I drove a Focus for the first time today....

Yes, I'd always fancied an Activa for that. But now there's the Jag with electrical clever suspension that pulls the same trick, so I have something to lust after that's in accord with my taste in cars.

Hmm saw the new XJR recently, I'm not sure at present. Front end looks a but Hyundai/Audi the rear is either Lincoln or Hundy.

It was a fairly low mileage hire car, so I presume it was sitting on whatever it is they leave the factory with.

I'll describe them now; mostly black and round. ;-)

-- JackH

Meanwhile, the front end pushes on, and with you travelling at a lower rate of velocity than you do the same corner in your Passat TDI... was my experience of it.

Maybe the petrol engined ones are that much lighter on the front end and don't suffer in this respect so much, maybe not.

Fair enough, the rear end felt more planted... but as an overall package, it certainly wasn't the be all and end all of handling / ride I'd been led to believe it would be by some in here.

-- JackH

This thread is a fair old demonstration of why I rarely read the group anymore. Hence a post from google.

My summary:

Steering not as sharp as either of my 156s. Ride not as comfortable as my B5 Passat. More understeer than my shagged Primera. Slower than and less economical than my B6 Passat. Three times as expensive on company car tax than my Prius. Not as well screwed together as a B5 or B6. The 156 is arguably better built - certainly finished in a nicer quality of trim. Crap spec. for your money (=A318.5k for a rep-spec 1.6TDCI Estate, ffs)

Fine as transport for those with no interest in cars at all, but, as JackH says, not the last word in ride and handling as both this group and the media would have you believe.

Feel free to continue slating both my driving and choice of car in my absence, though.

-- SteveH

156s have quick racks. Has always been a trait of them that made especially early ones a bit odd on motorways.

B5 passats were like jelly

You're not driving properly

You were thrashing the Focus.

And

B5 / B6 is a VW. 156 is laughably unlikely.

Followed by big discount for fleet purchases.

And yet you're comparing a 100 bhp 1.6 diesel to your passat. Hmm. Not much comparison really. FWIW (not much) the V50 is a brilliant car, but oddly I prefer my rear drive 2.7 litre merc.

You can't drive and your cars are crap. HTH.

Apart from the Prius, which I really like.

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:17:47 -0700, SteveH mumbled:

I always thought a Focus was a Golf sized motor, ie a class below the Passat (which I'd say was a Mondeo class motor?).. so why are you comparing the two?

I don't know what a new Prius is like, but my mate's 08 plate one is

*nowhere* near as nice as an 03 plate Focus TDCi.

Mike P

You couldn't resist the flounce after all!

Pushing on in a Passat TDI is a horrible experience.

They grip quite impressively, meanwhile the smile you get from driving a good handling car is wiped from your face.

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:06:38 +0100, Douglas Payne mumbled:

Just out of interest, what sort of speeds do people here consider "pushing on"?. It might help make sense of this post.

Mike P

To me its not a speed, its more where you get towards the edges of the manners envelope of the car.

The Passat TDI in the Payne stable is very practical, capable, controlled, carries 5 real adults, is grippy, has adequate performance and is frugal.

It still manages to be horrible. I think most of my complaints centre around the steering. And the seats. And the lack of communication from the chassis.

It might have a shot at the lazy motorway cruiser title if the Saab 9-5 wasn't much quieter, better handling and much, much more comfortable to drive.

Doing this:

And coming out with an average of over 60mph. Allegedly, your honour.

Not in my experience.

Like I seem to remember saying in here many times before, I found my TDI Sport bloody good in this respect.

Mine handled fine, both on the road and round a track.

Plenty of tyre squealing round the track, but then I pushed it

*really* hard and was managing to get it round bends just as quickly as caged up Saxo VTS's etc.

Unlike the Focus I tried (on the road), it didn't plough on at all.

Bumps mid bend at full stretch didn't upset it at all, either. (1)

The main fault I found with it on the track was that a couple of times when I really did push it to its limits into a particularly tight bend, I found the front end bobbing a little under full on braking.

In the whole time I owned that Passat, it never broke free at the rear end, and believe me, I pushed it bloody hard enough times to have found out if it was likely to do so or not. :-)

(1) Anyone who has ever driven Lydden circuit should be fully familiar with the big ridge you hit mid bend on 'Chessons Drift'.

-- JackH

This thread is a fair old demonstration of why I rarely read the group anymore. Hence a post from google.

My summary:

Steering not as sharp as either of my 156s. Ride not as comfortable as my B5 Passat. More understeer than my shagged Primera. Slower than and less economical than my B6 Passat. Three times as expensive on company car tax than my Prius. Not as well screwed together as a B5 or B6. The 156 is arguably better built - certainly finished in a nicer quality of trim. Crap spec. for your money (£18.5k for a rep-spec 1.6TDCI Estate, ffs)

Fine as transport for those with no interest in cars at all, but, as JackH says, not the last word in ride and handling as both this group and the media would have you believe.

Feel free to continue slating both my driving and choice of car in my absence, though.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

will do you fat, Welsh dwelling, anti everything, miserable old git :)

,,,and IIRC, is a cooking B5.

Mine was a B5.5 Sport, and besides the fact the B5.5 was tweaked chassis wise and considered a better car over the B5 in that respect, being a Sport it was running with lower profile tyres and stiffened suspension, both of which appeared to help.

-- JackH

I'll rephrase 'pushing on' to a more relevant and clear 'ploughing on'.

In the context of the Focus I had the use of, this equated into the car ignoring the fact I'd asked it nicely to go round a right hander whilst maintaining a 'brisk pace', and it decided to ignore me until I backed the power off by quite a bit.

The Passat on the other hand regularly took that bend more quickly and without letting go at the front end.

-- JackH

The Passat and the Vectra both strike me as very similar cars to drive. Dull to the point of being bloody irritating.

I think Passats are great cars. Good to work on, I like the quality engineering (after mucking about with french cars) and the way they are screwed together.

However.

If I want fast, I won't get a Passat, Sport or otherwise. If I want comfortable " " " " " If I want enjoyable to drive " " " "

I've never been in your Passat but I struggle to believe that it was sigificantly less wooly, detached and horrible to drive than any other.

Here's the problem, as I see it.

When you have a list price of =A318.5k, you have to deliver a bloody good product in that class.

Plastic door cards, wind down rear windows, manual air-con, plastic wheel trims and a =A319.99 Matsui quality head unit don't add up to a vehicle costing =A318.5k.

At the discounted price of circa. =A314k, some of the above can be dismissed as reasonable for the price.

However, company cars are taxed on list prices, which makes the Focus hopelessly outclassed.

A quick comparison shows a Golf 1.6TDI Bluemotion SE is listed at 800 quid less than the Focus - so that's a lower list and lower tax band.

Even a Passat Bluemotion is cheaper than a Focus 1.6TDCI Style.

So, I'll stick by my thoughts - for the money, the Focus is a long way from being a great car. If it were taxed on the discounted price, I may have thought differently - although even then, it would still cost double what a hybrid would cost to tax.

-- SteveH

Believe what you want; I owned and drove it for 16 months, and only sold it because I talked myself into buying an MPV.

Had it been an estate, I'd still have it now.

Had my tame mechanic decided to get a new van and sell me his old one a few weeks earlier, I'd still have it now.

But I haven't... instead, having since also disposed of the MPV, I now have the aforementioned s**te old van and a Seat Ibiza TDI Sport 130, with the latter having been remapped today. :-)

-- JackH