The issues with the Focus are well-known amongst tuners of the car. The turbo is a weak point if proper warm-up and cool-down are not followed (same as with the Accent diesel) and the liquid filled engine mount is expensive to replace.

But if we're talking about strengths, the TRS TDCis are monsters. Wheelspin at the top of second gear on the "best" fuel map. I don't know about the VCDi, but it'll have to be incredibly good to beat that motor.

BTW, there are already a few tests comparing the two cars... the Focus in those tests was faster, but they were MT versus MT. Then again, the DCT Focus is only one or two tenths slower than the MT Focus.