GT without the badge

[pwguy]

I just replaced a 2013 Scion FRS. That car was a hoot in a go cart sort of way. Low center of gravity and a small engine that required lots of revs. Then there are the low traction tires that encourage wheel spinning after every stop and loss of traction drifting on every corner. It was really fun around town, but I found when I wanted to make an actual trip I would tend to take the more comfortable Jeep Grand Cherokee which just didn't seem right. Some of the reasons the FRS was a little fatiguing was the difficulty getting in and out, due to how low the car is, the buzzy 3,000 MPH cruise at 70 MPH and the scraping on everything again due to how low the car is. Oh, the stereo was a complete piece of junk.

I started thinking about what rear-drive car would be a comfortable tourer. Adequate power, comfort and range, with accommodations for two. It would have to be available with a spare tire (lots of flats and no cell phone coverage areas out here in the boonies) and manual transmission. So that is kind of my definition of a GT or Grand Touring Car. Notice that no where in that definition is a requirement for the lowest trap speed, loudest noise, largest rims or stiffest suspension. That GT badge, as normally used, is something that just makes me look elsewhere.

The sort of GT car I wanted is almost not available.

I keep up with cars in just a general sort of way so wasn't fully aware of the new generation mustang. I have had a long standing prejudice against turbocharged car engines. I owned a 2001 Ford Escape V6 and really liked it. When Ford started putting those little turbo engines in them I decided I was not interested in them anymore. I didn't want to deal with turbo lag and had the idea those engines wouldn't be suitable for towing (wrong).

When looking at the possibilities I saw the Mustang and looked at the various models. When I saw the torque curve of the 2.3, I was startled. Wow, this is different from what I thought. Can I get a manual transmission? Yes. Can I get a spare tire? Yes. Is the car comfortable? Wow, Mustangs now have independent rear suspension that seems well regarded. Is there annoying turbo lag? Most people say no, I would need to test drive.

Another factor was the styling. I am an old guy and think the average car has gotten uglier and uglier over the years. Life is too short for that. My FRS looked good and so does the new Mustang. Very clean, especially the ecoboost model that has no script and only two badges (horses) on the entire car. I really really like the look.

My small town dealer only had an auto transmission model with the 2.3 so I drove that. I was impressed with the low RPM pull and was not impressed with the auto transmission. The car was pleasantly quiet and comfortable, despite the tires being inflated to 45 PSI, which didn't seem to bother the salesman any.

Nothing near what I would want was available within many hundreds of miles so I ordered a car to my specifications. I was pleased that I didn't have to make a lot of compromises. For instance there was no need to choose a lower trim level to avoid a sunroof. I picked an ingot silver ecoboost premium with 201A, reverse sensing system, spare tire and spoiler delete. Easy and simple. I was very glad to be able to get the 18" rims as I like a little more cushioning tire and a little less heavy rim.

The salesman was uncommunicative during the wait but I was able to get the VIN by physically going to the dealership and talking to the sales manager. The car arrived last Monday, as I knew from cotus. On Wednesday, the salesman answered an e-mail that I had sent in April asking for information. His message said that they didn't know where the car was and that his manager was contacting the factory. I told him the car had been sitting on his lot for a couple of days and as I found out later, he still had trouble finding it.

He rushed things up and I took delivery on Thursday. The fit and finish was very good, the wash job pretty mediocre, and sure enough the tires were inflated to 45 PSI. I found this ironic as the tire sidewalls, which don't matter at all were all shiny, which must have taken quite a while to achieve and which is completely unimportant, but the tire pressure, which would have taken a couple of minutes to adjust properly and matters a very lot was not dealt with at all.

In the last few days I have put about 800 miles on the car and I am very happy with it. No squeaks, rattles or strange noises have been noticed. The seating position and seats are very comfortable for me. I like most all of the tech stuff although I'm not sure if the reverse sensing system is working.

