BravoZero's 2011 ASM Ralliart

[Drew]

Originally Posted by BravoZero

I encountered a lot of problems with the Escape I bought and traded it in this afternoon.

I do like the Focus ST, in light of the lack of AWD option. Ford is finally getting up to par on appearances. It looks great. But do you think the Focus will be immune to the kind of problems the Ecoboost Escape had? If I bought a brand new "A" from manufacturer X, and had alot of problems with it, I don't know that I would just go out and buy a brand new "B" from same manufacturer. I got food poisoning from Subway once, and didn't eat there for 5 years...

[BravoZero]

Originally Posted by Drew

I do like the Focus ST, in light of the lack of AWD option. Ford is finally getting up to par on appearances. It looks great. But do you think the Focus will be immune to the kind of problems the Ecoboost Escape had? If I bought a brand new "A" from manufacturer X, and had alot of problems with it, I don't know that I would just go out and buy a brand new "B" from same manufacturer. I got food poisoning from Subway once, and didn't eat there for 5 years...

Glad you asked. The current Focus platform has been out since mid 2011, and most of the kinks and bugs have been worked out for the 2013 MY. In fact, the girlfriend has a 2013 Focus SE with the Powershift trans (like the SST but not), it operates much better than the 2012 model, they finally fixed the stuttering and roughness issues.

The 2.0L Ecoboost has been on the US market since 2011 and has been proven to be a good engine in most applications, with very few turbo failures due to manufacture defects. I'm not worried about the engine at all, in fact I never had a problem with the Escape's 2.0 Ecoboost either.

The 2013 Escape was a brand new model, so for a first year of a new generation I expected a few bugs, but not as many as I encountered. The brake pedal was sticky at times, the rotors had to be machined at 3,000 miles, the horrible 6F35 transmission was awful to operate and third gear kept giving me issues, the steering alignment could never be fixed, the electric power steering had feedback issues, the fuel economy was horrible, the remote start didn't want to work every time... and a couple other issues that I can't remember at the moment.

Although the Escape is built on the Focus platform, it has it's own power steering system, it's own braking system, doesn't use the same auto trans, and doesn't have the same suspension. Those are all new exclusively for the Escape because of the SUV/CUV nature of the vehicle.

So to answer your question, I feel a lot more confident in the Focus than I did with the Escape. Plus, it's designed to take a beating due to the performance-oriented nature of it, but I don't think I'll be driving it that hard

[SnipeRA]

The wife and I plan on getting an escape next year hopefully they will have at least some of these issues worked out with the 2014 model

[BravoZero]

Originally Posted by SnipeRA

The wife and I plan on getting an escape next year hopefully they will have at least some of these issues worked out with the 2014 model

It might have been my luck of the draw, a few people I know that own a '13 Escape said they love it. YMMV.

[RalliNurse]

Good to see you back BZ...I thought you forgot about us...

[BravoZero]

Originally Posted by RalliNurse

Good to see you back BZ...I thought you forgot about us...

To be honest, I kinda did...

But that's because work has been kicking my ass. And I now have a nice sporty car again rather than a soccer mom SUV.

[ArC87]

Dam man i feel like im the only one who likes the Grey RA and i am keeping it.,

[BravoZero]

Saw my old Ralliart yesterday in Sterling, glad to know she's still running. The current owner hasn't done much to it, still looks exactly the same as when I traded it in. There are times when I miss the car, especially the acceleration. The ST is still quick for what it is, but the was definitely quicker for obvious reasons.

Speaking of which, modding for the ST is about to begin. I'm taking it in today for a TSB that fixes the soft motor mounts. I'm also waiting for the Cobb AP V3 to be released by FSWerks. Still got the bug!