling to curb sensation you talk about. - It has very little torque steer, compare it to a bigger turbo hatchback like the Mazdaspeed 3 and you will see what torque steer feels like. - What noise through the speakers? - acceleration traction is exclusively a tire thing (guess alignment too), I replace the stock tires for better ones in any car. - What about the pedals specifically? a firm brake would be good but its a rare thing t find in street cars. - You shouldn't be losing 4 cars in just 1 roundabout to an old impreza, perhaps you were overdriving it and understeering due to excessive acceleration, long tight corners like a roundabout on a FF car are tricky and require discipine in the acceleration pedal. - I like seating high, driving in the streets is more like a rally than a track, high and close to the wheel is how you should be seated. My complains about the ST250 is the pedal position, but again that is normal since 90%+ of people dont left foot brake or heel-toe. The ECU shuts down acceleration if you press both pedals at the same time hard for a few seconds... this makes left foot braking a pain in the ass since you can only do it midly. But yeah if you compare it mostly to an M3 ofcourse its going to be dissapointing but you gotta keep the price in mind. Clearly our experiences are different. Perhaps you have the facelift one? I mean everything I said is how I felt it, so if you have had different experiences it has to be because of something. The steering definitely pulled hard on mine on potholes, it was sketchy at times and the torque steer was a lot worse than in all of the other hot hatches I've had. I've heard the Mazda 3 MPS is bad for it, but I haven't tried that car so can't compare to that, but my ST250 was much worse than the prior ST225 and all the other hot hatches I've owned. I had good new tyres on, so traction issues wasn't due to that, again it was much worse than all of the other hot hatches I've owned. When following my friends RB5 it seemed I was suffering understeer before even getting on power so it wasn't due to that, it just seemed reluctant to get into the apex. My line or steering input might have been off, but I am confident that every other car I've owned above would have performed better with the same inputs. https://www.motor1.com/news/34263/for...g-engine-sound-in-the-focus-st-video/ This is the fake engine noise I mean. If you got above a certain throttle position the engine pipes fake noises into the cabin. Unsure if perhaps the ST250 in your country don't have these from factory, but it's impossible not to notice it if you have it. Happy you enjoy your car, that's all that matters at the end of the day, but to me I really wasn't a fan and thought it was a giant waste of cash. Not even comparing just to the M3, to every other hot hatch I've had aswell.

nah its the old ST250, I remember Top Gear made a hothatch comparison, I think they compared a GTI, a Megane and the ST and it was close.

Oh I forgot, what I absolutely hate about it is the turning radius what normally would be a U turn has to be done in 3 moves.