Everything You Need to Know Before Buying a Ford Focus ST

these cars have a ton of you text your buddy with the Focus ST hey dude what should I know about these cars because I'm gonna go look at one right now anything I should be aware of pops off the couch for Xbox that is not what we want to do I'm here to give you the answer that you want so you have confidence when you go and look at this vehicle that is what the converse Pete brand is all about so if you like building confidence in the garage learning everything you want to know about specific sports car models before you buy them so after you get them in the garage DIY modifying themselves you're in the right place hit that subscribe button if you like that idea but today we're gonna talk about the Focus ST which I have one fully built I just got done with right behind me and I'm gonna show you your way around so you know where the turbo is where you know where the you know engine cover how to take it off your hood laughs anything you need to look out for we're gonna get to in a second I want to go over the boring stuff and I wrote down a whole list of notes and I'm going over everything that you need to know before you go and buy one of these cars so that you can know your way around as if you've owned one before and know exactly what you're getting there's three models of these cars st 1 st 2 and st 3 now I found a form that explains it really well focus st org shout out to Reggie 66 he said the best way to look at st 1 base model no touch screen base model sound system basic seats on halogen lights as t2 Ford touchscreen sony sound system with 10-inch sub and upgraded partial leather Recaros st 3 is everything st 2 has but fully leather seats and heated Recaros and steering wheel projector headlights when you look inside the wheels of the car if you can see holes in the brake rotors to probably drilled and slotted that's one way to notice a modification if they're just flat than their stock this car is wrapped so I can't show you up close I'll show you a picture on the screen but you can get up to it go to the paint throw your phone flashlight on it and kind of look at it from a 45 degree angle and look for dramatic swirls to see what kind of condition the paint is in if it needs a paint correction that's something you could talk them down on etc if it's been you know not waxed all that there's a whole lot of things that caused that but that's something that if it's especially if it's a dark car like this that I had to paint was in pretty bad condition we've did a paint correction to got it nice so it is fixable but especially if it's black or whatever you can totally see that dramatically think wow this paint actually does look bad so something didn't pay attention to these cars have a ton of torque on the front wheels because front-wheel drive so your tire wear is going to be a direct extreme indication of if it is in proper alignment and how they've been driving it so if you look under the front and you want to look on the inside of the tire and if the trade on the inside is a lot lower than the outside that means they've got a little bit of camber too much or they just wanted that look and they pretty much drove a real hard and didn't rotate it enough you should usually have less tire on the inside just out of nature of owning one of these cars that will happen to you but if you have proper alignment and you rotate them often like I have on this car I actually have had really good luck with keeping the tire wear very even my mazdaspeed3 it was a nightmare I could it was like I would go through so many tires just the inside of the outside looked great inside shredded that's just part of the front wheel drive game but that's something to look out for open the driver door inside here it's a little different there's a yellow guy you're gonna push to the driver side of the car and lift up and that's how you get it up looking around under the engine we have our reservoir for our radiator you want to see the max line right here see if that is full if not it could be a little low that's kind of normal just fill it up a little bit now this engine cover is very simple to take off but real quick this is an intake tube that goes down it's the intake filter now I'm gonna go ahead and pull this off because I have it loosened and inside here I have a different air filter this is a k9 we'll get to that in a sec this is your battery under here you can pull this up and take it off like such fuse box to the right of the battery and the air if you follow this intake tube back it will take you to the backside the motor that is where the little baby turbo is I'm not gonna show you guys what that turbo looks like up close because it is so touched back there let's go ahead and pull off this engine cover you're just gonna pull up on the back corner like that pull up over here it just has elite little rubber grommets that I pop onto these metal balls that mounted on super easy oil fill dipstick we've got our four spark plugs for all four cylinders right there we've got our intake manifold and then over here is our belt system and then here right under the reservoir is our passenger motor mount which you can see if it's leaking something that means it's kind of just worn out it probably needs to be