Granger Ford & Mach 1 Review

[VictorH]

Just back from a 2,200 mile round trip to Granger Ford to pick up 2021 Mach 1 (700A+ Handling Package as only options). A few comments about both.



Granger Ford- Discovered them on this forum. As has been outlined by many, their customer service is excellent. Best price on the car I could find, excellent communication, complete follow-through and super easy transaction. I have purchased cars from Toyota, Honda, VW and BMW and this was by far the best dealer I’ve had the experience to deal with. Really, you can’t go wrong, only issue I had, not dealer related, was the production delay. Ordered March 8th, picked up November 12, 2021. The whole crew is outstanding from sales, to finance to delivery. Can’t recommend them highly enough. If I buy another Ford product, it will be through Granger (the new Ford Bronco looks pretty cool BTW).



Mach 1 – Just some observations and comparisons. I have a few hundred miles on both 50th anniversary Mustang GT with PP and Roush supercharger and 2017 GT350.

• Oh my gosh, super darty! I think it’s a combination of perhaps the factory alignment and the super-wide Cup2 tires. The straight-line stability is very poor and the tramlining is really impressive. Firstly alignment, I do my own alignments and know how a given set up feels, in general, if I had to guess, I’d say the front end is either completely neutral (i.e. no toe at all) or maybe just a bit toe-out. Car requires a lot of mending and tending on the freeway, there’s really not much straight-line stability at all. Also, the tramlining is something else. If a groove or channel comes across your lane and you’re not paying attention, the car can move over ½ a lane in an instant. Similarly, a series of bumps are like running through a puddle in any other car, the car will pull over toward the series of bumps. I think this is completely tunable and can be largely or completely removed with alignment, though the tires might need to go too.
• CONFIRMED, FRONT ALIGNMENT WAAY OUT. FRONT TOE IS 1/8" OUT, SHOULD BE JUST SLIGHTLY TOE IN. THAT WOULD BE 90% OF THE FREEWAY INSTABILITY.
• Michelin Cup2 tires- I have run these tires on the GT350 and a BMW. These tires do not like concrete freeways at all. Super noisy, and for some reason the tramlining is worse on concrete than asphalt. Needless to say, the grip on the street is much more than you’ll ever use. There’s a section of I-40 between Knoxville and Asheville that has a 20-mile section of flowing corners and they are absolutely effortless at much more than the posted limit. Again, I think that maybe some of the dartryness might be the size of tire but the GT350 had the same sizes (aftermarket wheels) front and 325’s on back and it wasn’t like this at all. They are a track tire and I like them on track so hard to fault them for street when that’s not really their best environment.
• Standard heated and cooled seats – Excellent! I drove 1,100 miles yesterday, stopping only for gas and rest areas, no driver changes because my wife doesn’t drive manual trans. The seats for long trips are really good! They don’t have a huge amount of adjustment, but for my body they are super comfortable, supportive and just all-around really nice. Used the heating function which is super effective too. Didn’t op for Recaros for this reason, it’s mostly my daily driver and some track use, not the other way around so standard seats made more sense.
• Motor- What can I say, the Coyote is an excellent platform. Super tractable, pulls from 1,000 rpm at low throttle (got stuck in some traffic due to an accident), nice bottom end torque and really sounds excellent at low speeds. I know everyone loves the sound of a flat plane crank of the GT350, I think it’s nice, but I don’t think it’s “better” it’s just different. You ever hear a Can-AM car from the 1960s run? They are cross plane and sound amazing. To each his own, but the motor and exhaust are a really nice combination. There’s absolutely no drone at freeway speeds whatsoever. Also, I don’t need to hear 90 db of engine and exhaust sounds at freeways speeds so its easy to talk on the freeway and nice and quiet. 6th gear in the Tremec is a really good freeway gear. Checked my mileage once and on that tank averaged 20.5 mpg at average of 75 mph (by odometer and pump reading, trip computer said 21.5 mpg).
• The gas tank must be TINY! I have in-laws in Des Moines so I’ve made the trip, by car, many times. I’ve never had to stop so many times for gas. I would run the car down to below 1/4, sometimes to reserve, “you have 50 miles of range” or a bit less and never once did I tank up more than 14.0 gallons. What’s up with that? Range is not really much at all. 300 miles and you’re really pushing it, unless you really run it down to fumes. At one station in Asheville, was hoping to be my last stop, the gas pump is level but the station is on a hill. So parked the car, nose pointing up and car leaning toward the driver’s side. Couldn’t get it to take more than 5 gallons (I’m at the less than 50 miles warning) and didn’t want to move the car so, that meant another gas stop later down the road. Probably should have figured that would be a problem but was hoping maybe 8-10 gallons would go in, no luck.
• Suspension MagnaRide- I’m a track guy so suspensions are more important to me than motors but obviously both are important. The ride is firm as I like it, but it’s also super compliant. No complaints whatsoever. Cornering is super flat and it’s really set up for handling. Car will need more camber front and back for track use, and probably a bit of Toe-In as mentioned above. I would be inclined to lower the car just a bit, but I worry I’ll drag on driveways, entrances and of course smash the front splitter on curbs much sooner than I otherwise would. A bit undecided about that, I went up some steep transitions at gas stations and didn’t rub once so happy about that.
• Tremec 6-speed- Super nice! When new, especially when cold it’s a bit clunky, however if you let the trans “breathe” between shifts (just take a little pause) it will engage the gears completely smoothly. Same is true when warm, but you can shift a bit more quickly. I think it will wear in and smooth out, as when you shift real quickly, it doesn’t like that, right now, but I think with more miles it will get better. Shifter is really nice, direct, solid engagement, really if you’re paying attention you shouldn’t ever miss a gear. The only issue I had is sometimes, hot or cold, engaging reverse can be a bit difficult. At those times would move shifter into first, then second, then try reverse, not sure that really helped but it would eventually go in. I don’t like having to use a lot of force to get anything into gear, but again might just be a “it’s new” factor. Also, the clutch is really good too. Engagement is really easy, consistent and smooth. Wouldn’t change a thing with that either.
• Steering feel- Well, like lots of new cars the steering is a bit “numb.” Don’t really feel the road surface through the steering wheel at all. It will probably be better at the track, but for around town it’s fine. I can feel the motor idling through the shifter which I like. I like to feel that same vibration through the steering wheel too, which tells me, I’m connected to the rest of the drive train. Not a huge shortcoming, it is what it is, but the overall precision and lineararity of the steering input is fine.

