2017 Ford Focus vs 2018

What's the difference?

Don’t dismiss the Focus RS as just another hatchback with a sporty body kit. The RS does exactly what it says on the tin. It goes fast and handles perfectly. At $50K the bang-for-your-buck is excellent, it's as practical as a regular Ford Focus, from ease of parking to room inside, and it’s not too hardcore making it something an enthusiast could live with every day – even with a family.

Even with a 10 per cent price premium the Ford Focus RS Limited Edition is the hot hatch bargain of the decade. It’s properly fast, dynamically outstanding, and sounds the business. Our advice? Get in quick and grab one of this last batch. You won’t regret it.

Based on the regular five-door Focus hatch the RS isn’t as extreme looking as its predecessor. Don’t underestimate the RS though it’s still very much a ‘Franken-Focus’ monster in looks and its heart – a four-cylinder turbo engine transplanted from the Mustang. 

First the looks. There’s its angry anteater snout and that lower grille with intercooler looming inside and its splitter that looks sharp and low enough to shave Cats Eyes off the road. 

From the back it looks just as tough with the large, roof-mounted wing, and diffuser-integrated twin 4.5-inch tail pipes. Then there’s the optional 19-inch gloss black alloys shod with licorice-thin low profile rubber. 

Our car looked like a poison dart frog with its 'Nitrous Blue' paint; a similar hue to the front Brembo brake calipers, but with metal flake added. There’s also White, Magnetic (which looks gun metal grey) and Shadow Black. 

Looking at the RS’s dimensions compared to a regular Focus in base Trend spec, the RS is 30mm longer at 4390mm end-to-end; the same width from mirror-to-mirror at 2010mm, 13mm taller at 1480mm (that’d be the rear wing) and has 9mm less ground clearance at 100mm (thanks to the lowered suspension).

Don’t even think of comparing the Focus RS to something like a Hyundai Veloster Turbo, the Volkswagen Golf R is the RS’s true rival although the VW’s more sedate looks don’t make it obvious. 

The RS’s insides are almost identical to a regular Focus. There’s the same display screen, centre console layout and dash design, including the climate control dials, instrument cluster and steering wheel. Making the RS’s interior different are the dash-mounted gauges for boost and water and oil temperatures, alloy pedals and racy Recaro seating. 

The Golf R’s interior is a bit more mature, too. I’m not a fan of those toy-like gauges in the RS.

There are bottle holders in all the doors and two cup holders up front; none in the back though.

Think hot hatch, and your mind might wander to the more radical end of the design spectrum where Honda’s Kabuki warrior on wheels, the Civic Type R lives. But the Focus RS is an altogether more mature proposition.

The nose is dominated by a single, wide-mouth grille aperture, which frames an opening to the radiator, the central section of the bumper, and the top of the intercooler below it.

Big side gills feed cooling air through to the front brakes, while the slim, raked headlights and hard-edged bonnet give the car a suitably ‘focused’ and purposeful presence.

Strategically placed channels and bulges along the rocker panel, door sills, and shoulder line add a further touch of aero function, the wheelarches are subtly pumped up, while a pronounced roof spoiler and full-width diffuser at the rear complete the track-attack look.

For this LE version, you can have any colour you like as long as it’s ‘Nitrous Blue’, the rear spoiler end plates, mirror shells and roof are black, and privacy glass is standard. The big 19-inch alloys are now black, with beefy four-piston Brembo brakes lurking behind them up front.

Inside, the fascia and console layout is familiar Focus, with an additional trio of gauges (oil temp, turbo boost pressure, and oil pressure) perched on the top of the dash, while the racy Recaro shell seats are trimmed with Nitrous Blue leather highlights.

With the body structure of a regular Ford Focus the RS is one of the most practical high performance cars on the market right now. Decent sized back doors which open wide and a headroom friendly roofline meant even swinging our toddler in and out of his car seat wasn’t back breaking. 

A great Recaro bench back seat is comfortable and supportive although there’s not as much legroom in there as a regular Focus thanks to those larger front seats. Still, I’m 191cm tall and there’s daylight between my knees and the seatback when it’s in my driving position. More space than the new Renault Megane for example.

The boot space isn’t great compared to other small hatches at 316 litres (44 litres less than a Toyota Corolla and 63 litres less than a Hyundai i30's cargo capacity) but with our family there was enough room for the weekly shopping and the mountain of gear that follows our child everywhere such as a pram and change bags.

The interior lighting is frustrating. There are map lights over the driver and front passenger and directional lights over the rear passengers. However, while the LED bulbs are intensely bright to look at, they don’t cast a wide beam.

