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zulujams' OW Focus ST3 in MA

8K views 20 replies 9 participants last post by  zulujams 
#1 · (Edited)
1/12/13 update: My right headlight was aimed WAY down toward the ground. I would have thought the dealer would catch that, but maybe all they do on a new car is check the lights and then slap a sticker on it. The manual has a section on light adjustment which helped me find the vertical set screw. For now, I parked outside the garage a few feet away and brought up the right one to meet the light output of the left one--much better. I will ask the dealer to check the low and high beams more officially soon as I just eyeballed it.

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Hey everyone! I'm excited to be driving the new ST! I ordered it because I couldn't find an ST2 or ST3 without a moonroof and decided to order exactly what I wanted. Skipping the moonroof gained me a bunch of headroom for my tall frame. This is the first time I've ever ordered a car. Order Info:

Ordered 11/21 as add'l retail order; build date 12/21; arrived at dealer 1/05; picked up 1/09!

Everything so far has tested out fine with only a couple minor things:

1. I noticed condensation in the lower parts of both HID assemblies on the inside. It looked fine today but I'll keep an eye on it. I see them flicker a pretty good amount on bumps too. Is this just the nature of HIDs? My last car did this too and it bugged me. Will monitor this as well.

2. The inside of the fuel door either wasn't painted fully or has some kind of blackish overspray? See pic. I noticed a little of this in the engine bay too above the radiator but you really have to look for it. The fuel door is plastic it seems and you can't see a problem from the outside, so I'm fine with it.



The only things I've done so far are add Husky floor mats and Michelin Pilot Alpin PA3 performance snows which are just slightly wider at 245/40R18. I had them already from the last car and tirerack blessed off the slight size difference of our summers which are 235/40R18. Not the best pic b/c of lighting but here is a closeup. I think these are very close to OEM looking for a snow tire. I may get some Blizzaks down the road when these wear out though as I love their aggressive look also.



Future plans? Hard to say. Lots of conflicting priorities like house stuff. I added a ceramic tint to the last car and want to do that to the ST also. I also want to change out the fog bulbs for ones that match the LED strip better, purely a looks thing. I may look into changing those convenience or safety bulbs that shine down from the mirrors when unlocking. Why aren't they the bright, clean LED type white like the license plate bulbs that look fantastic? I'd love a set of dedicated summer wheels and keep the OEMs for winter. Beyond that, maybe an intake, and I would love to tune the car down road. I've never tuned a car but wanted to tune the last one. Or a track day for the first time! I skipped the moonroof partly in case I can try this out and need helmet room.

Again, loving the car so far! May try to add more pics to this post in the future, but the ST will likely be stock for maybe much longer than I want. Here's one for now though:



One other thing--what the heck is a zulujams? Nothing car related. It is a user name from a long while back relating to a local band from RI called Foxtrot Zulu and they, well, jam.

Cheers all. Enjoy the driving.
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Glad to see another Oxford White ST. :D My fuel door has the same problem, check your side mirrors as well, the sides facing the car. Mine has unfinished painting there as well. :/

Edit: As for changing out your fog lights you might want to check these out.

10W High Power COB LED Auxiliary Light Kit | Daytime Running Lights | LED Car Bulbs | Super Bright LEDs

Pretty bright, not as bright as normal fogs but still great for the price. I'm still on the fence about whether or not these will make good replacements.

Or you could just retrofit your fogs with HID projectors. I'll probably end up going that route.
 
#4 ·
Thanks for the suggestion Rob! I don't think I'll go the HID route for the fogs as I don't need a ton of light output, so I'll check out the link you provided. I feel that the fogs should either look good or be very functional such as the yellow ones the Pacific NW guys seem to like. I don't get much fog out here normally. I'll check the mirrors in detail now. My last car was my first white car and I was really not sure I'd love it, but I did! Had two black cars in a row before that, never again hopefully, but they do look great when detailed...for an hour or two lol.

Hey JT! Sorry our cars didn't go down the line together...holidays or scheduling got in the way. Correct, no TPMS issues as I just had the dealer swap the rubber. I really want to get a new set of wheels with new sensors for summer but other things need attention such as a gooseneck ball and spray bedliner installed in the truck, house stuff, the list goes on. I expect I'll have the summers mounted back on the OEMs. Some feel that the tires will stretch by swapping them on and off, but others have said the rubber is fine if they do the swaps correctly. The bigger concern is hacking up the wheels. I'm impressed with the work by the dealer so far though I need to get on the ground and really look more. It was getting dark and starting to rain when I picked it up. The dealer was cheaper than the tire place I'd used in the past by around $30, go figure. Saved me driving a few towns over with tires loaded in the ST (though it is up to the task).
 