Those are my initial impressions over the first 1,200 miles on the car. Looking forward to a bunch more. As above, the car purchasing experience was excellent and the first big trip was a great experience. Can’t wait to get the car on-track to try the environment it was really designed for. Hope this is useful for some of you who might be sitting on the fence.

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[J o n]

Good write up. Appreciated. Glad you enjoyed the trip. Did Granger remove the decals for you or you did that yourself. Looks great without them.

 

[VictorH]

Granger removed the fender emblems and PPF shop took off the decals. I like the look too. It's a bit understated but the car has nice lines and I don't think it really needs the decals.

 

[VictorH]

Couple of questions for Mach 1 owners
1) How do you turn on the heating for the steering wheel?
2) Is the FordPass WiFi complementary for a trial period or do I need to sign up for WiFi and if you need to sign-up, how do you do that?

 

[Mach1soldier]

Excellent review. Did you get the entire car PPF or just part? I’m doing a 1300 mile trip on cup 2’s and worried about paint damage

 

[Jaymar]

Couple of questions for Mach 1 owners
1) How do you turn on the heating for the steering wheel?
2) Is the FordPass WiFi complementary for a trial period or do I need to sign up for WiFi and if you need to sign-up, how do you do that?

Heated steering wheel is on the climate control screen on the Sync3 unit, steering wheel picture. A bit awkward and not so straight forward I think.

 

[Atlas1]

great review @VictorH and happy to hear you like your initial impressions with the car! granger is definitely the place to buy from!

the cup2's are definitely track focused to say the least and not something i would want to live with on the street. they are different than the standard gt350 cup2's which is probably why you are noticing such a difference.
and yes the gas tank is laughably small just going for a cruise i can watch the needle move!

 

[melwff]

Couple of questions for Mach 1 owners
1) How do you turn on the heating for the steering wheel?
2) Is the FordPass WiFi complementary for a trial period or do I need to sign up for WiFi and if you need to sign-up, how do you do that?

Wifi is complementary for I believe 3 months from AT&T after you set it up through menu

 

[SROhlms]

LOVE that look without decals. Do you have any more pics?

Glad to hear you enjoyed your transaction and trip. The Mach sounds like a nice fit for your track tastes!

 

[VictorH]

I had the PPF done locally in Iowa before the drive. They did entire front, hood, fenders, bumper, rockers front to back and then had side windows and rear window tinted. Overall, excellent work. I had seen their work on a prior trip and thought I'd just have it done before the trip.

See above, the reason for the unsteady freeway tracking is that the car came with 1/8" TOE OUT. Makes the car really unstable. Factory alignment should be just a bit toe in.

 

[VictorH]

 

[VictorH]

 

[richardmauro]

Have a new Mach 1 waiting to be picked up at Granger- should I have the alignment checked by service before the truck gets there
I also found Granger from this forum- was an easy deal as car was just sitting there and timing is every thing. Called on a Monday and car was paid for on Tuesday.
I ordered a new Bronco here in Florida a year and a half ago- no car in sight- want one but looks like I will get a Land rover Defender instead,

 

[VictorH]

It could be my alignment was a one-off. Of course if more people are experiencing it then might be worth a check on an alignment rack.
When you put the steering wheel completely straight and look at the front wheels standing over the fender on my car it was obvious the fronts of the tires were out and the rears of the tires were in. I then measured with toe plates and found the front end to be 1/8" toe out. That's a lot, when I ran toe out on other cars you would shoot for 1/16" out max. (total toe). I think that perhaps the S550 doesn't like toe out at all give my experience.

 

[VictorH]

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