During the test drive I was struck by how small the side mirrors are. In practice it doesn't seem to be a negative factor, especially with the alert lights that show when there is traffic alongside.

I think the manual transmission is very good. It is the best I have experienced in over fifty years of driving. The FRS was balky going into first at low speed and going into second most of the time. No such problems with the Mustang. From reading the forums I got the idea the clutch feel may not be very good so had already taken delivery on a Steeda clutch assist spring. I won't be putting that on as I think the clutch feel is fine as delivered.

Before I put the Proclip phone mount on I tried to put my phone in the small cubby at the bottom of the console, where it rattled around and blocked controls, then in the cup holders, where the phone flopped around and got in the way of my shifting arm. Everything is nice with the Proclip and the cables tucked nicely out of sight.

I mentioned that range is important to me on my GT car. That is one reason I prefer the 2.3 to the V8. My car will never be on a race track so I can't really use that extra power; the extra range I can use all the time.

Based on what I have seen so far the EPA numbers are easily achievable and I will have about a 500 mile range with this car. I like that a lot.

The recommended octane is 87 and I live at a higher altitude where that is not available so I am using 88 octane. When the octane issue comes up I always think about the reason why higher octanes are not available at high altitude. I believe that is based on normally aspirated engines that produce less power at altitude and require less octane. It would seem with turbos that that would not apply so much, although I don't have any idea what the critical altitude would be with my engine.

As I said, I am an old guy. Maybe that is part of why I am not interested in a lot of exhaust noise. I like the sound of my little four cylinder engine. It is pleasant to me and just "there" enough to give gear shifting cues. I listened to audio of quite a few after market exhaust systems and found ALL of them just annoying. The only time I have found the stock system annoying was going down a steep hill in second gear at 35 mph. That was irritating, but doesn't occur often.

I like the stereo. I am not a thumper guy and I get very listenable audio as long as it isn't on Sirius/XM. At least 10 times better than the poor FRS on this score.

I think I am really going to enjoy putting lots and lots of miles on this beautiful and efficient automobile.

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[Chargersfan81]

Nice post, I enjoyed reading it. Glad u like the EB.. I traded mine in since I wanted more power but enjoyed the EB while I had it.

How in the world did get 37 mpg?????!! That is, UNHEARD of! Lol

 

[pwguy]

...How in the world did get 37 mpg?????!! That is, UNHEARD of! Lol

I doubt if I did. That is what the display says. I have had quite a few cars now with mileage displays and all of them have shown higher than calculated MPG, usually by quite a bit. That display is about what the FRS would have shown on this trip.

I have only put gas in a couple of times so far but the display on the Mustang does seem to be closer than anything I have had yet, but it is still high. How much high is yet to be determined.

The trip has a pretty low average speed as can be calculated from the display. That is because a lot of it is on curvy, low speed limit, mountain roads. Offsetting that is the fact that a 6,000 foot elevation gain and loss is involved.

I think the MPG will be a bit better than the Scion, which is impressive since the Mustang is much heavier and has more than 50% higher maximum horsepower.

 

[Ecoboosted]

Welcome. Glad you like it also. I also traded mine for the GT. I can only get 91 octane where i live and never got the advertised mileage i was supposed to get. I use 87 in the GT and get almost the same mileage as the EB.

 

[Ground Speed]

Great write up and nice car! I love my EcoBoost Mustang and if I could do it all over again I'd make the same choice.

My only outwardly visual mod was the RTR upper and lower grille, so now the grill looks more like an intake and I'm down to just one pony emblem.

 

[StoplightWarrior]

Cool - sounds like you are the right buyer for the Ecoboost, and it is a hell of a car for what it is.

Enjoy it

 

[EddieGT]

What Proclip did you go with?

 

[SoCalTim]

Great write up!

 

[pwguy]

What Proclip did you go with?