replaced with something aftermarket or an OEM one depending on what kind of feel you're going for when you're looking at the front of the motor this silver piece right here is a plate that is a symposia that is usually one of the first modifications people do and I didn't know about that when I bought this car I thought it was completely 100% stock the only thing it had was a symposia right here and then who knows how much it was modified and put back to stock so that's one key telltale if someone put the if the symposia are still there it probably is truly 100% stock this thing might have been modified it might not have I'm not sure I never had a single problem with it so I kind of believe that it wasn't but who knows I wish I would have known that some poser was there so you can pull the cover off and check for that see cuz that is a first telltale if it's been modified set it on you'll see it kind of fall into place to get a proper oil reading to check the oil you need to have the car warm so maybe go for a test drive let it warm up and then let the car sit for a couple minutes and then check the oil so I'm gonna go ahead and take this paper towel clean this off the car is warm just got done driving it if it's all the way up the grippy part of the dipstick that means it's full now this oil has about 2,000 miles on it I'm getting ready to change it at 3,000 so it is a dark color if it's gold that means it was just changed or it's some really really high-quality oil of some sort but I just run the Ford performance or the Motul 5w30 whatever I have available I definitely recommend starting it listening to the idol with the hood open now these cars have an abnormally loud it has something to do with the valve so it has kind of like a flatline like not ticking noise but almost like could be timing chain noise that's super normal for these 2-liter EcoBoost engines so don't be alarmed like I was I mentioned it in one of the beginning videos of this series so if you wanna go check that out I talked about it there as well if you hear all the sounds you're hearing right now running perfect if you look right on this side you can see the belts thing make sure there's nothing wobbling if you're being super crazy if it sounds fine it's usually good you don't really have problems with that sort of thing when it comes to the air filter if you have tools accessible already can look from the side from the side you can see the little K&N logo right here in person take these four eight millimeter bolts off and that will come right off now if you see one that's colored like this this is a cannon high performance air filter and then I'll show you what the stock one looks like if you see one under here that looks like this that's kind of paper that is a stock one plenty good pretty restrictive and then the only other one you will normally see is a green filter it's literally called online a green filter and it has a little hole right here on the side people get a little more turbo flutter and things like that it's not a bad thing just look just make sure that it's not crazy black or dirty I clean mine probably every oil change of every other oil change it doesn't really matter I just check it every now and then make sure it's not too dirty and if I've been driving in some really bad weather I'll make sure to clean it after but for the most part we live in Arizona it's super clean just got to worry about dust and clean it every now and then this is what the st1 package looks like you can see the cloth seats like so and this short shifter I have on here has a lot more of this mushed up in here you might be able to tell if it does have one but mainly these don't people don't normally do that if you see this guy right here that is a cobb accessport something you should learn about go check out the place on my channel for this car learn all about it it's not necessarily a bad thing but you got to know a few things about it being tuned when you're looking at the car don't forget to look at the body lines follow them look for door dings anything minor you can usually get fixed I have a video on this channel in the playlist showing how I got a bunch of door dings repaired and it actually made the car look so much better I bought it with a bunch of door dings knowing no I didn't know how much they were gonna be how fixable they were gonna be and I was shook when I went to are in our dent repair in Chandler so make sure you find a dent repair place in your area it's called paintless dent removal have a whole video on it with this car major key I would actually kind of Stoke to use door dings as a way to talk people down when now that I know what ones can be removed and cannot after learning from my experience so go check out that video you Mapple to snake-ass not that bad camps so I don't about that size together moved by professional used it to your advantage making your way around the rest of the car it's just a Ford Focus the rear hatch everything's pretty plain and simple in there just make sure it's clean look under the car for rust obvious things like that take that to your own discretion if you're on the East Coast you're probably not gonna get away from it if you're on the west coast check it to make sure it's not an East Coast car that was brought over here