Motortrend: MSpeed 3 vs Focus ST

[Saul_Good]

Pretty interesting. I've raced at the track they tested on and both laptimes are really good.

http://youtu.be/OISFrU4I_7s

[erod550]

"They both make funny faces" lol.

[KILLER_VIZ]

So they finally have a beasty FWD for vaginas now lol.

[chromal]

I saw this when it came out, I do find the commentary on the MS3 to be interesting, starting around 06:20 and 08:15 in the video. My reading is that they are both strong cars in their class, but emphasize different things in their OEM balance. They're both winners, I guess, but my read is that the MS3 doesn't hold back as much, but this can also be interpreted as 'more raw'. When they start talking about understeer, I always wonder how much of that is OEM tire rubber. I found the OEM tires on my 2010 mazda3 s Sport to be very understeer happy, but think the OEM rubber on the 2012 MS3 is just fine for dry weather street use, in part because they're better tires, in part because they're wider profile. I don't doubt there's room for improvement with alternate ultra-high-performance summers.

[BravoDelta]

Everyday Driver did basically the same review, I think its event the exact same cars ha http://youtu.be/fKeS-M4yKZY

[Saul_Good]

I saw this when it came out, I do find the commentary on the MS3 to be interesting, starting around 06:20 and 08:15 in the video. My reading is that they are both strong cars in their class, but emphasize different things in their OEM balance. They're both winners, I guess, but my read is that the MS3 doesn't hold back as much, but this can also be interpreted as 'more raw'. When they start talking about understeer, I always wonder how much of that is OEM tire rubber. I found the OEM tires on my 2010 mazda3 s Sport to be very understeer happy, but think the OEM rubber on the 2012 MS3 is just fine for dry weather street use, in part because they're better tires, in part because they're wider profile. I don't doubt there's room for improvement with alternate ultra-high-performance summers.

The understeer is inherit in the suspension itself. Changing tires will not change this. Lower performance tires reach their limits faster and reveal the characteristics of the suspension (understeer/oversteer) at a lower limit (speed). Grippier tires will mask this, but as you learn to drive your car faster with the the grippier tires (assuming no changes to suspension) then the car will understeer just as it would with the less grippy tires.

Assuming stock vs stock with the same driver and equal tires, the looser (the car with oversteer) car will be faster than the not so loose car -- most of the time....

Luckily we like to tune our cars and can find many combinations of suspension and grip that would help to dial in handling characteristics that match our driving style.

[erod550]

Yea, even with good summer rubber on my MS3, I got so sick of the understeer and having to baby it through corners or risk the front end just plowing straight ahead that it finally led to me trading the car in. It's a very fun car in a straight line from 40-120, surprised a lot of cars that are supposed to be faster, but at lower speeds and when really trying to push through turns the limitations of FWD just kill the fun factor, at least for me. Doubt I'll ever go back to FWD again.