Despite its performance potential, this RS is almost as practical as a regular, garden-variety Focus.

The front Recaros look like oversize baseball gloves, ready to lock you in place while the Focus does its best to challenge the laws of physics.

But the price you pay for all that location is some extra struggle to slip into, and extricate yourself from, their grippy goodness. Not a huge issue, and one that goes with the territory in this kind of car.

There are two cupholders up front, zero in the back, and bottle holders in all doors. There’s also a 12-volt socket, a USB outlet, as well as a decent glove box, and a lidded bin between the front seats to keep your stuff under control at maximum g-load.

Despite extra intrusion from the front seatbacks, rear legroom is surprisingly good, and headroom in the back is okay for this 183cm tester.

The rear seats flip forward, and the backrests split-fold 60/40 to increase load flexibility. Volume is a relatively modest 260 litres (VDA) with the rear seats upright (laden to the parcel shelf), growing to 1045 litres (laden to the roof) with them folded. There are also two ISOFIX child seat mounts.

Don’t bother looking for a spare tyre; a flat means rolling the dice with the repair kit that takes its place.

At $50,990, the ‘standard’ Focus RS already features a respectable standard equipment list, including dual-zone climate control air, Ford’s latest SYNC3 multimedia system running through an 8.0-inch colour touchscreen (including Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support), adaptive headlights, ambient interior lighting, alloy faced sports pedals, 19-inch alloy rims, cruise control, keyless entry and start, LED DRLs, front fog lights, auto headlights, nine-speaker audio, a leather-trimmed sports steering wheel and gear knob, rain-sensing wipers, satellite navigation, and the sports seats.

At $56,990, the RS Limited Edition adds a worthwhile basket of extra spec and tech to justify the $6k price premium over the model it replaces.

Headline items are the swap from Michelin Pilot Super Sport to Pilot Sport Cup 2 rubber (an option Ford was already listing at $3500), and installation of a tricky Quaife limited-slip differential (LSD).

The Recaro shell seats are trimmed in Nitrous Blue leather, the black 19-inch rims are forged alloy, the standard prestige paint is normally a $450 option, and importantly, Auto Emergency Braking has been added to the standard features list.

A price tag approaching $60,000 is no small number, but it’s sharp for this kind of performance hatch. The Audi RS3 Sportback and Merc-AMG A45 are both at least $20k dearer.

The Focus RS has a 2.3-litre four-cylinder turbo petrol engine with an enormous output of 257kW in power and 440Nm of torque. It’s not as much as the 280kW/470Nm of the Mercedes-AMG 45 hatch or the Audi RS3 Sportback with 270kW/465Nm, but those cars are much more expensive, so from a bang-for-your-buck angle, it’s excellent value.

The engine is fundamentally the same four-cylinder that’s in the Mustang EcoBoost, but has been re-engineered for the RS with a low-inertia turbo featuring a bigger compressor, as well as a larger intercooler and radiator, while being tuned to produce a higher output. 

Having driven the Mustang EcoBoost I can say this four cylinder is far better suited to a hot hatch. The spooling boost that works like a slingshot is more in keeping with the character of the RS.

The Focus RS only comes with a six-speed manual which sends drive to all four wheels with 100 percent going to the front ones normally, but if needed 70 percent can be delivered to the rears.

The Focus RS doesn’t need a limited slip differential thanks its twin clutch all-wheel drive system which uses torque vectoring on the rear axle. This means drive to a slipping rear wheel could be cut completely, with 100 per cent sent to the opposite wheel. Yup, you could almost turn on the spot.

The RS’s 2.3-litre ‘EcoBoost’ four-cylinder petrol engine is an all-alloy unit, featuring direct injection, ‘Twin Independent Variable Cam Timing’ (Ti-VCT), and a Honeywell twin-scroll fixed geometry turbocharger.

It produces 257kW (350hp) at 6000rpm, with 440Nm of torque (470Nm for up to 15sec on ‘transient overboost’) from 2000-4500rpm.

It’s matched with a six-speed (MMT6) manual gearbox (only), driving all four wheels, with the Quaife LSD managing torque distribution across the front axle. The Quaife uses gears rather than clutches, as in a Haldex-type LSD, for smoother operation and to avoid harsh locking.

Up to 70 per cent of drive can be sent to the rear wheels, and once it’s arrived back there, a dedicated control system can vector up to 100 per cent of that torque to the left or right rear wheel.

Ford says the Focus RS will run on 95 RON premium unleaded at an average combined rate of 8.1L/100km but I doubt they drove their car like I did. After putting almost 300km on the clock in a combination of country and city driving I recorded 11.9L/100km. 

