Joey's Focus Thread: Dragon Slayer

  • Thread starter Joey D
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Perfect Balance
Yeah, high quality casting is definitely a better option than some cheapo whatever wheels, but still will never be as strong as forged. Are there any options for forged wheels in that pattern?
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There are a few OZ's but they are something like a $1,000 per wheel. I don't really want to spend $4,000 plus another $800 - $1,000 on tires. Plus the only ones I've seen are all 19" rims and I think that would look awful on my car.

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Light Tint

I ordered some tint/light protection film from Lamin-X and it arrived yesterday. Now the YouTube video shows this can easily be done in 3 minutes with a little water and a squeegee, let me tell you that it can't. A buddy of mine and myself spent about 45 mins per light trying to get all the wrinkles and air bubbles out. We used a combination of a hair dryer and a heat gun to stretch the material and make it work. It still doesn't look the best as there are some air bubbles I couldn't get out, but Lamin-X says the film is breathable and the bubbles will come out.

The headlights are the lowest tint they sell so it only blocks about 7% of the light, last night I didn't see any drop in lighting performance at all. The fog lights are now yellow as well and that actually improved they efficiency by making them a deep yellow hue.

I know it's not everyone's thing, but I think it pulls the car together pretty well. I almost went with yellow for the headlight but I was worried the blue tinted headlights would give some weird shade of green.

Oh and please forgive the dirty car, it rained last night and this morning.

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I had to do my entire tail lights in that film. That sucked. Three hours and a lot of sweat later they turned out alright, but I'd definitely go for a spray tint in the future.
 
Perfect Balance
I had to do my entire tail lights in that film. That sucked. Three hours and a lot of sweat later they turned out alright, but I'd definitely go for a spray tint in the future.
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I thought about spray but I didn't know how easy it would be to remove if I ended up hating it or got ticketed for improper lighting. I'm thinking about a light tint on my tails but judging how complex the shape is on them I think I would spray them if I go down that path.
 
So does this film stop yellowing, or will that still happen over time?

I plan on cleaning/sanding down my headlights as they are getting really bad, but I want to put a light tint on like yours at the same time. Nothing dark, basically just something to protect it from the sun and give it a little character.
 
SRV2LOW4ME
So does this film stop yellowing, or will that still happen over time?

I plan on cleaning/sanding down my headlights as they are getting really bad, but I want to put a light tint on like yours at the same time. Nothing dark, basically just something to protect it from the sun and give it a little character.
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Lamin-X sells a UV protection spray that's supposed to stop that. I got a bottle of it and I did my lights. I figure I'll reapply it when I wax my car.
 
SRV2LOW4ME
I plan on cleaning/sanding down my headlights
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Isn't there an off the shelf solution you apply to the headlight to remove the yellowing? Would hate for you to scuff them up too much by sanding them, although I've never seen that done before.

By the way, they look nice Joey 👍
 
Punknoodle
Isn't there an off the shelf solution you apply to the headlight to remove the yellowing? Would hate for you to scuff them up too much by sanding them, although I've never seen that done before.

By the way, they look nice Joey 👍
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Theres a couple, and I've tried one by turtle wax that really didn't do anything, and what it did do basically lasted a couple of days. The only products that I've seen really good results from were the ones that you had to sand the lenses first, although I hear it only lasts a few months before they start to yellow again. Thats why I was hoping a nice tint with UV protection would possibly help hold it off longer.

I really don't want to pay out the $500+ for new lenses, and all the aftermarket headlights for my car remove the HID bulbs for standard H1's. 👎

Thanks Joey, I'll see if I can find any reviews on their UV spray and maybe look a little further into their tints to see if they make something I'm looking for.
 
Die Deutschland, Ja!

So after of years of owning various cars and always wanting a Euro plate for the front of them I decided to pop for since the Euro Focus is made in Germany. I did as much research as I could so I do hope the plate is correct. The SLS stands for Saarlouis which is where the Euro Focus's factory is. The TI stands for Titanium and the numbers on the end are just random.

I also have the emission test sticker for 2012 and the registration seal for Saarland. I wanted to be as authentic as I could figure out.

I also have to build my own bracket for this too. What I did was get two pieces of Lexan and had one cut to fit where the US plate would go as a bit of a filler. Then I had the other one cut to fit behind the plate to provide support and lift the plate about an 1/8th off of the paint. I attached all of it with outdoor two sided tape, apparently that's what a lot of Europeans do too, so I figured I was good.