to try and sell for more I've had that experience where there was way more rust and you know you don't want to have that so just get on your back get on the ground look under the car look for rust and you will be fine if you've driven a lot of stick shift cars and you get in one of these to go to test drive one you're like wow this clutch is so light I wonder if it's tossed it's probably not it's a very very very light clutch on these things and as long as it bites when you let it out you know pretty fast and it will screech the tires I'd say that's a good condition clutch you know if it has a lot of play where you know it has like firm pressure the whole way that's a good clutch right but if it has like where you press it like four or five six inches a free play and then press on it it might be time for a new one it could be damage so you know just see how much play a little bit of play is normal in a clutch pedal so just pay attention to that but these cars have superlight clutches so it's just kind of normal for it to feel a little bit not mushy but just lightweight and unexpectedly lightweight if you're used to cars if you're not used to manual cars it's just gonna feel like a clutch and that's fine ask him simple questions like what kind of oil did you run what kind of filter oil filter did you run and windows the last time you change the transmission fluid have you ever have you changed spark plugs see how they react at about 50,000 miles most people I have thirty to fifty thousand most people change their transmission fluid in their spark plugs if the car is tuned they've probably put step colder spark plugs which I have that in the playlist on this car as well on the channel so make sure you check that out and as far as being ona address cars being tuned there's a couple notable people and like stratified I go with edge Autosport you know a couple tune by Nisha and I think does Focus ST I don't know if he just does mazdaspeed3 s so just ask him about it hey why do you have a tune what parts you have on why how is it running you know the the thing you need to pay attention to is if he does have an access port on it you should be running the golden numbers for idle your air to fuel ratio AFR is fourteen point seven wide open throttle should be right around eleven eleven point seven eleven point three whatever if you're on ethanol ether tea it might go down to ten points eight nine around there I believe if I remember correctly make sure that you know car is up the temperature before you drive it hard the oil should be at least around 150 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit before you get on the car real hard and that's almost too awkward you know fully operating temperature your oil pressure gauge is a direct correlation just if it's too cold or not so when you take off and you watch the oil pressure gauge and your you know car isn't warm enough the oils not up to temp yet you're gonna be pegged out in like 70 psi on your oil pressure now just lay off the gas take it real slow until that oil gets up to temperature and you're gonna see that oil pressure kind of go back to the middle and then when you get on the gas it's gonna move to the right a little bit probably you know not maybe like a quarter in the middle but like when you get on the gas when it's cold it's gonna peg that oil pressure because the oil is still thick it's not warmed up yet and when it's thick it's like trying to suck a milkshake through a straw but if it's it's like then when your oil temperature is that proper running temperature it's like sucking it you know water through a straw and that's better for your engine when the oil is warmer you're getting oil everywhere faster that way you don't have problems and where are your engines so you know pay attention if the owner you know if the car is cold look at the thermostat temp look at the oil pressure if it's if he takes out of the driveway and that oil temperature is that 70 our oil if that oil pressure is that 70 you're close to it and the cars not warm yet and you know for sure you make sure because you don't wanna make yourself look stupid and making an assumption and he pins it and takes off out of there to show you how fast it is but that oil pressure is pegged out on 70 that's probably someone who didn't take care of the car that's something I would never do I would just I'm gonna show that people who buy this car like hey this is what I do I make sure I let it this car takes forever to warm up I'll let it warm up in my driveway for at least five ten minutes take it on the freeway I'm driving it like a grandma for like 10-15 minutes then the oil temperature finally up then I can go fast and have a good time I hope this gives you a better understanding of the Focus ST platform walking around knowing your way around everything you need to know before buying this car if you like what you see if you like building comps in the garage hit that subscribe button catch the players on a screen and you will learn so much about this car by checking out all those videos on that playlist [Music]

Channel: Cameron Alford

Views: 145,764

Rating: 4.9147425 out of 5

Keywords: cameron, alford, phoenix, arizona, cars, cars247

Id: KNJajTzUkes

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 20 2020