2017 Ford Focus vs 2019

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.

While It might be hard to explain exactly what micro-niche the Active falls into, it's less difficult to understand it's appeal.

Let's face it, the vast majority of us will never have need for the complex four-wheel-drive systems that appear in some SUVs.

And so a car like the Active makes obvious sense. Whatever the hell it is.

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.

Like the look of the Focus hatchback? Then have we got some news for you. Because the Active looks a lot like one, just a little higher off the ground.

The 17-inch alloys are fitted with higher-profile tyres, and there is some black wheel-arch cladding and side skirts that are designed to convey an adventurous spirit, but outside of that, it's Focus through and through.

That's not a bad thing, mind. The new Focus is a handsome small car. More that you can see where the marketing department might struggle to call this anything but a hatchback.

Climb into the cabin and you're met with an equally Focused experience, though there are some exclusive Active niceties on display. That Nordic Blue piping on the seats, for example, or the 'A'-stamped seat patterns and the Active-stamped scuff plates at the doors.

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.

The Active stretches some 4.4m in length, 1.8m in width and 1.5m in height. In other words, it's very much the Focus hatch you're familiar with, no matter how much the ride height has been lifted.

And that means your key figures are largely unchanged, too; you'll get 375 litres of boot space with the rear seats in place (about on-par for the segment), and 1354 litres with the seats folded flat, though that's measured all the way to the roof line.

Up front, you'll find two cupholders, and a storage pocket in each of the front doors. On the tech front, there's a USB point in front of the wireless charging pad, and another hidden in a  deep, covered central storage bin.

Ford says there is more shoulder room in the backseat, and they've tried to design an airy-feeling space, thanks to larger rear windows. And if you've ever spent time in a car like the Toyota C-HR, for example, then you'll know how important a little lightness and brightness can be for backseat riders.

That's about where the good news ends for backseat riders, though. There's no cupholders (nor a pull-down divider to house them in) and no USB points either. Also missing are rear air vents.

There are two ISOFIX attachment points, though, one in each window seat in the back.

You're not exactly spoiled for choice when it comes to the Active; the high-riding Focus is available in just the one trim level, and with a single engine/gearbox combination.

And for it, you'll pay $29,900. But for that spend you'll get plenty of high-end niceties.

There's a rotary dial instead of a T-bar gear-shift, for example, and the Active adds some extra exclusive touches, too, like Nordic Blue stitching on the seats (which also wear a new pattern) and branded scuff plates at the doors.

There's also dual-zone climate control up front, as well as a wireless charge pad for your mobile. And while the Active arrives with an 8.0-inch touchscreen that runs Ford's Sync 3 with standard navigation, it also runs both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Those alloys are 17 inches, and there's remote unlocking and  push-button start, as well as LED DRLs up front.

But it's not all great news. While the technology is great, some of the cabin materials are less so, and while it's certainly very comfortable, it's doesn't always feel like a $30k car probably should.

Ford has done a commendable job of wrapping most of the cabin surfaces in soft-touch materials, for example, but some hard plastics creep in, and the cloth seats don't do much for Active's premium aspirations.

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.

There's just the one engine and gearbox combo on offer here, but it's a peach. A woeful sounding on paper, but utterly charming in real life, 1.5-litre, three-cylinder petrol engine good for 134kW and 240Nm, which is fed through an eight-speed automatic to produce an 8.7 second sprint to 100km/h.

You also get improved independent rear suspension that's missing from most Focus models. Plus the key difference that makes this Active more, well, active, is the increased ride height, but we're really only talking a handful of centimetres at each end.

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. 

It might be a tiny three-cylinder engine, but Ford has still thought hard about the fuel use equation, including a cylinder deactivation function that, when cruising, shuts down one of the cylinders to save petrol.

As a result, the claimed/combine fuel use figure is 6.4 litres per hundred kilometres - and it's a believable quote, as we scored 6.5 litres after a day of pretty enthusiastic driving.

The Co2 emissions are pegged at a claimed 148g/km, and the fuel tank will hold 52 litres.

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.

"Would you take a regular hatchback on sand?" Asks one of the Blue Oval's reps, as we point the noise of our Active at a stretch of commendably soft sand.

And if we're honest, the answer to that question would be a resounding "no". Not least of which because we've just watched the Active in front of us getting pulled out of this very sand pit, the front tyres dug into the soft stuff like they were burrowing their way to China.

But no sooner was it pulled out than the Active was tackling that very obstacle again, this time with a bit more speed, and sure enough, the high-riding Focus was through the sand and out the other side, the front tyres somehow finding a way to keep the Focus moving.

And then we followed, and with the same successful result. As did the car after us. And so on. 

Now, a true off-roader it ain't. The Active is a front-wheel-drive only proposition, but it's two new drive modes (Trail and Slippery) are intended to give you just a little more confidence as you pull into a campsite or turn onto an unsealed road.

But for mine, the real charm of the Active isn't how it performs off-road, but rather on it. It's not a particularly sporty-feeling drive, and to be fair, there are other cars in the Ford range that can tackle those duties, but the steering is engaging, and it's a composed, comfortable and quiet drive experience.

Part of the reason for that is the new independent rear suspension setup (also found in the ST Line wagon). We piloted the Active over some pretty harsh and broken country roads on our drive program, and it proved plenty comfortable, disposing of most road imperfections with little bother.

A final word? I bloody love the engine. A tiny little three-cylinder unit, sure, but it never feels underdone, even when overtaking uphills. And for bonus points, it makes a delightful little burble when you plant your right foot.

The Focus Active lacks for little in the safety department, with AEB with pedestrian and cyclist detection, lane-keep assist, speed-sign recognition and a 180-degree rear-vision camera all arriving as standard.

They're joined by six airbags (twin front, side and curtain) and the usual suite of traction and braking aids - enough to earn the Active a five-star ANCAP safety rating.

Opting for the $1250 Driver Assistance Package adds active cruise control with evasive steering and stop and go, and rear cross-traffic alert with rear AEB.

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!

The Ford Focus Active is covered by a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, with servicing required every 15,000kms or 12 months.

Service pricing is capped for the first four years, too, with each service costing a maximum $299 for the first four years or 60,000km.