Anyway here are a couple of photos.

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I think it breaks up the front end nicely.

Oh and I know haterz are gunna hate, but I got 99 problems but and a hater ain't one!
 
Eh whatever, I think it looks pretty good. The car had to much black going on in the front and needed something to break it up a bit. Now on to the next thing I suppose, which is quickly forming into quite the list.
 
Are you allowed to do that? In the UK we can't have any designs on the plate besides the EU or UK image on the left. We can have metal pressed plates as long as they conform to those standards.
 
I think it looks great. 👍 Euro plates give a rather different feel to the front. I like it.
 
eSZee
Was it too black before the headlight covers?
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Ya, everything in the bottom part of the car got lost except the chrome bezels on the fog lights, at least I thought so. There are so few '12 Focus that are modified so getting ideas of what looks good and what doesn't is pretty hard.

Moglet
Are you allowed to do that? In the UK we can't have any designs on the plate besides the EU or UK image on the left. We can have metal pressed plates as long as they conform to those standards.
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In the state of Michigan we do not have front plate laws and we can run novelty plates if we want. I just wouldn't be able to take a Euro plate, have it made with my tag numbers and put it on the back of my car.

Dan_
I think it looks great. 👍 Euro plates give a rather different feel to the front. I like it.
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Thanks! I was looking for something different and I thought the Euro plate fit the bill.
 
I'm not really feeling the BBS wheels after seeing what they actually look like. They seem way to awkward to me.

As for the LM's, while I'd like the black ones I think I'm going to end up with the silver. There's just something about black rims I keep having doubts on, mostly because we have so many "murdered out" cars here in the Detroit area and for the most part they look atrocious.
 
So, the front end is too black hence the plate, but the side of the car isn't black enough so you're suggesting black wheels? It will look cheap.
 
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I bought and had my winter tire package installed today at Discount tire. After seeing what happened in Colorado and on the East Coast, I figured there was no time like the present to get the snow boots on the car. I had a very bad feeling the ContiSportContacts would be awful in the snow and since I'm driving even more now with having a job, it seemed like I should get crackin before I have to make the commute from hell.

I opted for performance winter tires since 90% of my driving will be on dry roads and probably 70% will be on the highway. I like the Hankook iPikes I had on the Cooper but they were way to squishy and made the car feel rather odd. Since the Focus was much bigger and heavier, I didn't want to be stuck with that. After looking around the internet and reading reviews I settled on the Michelin Pilot Alpin PA3's with their V speed rating and pretty cool looking tread design.

Since a majority of performance winter tires only come in sizes that start at 17" rims, I had to opt for something other than steelies, which is fine since I kind of wanted something a bit nicer. My choices were pretty slim due to the odd bolt pattern, but I got the Momo Winter 2's and I think they look great. They look OEM enough but still different enough to set off the car. I almost like them better then my stock rims.

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So far the only problem I've ran into is that the Focus has the stupidest TPMS learning system in any car. Discount spent 45 minutes trying to get the car to accept the new sensors but it wouldn't do it. I'm going back Monday and they are going to flash them with the ID from the ones in my OEM wheels and tires. Resetting the MINI's was so easy, you held a button for a minute and you were good to go.

Other than that the tires ride very nice and at speeds lower than 50mph they are quieter than the Conti's, which surprised me. Handling is similar and there isn't any noticeable squishy feeling in the side walls. Around 70mph the tires start getting really loud, especially on concrete and at 79mph there is an awful harmonic, but I can live with it I suppose.

I'll give more of a review once I put some miles on them.
 
So I'm looking at rims now and this time I'm for reals of them. My budget is around $1,200 for wheels and $800 for tires, although I pretty much sold on Michelin Pilot Super Sport's. I really want to do rims better then I did on the MINI with the Focus, so I've been shopping the big names instead of off-brands.

I've really come to like the BBS CS-5's because they are exactly the style I'm looking for and they come in my odd bolt pattern (5x108). Look around the internet I haven't seen much other there about the CS-5's, but coming from BBS I can't imagine they are crap.

Their weight is 21lbs based on what I can see which is a pound less than the OEM rims, so I really shouldn't have any issue there.

I threw together a quick Photoshop to get some opinions on them and see if there may be other choices in my bolt pattern.

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Thanks Graham, hopefully I'll be sporting some new rims when the AutoZone meets start back up.
 

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