#6 · (Edited)
Thanks Mightius! I'm guessing that the tint won't happen until summer at the earliest. If you're just about ready to get one, you may want to check out Tint King in Billerica. They did a great job on a GeoShield ceramic tint at MA legal limit for my last car--see link below. I can dig up more in different lighting if desired. That tint had a bit of a smoked look rather than the purple hue some tints have--I would get it again. You can see through it more or less depending on lighting, and I didn't find it dangerous at night. Tint King has done work for several cars a co-worker has had too. If you're more toward the South Shore, then maybe Driven Perfection in Weymouth as I've read good things about them on other forums. If I get mine on the ST first I'll definitely post in thread #1 here!

http://fordstnation.com/member-zulujams-albums-b8-s4-picture6025-dscf28661.jpg
 
#10 ·
I definitely got caught in the holiday shuffle and it has delayed my delivery as well. Still if it arrives by wednesday of this week its still only 8 weeks of non holiday time from time of order to delivery which is pretty standard for ford retail verified orders.

I just so wanted it this weekend - it was near 70 today!
 
#12 ·
Thanks Deadmilenko! I started to babble about the different colors and why I didn't choose them, but I'll skip that and just say I love OW!

Hopefully you'll get the car this week JT. Just think--there's a cold front coming, so you can test out the heated seats instead of rolling down the windows and smoking the summer tires (I think you ordered an ST3? My memory is horrible sorry...).
 
#14 · (Edited)
Thanks. I will leave the fuel door alone since the under spray is hard to see and is only on the inside.

Other comments--the ST did well in the snow and slush this morning with the winter tires! And the radio input switched from Sirius to my iPod by itself?? I was t touching the screen, console, or controls on the steering wheel I swear. Beyond that, I have full leaves for anticipation and just earned one leaf each for shifts and speed lol. I expect to lose leaves from here.
 
#15 ·
I debated on whether to just add an update to the first post or add a new one. I'll go with a new post as some may want to read my feedback and other can just ignore. I hit 800 miles Thursday night. Here's my feedback.

Drive-ability -- some 'professional' reviewers have found the ST 'taxing'. I still disagree. It can be driven civilly during which it has nice manners and can give you fairly decent gas mileage. When driven hard, I suppose you could say it is taxing as you have lots of HP and torque waiting for you!

Quality -- The doors shut solidly and nicely. Everything works. It feels very well built. I'm not too impressed so far with the wipers though. My driver side wiper shakes when in use on the highway, and in general I find the blades streaky (which is worse with the afterwipe feature that I loathe). My car was ordered and delivered in about two months, so the blades should not be 'old' from sitting around. I need to try cleaning them and maybe replacing them with OEMs. If that doesn't work, I'll try aftermarket ones. Besides that, the HIDs seem to flicker when hitting bumps and potholes but others have stated theirs don't do this or that I may not actually be seeing a flicker. I need to ride in front of my car at night with my wife driving to check this out more.

SYNC/MFT -- I haven't had any screen locks, music drops or crazy indexing, etc. Granted, for music, I'm using a USB stick that only has maybe 250 songs on it. I'll be adding more, just haven't had time. I stopped using my ipod as it doesn't power itself down when it goes into pause mode--NOT the car's fault. I still find it annoying that if you turn the power on in the car but don't start the engine that you can listen to whatever music source you had going last, but once you start the engine this way (power on first, then start the engine) SYNC defaults to the AUX RCA input jacks, so dumb. Also, when making a call using voice commands, music will be paused, take your command, go back to music for a couple seconds, and then pause again as dialing begins. Why not just keep the music paused at this point? I need to read up more on the many features and try things out more, just haven't had time.

Trip 1 stats -- I prefer the VW/Audi method over Ford's. With VW, Trip 1 statistics will automatically zero out after you leave the car off for 30 min or an hour (I forget which now). VW leaves Trip 2 alone forever unless you reset it. With Ford, both Trip 1 and Trip 2 stats continue to roll on indefinitely, and if you need to reset you need to reset each specific measurement like time, average MPGs, etc. I also miss having a physical tripometer right on the dash versus a computerized one only, but it only takes a couple clicks on the steering wheel to view/reset. Possible bonus: I'm no longer obsessed with how many minutes it is taking to get to work or run an errand as I don't look at the Trip 1 time counter as I did on VW products.