Claimed fuel economy for the combined (ADR 81/02 - urban, extra-urban) cycle is 7.7L/100, the car emitting 175g/km of C02 in the process.

Auto stop-start is standard (although it didn’t exactly feature on this circuit drive), and you’ll need 51 litres of premium unleaded to fill the tank.

It was only 10 minutes into my journey home in the Focus RS when I noticed the Audi RS3 in the rear view mirror driven by somebody I can only describe as Korean Elvis. I was darting through peak hour traffic and so was he, keeping right behind me. He wanted to play. It’s the curse of driving a car which screams 'race me.' 

Drift mode. It’s a victory over the fun police.

Thing is, I knew how much pain Korean Elvis was in. The RS3’s suspension is so brutally firm and our big city road surfaces are so bad that every pot hole feels like a nuclear bomb going off underneath you. 

Not the case with the Focus RS. Sure it doesn’t have the cushiony ride of a Focus Trend, but you can still absolutely live with it. Those optional low-profile Michelins ‘feel’ the road in great detail, which also means they have a habit of following grooves in the road, but they are matched so well with the suspension that the result is a firm but absorbent ride that isn’t going to have you putting it up for sale on our website a week after buying it.

That suspension can also be softened thanks to adjustable dampers when you select the Normal driving mode. The other modes Sport, Track and Drift, which stiffen up the suspension for sharper handling, add weight to the steering, and as you step up to the final two, loosen the traction control leash to give you more freedom to slide – in the right setting of course.

Yup, you're read right. Drift mode. It’s a victory over the fun police, and the actual police. How it works is clever. When Drift mode is selected the car’s computer examines the driver’s steering inputs and will allow the car to slide, but will jump in if it predicts a loss of control. Electronic stability control remains on the entire time. Of course, unless you pay to shut down an entire street like Ken Block, drifting should be done on a skid pan or track. 

Another win is how light the clutch is, and how easy that manual gearbox is to use. That first night home in the traffic – Korean Elvis aside – was spent dancing constantly with that clutch and it’s as close to perfect as you’ll find with a low take-up point, and shifts that just find their way home happily.

You’ll see that people online are complaining about the Focus RS’s turning circle, and it’s true 11.8m isn’t good – and that’s two turns lock-to-lock. Streets in my test route that normally take a text-book three points to turn around in took up to five in the RS. It’d be a disaster if the clutch and shifting wasn’t so easy. Even the placement of the gear stick is ergonomically spot-on, so it lands right in your palm when you drop your arm down.

Those 19-inch wheels wouldn’t be helping the turning circle, but also remember that the RS3 doesn’t do much better at 10.9m and the BMW M2 with 19-inch rims has a turning circle of 11.7m.

The steering itself is on the heavier side but accurate, particularly in Sport mode.

And then there’s the acceleration – 0-100km/h in 4.7 seconds. A new Porsche 911 with a manual gearbox can do it in 4.6 seconds but it's $150,000 more. The 911 also doesn’t have all-wheel drive or four doors, while only children fit comfortably in the back seats, there’s also next to no boot space and it comes with the constant fear that you’ll return to it after a nice dinner and find some arse has run a key down the side.

The RS is just a lairy looking Focus – or so people will think. To most people that’s just what it looks like and you’ll appear to be an overgrown teenager who thinks they’re Ken Block and has hooned up their Ford Focus with spoilers and plasticy bits. 

But to those that know – like Korean Elvis – the Focus RS is not a lairy looking Focus. Under that skin is a very different animal with outstanding handling and agility – worthy of the RS badge.

I didn’t get to drive the RS on a racetrack this time around, but I did get to blast through a wet, twisting, semi-rural backroad in the dead of night and it performed beautifully. Balanced, surefooted with so much grunt under your foot the entire time. My 2002 Holden Monaro with its 5.7 litre V8 could only manage 225kW; this is a Ford Focus, with 270kW! And it’s all far more manageable thanks to the all-wheel drive.

That hot-four engine note is brilliant and the crackle and pop from the exhaust is addictive – and can be made louder and more aggro through the different drive modes.

No, the interior isn’t special – apart from those Recaro seats. And no, the Recaro seats don’t have a height adjustment which leaves you feeling way too high up, but the athletic ability of this car makes these small issues fade away. Besides, you could always get somebody at Ford to look at the seats and see what can be done to adjust them.  

So, what was painful about the experience? Smashing my knee on the dashboard’s air vents every time I climbed out. I have the same issue with a regular Focus – the dash board design sees the section which meets the door swoop down. It looks great but my knees hate it.

