Stage2Sasquatch
Go Kart Champion
- Location
- Walled Lake Michigan
I don't care about 90% of journalists opinions. I worked in event coordination at FCA for about a year. I am personal friends with many of the C&D editors and really good friends with Don Sherman and many Motortrend guys.
Here's how 99% of reviews work. They are given the car for 1-2 days in which they have to film, write, and edit their thoughts. Usually this process includes a track day for performance cars. So again, the process is biased to cars that are fun but the editors will rarely ever actually know how it is to live with the cars they review. (Some magazines have long-term reviews which makes this moot).
So the issue with the RS, of which I've driven multiple times (something most fanboys have done), is that it has massive issues on track with overheating the RDU. Here's several articles that highlight that phenomenon:
1. http://www.focusrs.org/forum/9-focus-rs-discussions/20801-2016-rs-track-car-fast-but-flaws-real.html
2. https://trackmustangsonline.com/index.php?topic=11537.0
So when you have a fast driver, the negatives of the car become clear and I hate to break it to you, 90% of journalists are just regular guys that can't push the car to it's limits. I'm no pro, but I'm not a complete schmuck on the track either. So my end-point is I really don't care about the numbers, the car sucks to live with, and it's less fun than a 3K Miata on track. For me, the RS or any of the "track oriented" heavy, complicated AWD drive cars don't really make sense to me for those reasons.
