Qwkynuf
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2014
- Threads
- 19
- Messages
- 351
- Reaction score
- 132
- Location
- Washington
- Vehicle(s)
- 2015 Ruby Red Mustang GT
- Thread starter
- #1
I noticed on the way to a meeting today that I have hit 500 hours of drive time, since picking my car up on 11/25/2014. I have managed to not ever reset the Trip 2 display, so I have cumulative data from day one.
I feel like this would be a good opportunity to share my long term impressions.
In 500 hours of driving, I covered 19,039 miles. That means that if my engine was running, I was going an average of 38mph.
I have averaged 22.4 mpg, according to the onboard calculation. My hand calculated mileage over the same period is 22.1 mpg. This is surprising to me because on a tank by tank basis, the calculation seemed to be pretty consistently optimistic by .5 to 1 mpg - but the numbers are what they are. If the average is only off by 3/10 of 1 mpg, I am prepared to call that close enough.
Other thoughts on the car:
Your mileage, as they say, may vary.
I feel like this would be a good opportunity to share my long term impressions.
In 500 hours of driving, I covered 19,039 miles. That means that if my engine was running, I was going an average of 38mph.
I have averaged 22.4 mpg, according to the onboard calculation. My hand calculated mileage over the same period is 22.1 mpg. This is surprising to me because on a tank by tank basis, the calculation seemed to be pretty consistently optimistic by .5 to 1 mpg - but the numbers are what they are. If the average is only off by 3/10 of 1 mpg, I am prepared to call that close enough.
Other thoughts on the car:
- Mine is a Ruby Red GT with the 50th package, Auto, 3.55 gears, navigation, and reverse assist.
- I love the Ruby Red, can't get enough of it. But it is ridiculously easy to chip. I had hoped that this would have improved since my Redfire '06, but if anything it has gotten worse.
- That 5.0 makes power in gobs. I have definitely never felt like I didn't have enough.
- I have incredibly mixed feelings about the auto. When I am in heavy traffic I can appreciate not having to dance on the clutch, but everywhere else, I miss my manual. After 20 years of driving a stick, I am used to being in the gear I want to be in. There tends to be a weird hunt-y delay with part throttle acceleration - say from 1/4 throttle to 3/4, at 40 mph or so. "Is it going to downshift? Should I give it more gas?"
- That being said, a 2500 or 3000 stall converter with these 3.55 gears would make this car insane at sub-freeway speeds
- The traction control and AdvanceTrac inspire a lot of confidence, but they let me get a disturbing amount of sideways once, when turning right into traffic on wet pavement. That guy I was sliding sideways at is probably never going to crap again....
- I am not an "audiophile", so the stereo is tolerable for me. I can't decide if I like satellite though. If I listen to it at all, it's like the same 3 channels. I doubt I would ever pay for a full subscription.
- The heated and cooled seats are another thing I have mixed feelings about. After years of seats with resistive elements, which get hot and stay hot, the Peltier heaters don't really do it for me. My cooling function seems to work better than some I have seen on here, but not nearly as well as I had expected.
- The placement of the steering wheel controls is really awkward for me. It seems like no thought at all was given to placing frequently used buttons within easy reach - I am talking to you, Cruise on/off button. And the End Call button. I can't do that one by feel at all.
- And speaking of the End Call button, I find the bluetooth to be almost completely unusable. It sounds perfect on my end, but at any speed above 35 or 40 *my* voice is either drowned out by road noise or so clipped by the noise cancellation as to be incomprehensible to the person on the other end. Before you jump to its defense, and tell me how wonderfully yours works, try this test for me - get on the freeway, call your own voicemail, and leave yourself a message. Just talk normally for a minute or so - recite the Gettysburg Address or something. Then call back in and listen. I don't think it's phone related because it does the same thing on my Galaxy S5 and the wife's iPhone 5s - and both phones work perfectly with Sync on her 2012 Focus.
- For most of the driving that I do, I find the seats to be incredibly comfortable. Most of what I do is either around town short trips or long freeway runs with the cruise on. Sometimes, I get caught in ridiculous traffic, where I have to actually *drive* the car - gas, brake, gas, brake - sometimes it will take me 5 hours to get home from work. In those cases, I can't find a comfortable seat position. I end up getting a cramp in my hip that is completely miserable.
- I never installed my front plate, but I did get a Craig's Custom bracket and installed the mounting base after I got pulled over for not having it. I figure I will slap it on if they get me again.
- It still blows my mind how much attention this car gets.
- Letting the car shift itself in Sport mode is one of the most irritating things I have experienced. The only redeeming factor that I have found is that it seems to be pretty aggressive about locking the torque converter, which minimizes the hunting that I described above.
- The paddle shifters just seem like a novelty to me. The response time is so long, and the shifts are so soft....
- Is it just me, or does the keyless entry seem to get confused in the rain? When it's dry, it seems like the most natural thing in the world - just reach into the handle and pull it open. In the rain though, if I touch the outer part of the handle in any way, it locks instead of unlocking. I wind up standing there putting my hand into the opening over and over, trying to get it to unlock while I am getting soaked....
- I had the brake squeal issue, really bad. The TSB fixed it right up and it hasn't made a sound since.
- I have rock chips in the paint on 2 of my wheels. WTF?
- At my last service, I asked them to check my wheel balance because I had an out-of-balance-y sound coming from the right front. They said that all of the tires *except* that one were out of balance (at 17,000 miles?), and that it wasn't uncommon for them to throw the flat weights. But the noise never went away.
- The fog lights piss me off every time I think about them. I wish they had called them "accent lights", or something like that, so that I wouldn't expect them to perform some actual useful function. They are definitely turning on - I can sometimes see them in store windows, but on a dark road at night, I can turn them on and off and barely notice a difference in the light output.
- I prefer the Sport steering mode. I just like the way it feels.
- I can't see ever using the Rain/Snow mode in real life. I would have to practice with it quite a bit to feel comfortable. In general, I know what is going to happen when I apply a given amount of throttle. Anything that changes that is going to make me less effective (and safe).
- In fact, the one time that I actually had to drive it in the snow, I ended up putting it in Sport mode, so that I could put it in 3rd gear with the paddles and not have it keep dropping to 2nd if I gave it any gas at all.
Your mileage, as they say, may vary.
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