Ford laid on its full line-up of performance-oriented Focuses for the launch drive, from the (132kW/240Nm) front-wheel drive S, through the (184kW/354Nm) FWD ST, to the out-going Focus RS, and the hero blue meanie RS Limited Edition.

Intermittent heavy showers were welcome for once, because the wet track highlighted the difference between the variants so graphically, and helped put the RS LE in clear context.

The first surprise was how capable the humble Focus S felt around SMSP’s challenging North Circuit. And the ST stepped things up with more grunt and fatter rubber. But they only served to prove the RS is in another league of dynamic ability.

The RS is fast, as in 0-100km/h in 4.7sec fast (thanks in part to standard launch control), with a maximum velocity of 266km/h available (that’s some track day!).

Fat mid-range torque, linear throttle response, and six ratios means there’s always plenty of acceleration available, and with one of four drive modes the press of a console button away there’s much fun to be had.

The settings modify steering, ESC, dampers, engine and exhaust across ‘Normal’, ‘Sport’, ‘Track’ and ‘Drift’ modes (more on that last one in a minute).

No surprise the jump from front- to all-wheel drive is a big one, but in the wet conditions peddling through SMSP’s enigmatic Turn 2, the RS took way more steering and throttle input than it had any right to.

Strong mid-range punch slingshots the car forward, accompanied by an entertaining symphony of raspy engine note.

Just keep turning the wheel and squeezing the right-hand pedal, to the point where the car’s balance would surely crack, and it simply says, ‘Is that the best you can do?’

Swap into the RS Limited Edition, and the Quaife diff ratchets things up another couple of notches. In Track mode, in the same turn, the LE is ridiculously planted. You can feel the rear slamming the power down and driving the car out of the corner, with the front just sticking wherever you point it.

Strong mid-range punch slingshots the car forward, accompanied by an entertaining symphony of raspy engine note and raucous crackles and pops from the exhaust.

Push hard enough of course and the RS LE will start to slide, but through the fast, sweeping Turn 1 it took the form of a genuine four-wheel drift. That’s how balanced and composed this car is under pressure.

Feel from the electrically-assisted steering is good, and although the stickier Cup 2 Michelins are the same size (235/35) as the Super Sports, thanks to a stiffer sidewall, their footprint is seven per cent wider. And searching for off-line grip around wet corners was a smile-inducing pleasure.

Then there’s the brakes. Even trying to stand the 1.6- tonne RS LE on its nose, while splashing through puddles of standing water, the RS LE washed off speed rapidly without a hint of misbehaviour. Turn in and maintain some trail braking? No problem. The RS’s set-up is properly sorted.

All the while, you remain firmly secured in your Recaro cacoon, with the clutch and short-throw shift working beautifully together.

We also engaged Drift mode for a full-on hoon on the SMSP skidpan. Keep your eye on where you want to go, turn the wheel, pin the throttle and the rear end duly steps out into a classic drift angle. Keep the revs up, tweak the wheel as required, and around you go like a ‘dab of oppo’ legend.

The roll-call of active safety tech fitted to the Focus RS LE includes ABS, AEB, brake assist, EBFD, traction control, DSC, ‘Emergency Brake Lights’ (flashing), reversing camera, parking distance control, and tyre pressure monitoring. Nothing in the way of lane keep assist, blind spot monitoring or rear cross-traffic alert, though.

If a crash is unavoidable, there are dual front head and side airbags on board.

Although the Focus (generically) is rated at a maximum five ANCAP stars, the RS (specifically) is not rated.

The Focus RS is covered by a three year/100,000km warranty with servicing recommended every 12 months or 15,000km. It’s capped at $375 per service for the first three visits, then $520 for the fourth which is major service. Then it's back to $375 each service for the next three, and again $520 for the eighth service. Here’s a bit of pub trivia for you: after 33 years or 495,000km the service will cost you $375 according to the service price calculator on Ford’s website – try to hold them to that!

Ford offers a standard three years/100,000km warranty, which isn’t exactly spectacular these days, but with standard servicing at ‘Participating Auto Club Authorised Ford Dealers’, retail and ‘Blue Business Fleet’ customers receive state auto club roadside assistance and membership for up to seven years/105,000km.

The recommended service interval for the Focus RS is 12 months/15,000km, with costs for the first five years lining up as follows - $365, $395, $365, $585, and $365. In fact, Ford’s online service calculator runs out to the 33 year/495,000km service (which, for the record, is $365).

Worth noting brake fluid (every two years), coolant (every 10 years), and timing/drive belts (every 10 years/195,000km) are extra.