Cupholders -- others have complained about the holders grabbing too tightly and destroying Styrofoam cups. I don't use such cups in my car, only a capped bottle of water. The Poland Springs bottles flop around in the center console holder, so I moved the bottle to the door pocket which doesn't have as much of a slope as I'd like but overall it works based on the size of this car.

Passenger seat -- while I won't be in it much at all, I would have liked to see at least a manual up/down ratchet handle. The passenger seat can only go forward and back and the seat back will tilt forward and back. At least I have some extra headroom because I skipped the sunroof. Overall it is comfortable.

Storage -- just a little more storage would have been nice but I understand this is a sport hatch so I knew storage would be limited.

Trunk space -- I haven't picked up an organizer yet. I'll have to check out options like netting, customizable storage pockets, and maybe Gorilla type blocks that grip carpet surfaces (I had some from a past car and might have tossed them, grrr). The side hooks aren't useful for groceries since they are too low and bags with groceries will just roll and come off the hooks. Again, this is a hatch car so I'm not surprised about this.

Exterior lighting -- the light show is amusing....park the car, open a door and some exterior lights like the LED strips and the puddle lights under the side mirrors light up, shut the door and they go off. Open another door and they are back on. Shut it and they are back off. There is likely a coming home feature or something I need to configure. Reallly need to finish reading the manual. I do want to change out the puddle lights under the mirrors to LED. The license plate LED lighting looks great and Ford should have done the same for the mirrors.

Any gripes above are extremely minor. I continue to love this car!
 
#16 ·
Jason, I haven't had the wiper issues with either of my Foci, nor do the HID lights on my ST flicker. That may be something to have the dealer check.

No MFT problems with mine so far, but I think you and I had the latest version factory installed, so we should have less troubles than the early ST owners. I guess I don't mind the MFT set up because I'm used to Sync and the Ford touchscreens from my other Ford vehicles, but I will say I'm no fan of the Nav screen in the ST - the one I have in my 2010 F150 is much better. But I haven't even used the Nav, so if anything on the car sucked I would want it to be the Nav (no loss there). But overall, I like the interaction with media, etc - going to have to work on sound system at some point if/when funds available.

I agree on the passenger seat adjustability - its basically nonexistent!

One thing to consider on your Trip 1/Trip 2 issue. I just reset trip 1 each gas fill and then keep Trip 2 on the continuous miles/avg MPG. Wasn't even aware of the individual resets on time, mpg, distance, etc. but it makes sense to me. I would find it annoying if when going on a long trip if the distance automatically reset everytime I stop to eat, gas up, visit someone, stay overnight, etc. I like being able to reset only the gas average and not everything else for a given trip. As for the timer, I usually don't use that function, I just keep note of my leave/arrival times, etc. the old fashioned way, haha. Old habits die hard I guess!

So do you have any mods planned?
 
#17 ·
Thanks JT. I'm getting used to Trip 1 and I do reset it at each fill-up so I can keep track of my fuelly data. No mods planned for now. In the spring, I want to pick up new wheels and TPMS for summer but I still need to put in a gooseneck ball and bedliner in the truck and the wife needs a horse trailer, so I may end up swapping summer tires back onto the OEM wheels. Maybe next year I can play with a tune.

I've been meaning to PM you. Any thoughts on organizing things in the trunk? Netting, cargo soft-sided storage, just a couple cardboard boxes...the side hooks aren't useful to me as they are open at the top and they are low enough that bags will just pop off and the contents will roll around.
 
#18 ·
Cargo area is such a small area with the seat up that most things ive put in there just compress against and keep from rolling but havent looked much at aftermarket solutions as i spent alll the extra mod money on the new tires and wheels (which i am really happy with)!

Do you plan on talking to the dealer about the headlamps issue?
 
#19 ·
Do you plan on talking to the dealer about the headlamps issue?
Glad you're happy with the tires and wheels! I first need to head out one night in front of the ST so I can watch the lights from out front. Life has been too busy lately with work, grad school, house stuff and snow, and some family things. Will try to do this later this week!
 
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