Yep, expensive, and I resisted using the charging holder in the past, but it saves using two hands to plug in the phone every time I enter the car and two hands to unplug every time I exit. It also eliminates the dangling cord, as I was able to tuck that in so it is invisible except right at the holder and at the console bottom where it plugs in. I have the option to plug into the USB port or just power, which may come in handy when CarPlay comes along.

 

[pwguy]

2,000 Mile Report

A few days ago I took a fun twisty loop drive on rough roads. It was great. Handling was balanced and braking was sharp. 3/4 of the way through there is a short straight away, still on a rough road. Here is where I found a downside to the standard suspension. At a little over 100 mph things were really really floaty and body motion was all over the place. It made me pretty uncomfortable. I have driven this same stretch in the old Scion FRS which handled it much better.

Okay, not so good, but I will still take the standard suspension for comfort and will forgo control for that very rare occasion of high speeds on bad roads. Also, I will take having an actual spare tire over slightly more controlled handling in special circumstances.

Like every other car with a fuel consumption computer, this one was delivered with very optimistic calibration. I always go "hmmm" when I see people report fuel mileage without reporting how they arrived at the figure. Reading the fuel computer is almost never a valid method.

The great thing about this car and this forum is that now I know this mileage computer can be calibrated. I now have it within a few 10ths per fill up and will keep chipping away until it is right. From what I have seen, I will see mileage very close to the EPA rating and I think that is pretty amazing for a car of this power. Referring back to the FRS again, it is about the same mileage with a much heavier, more comfortable and more powerful automobile.

As I suspected, the cross traffic alert and blind spot alert does not fully work. I get the warning light but do not get the audio alert. It is a small enough thing that I am reluctant to have it addressed by the dealer. The rest of the car is pretty much perfect, and I have experience with cars coming back from the dealer with more defects than they arrived with.

I would prefer to have the auto locking function be controllable by me but haven't decided if I want the dealer to deactivate it.

The keyless locking doesn't make me happy. It works but there is not enough feedback. The little red LED is too dim for me to see when it is in direct light and the subtle click can not be heard by me in a noisy environment. It is possible to pull out the key fob and lock that way. Trouble and the obnoxious horn beep make me not want to do that.

Yep, the trunk closure is not well thought out. For now I close by pulling on the metal part to the right of the glossy black. May do one of the mods in the future.

I'm very happy with the Sync 3 and the "shaker pro" audio system. I find that I can use audio control to find destinations about 80% or 90% of the time, which is a huge improvement over anything I have seen before. I am pretty happy with the GPS mapping. I do miss an altitude display and the ability to enter a destination as lat/long coordinates, so the iPhone, is still necessary.

I find the audio clean and strong for normal music. I did find the other day that I had it all the way up, I think it was on ZZTop's LaGrange, but that was loud enough and the sound was still clean.

As addressed in another thread, I was not able to easily remove the outside emergency key slot cover, but eventually found a work around.

I'm certainly not a typical Mustang customer. I often hear the Mustang referred to as a "pony car" and as a "sports car". Many Mustangs are "pony cars" sort of by definition, but I would only apply that to the V8 models. I can't call any Mustang a "sports car", although I would call the FRS that even with its fixed roof and four (sorta) seats. It has to do with lightness and very quick agile handling, to me.

So, as I said before, I think of my four cylinder Mustang as a superb GT car, not in the way that most cars that say GT mean it, but it the sense of a grand touring car; something that is capable of high speed, comfortable and long range touring. I can't think of anything more suitable for that than this little turbo four that doesn't feel like it has a turbo or a four cylinder engine.

 

[timd38]

Nice write up!

My story is much shorter, modified the Corvette to the point that my wife would not ride in it, so I looked at a Camaro (never bothered to drive it) and bought a Red GT/CS.

 

[04SloSnake]

Nice write up!

My story is much shorter, modified the Corvette to the point that my wife would not ride in it, so I looked at a Camaro (never bothered to drive it) and bought a Red GT/CS.

I did that with my Cobra. It was a miscalculation on my part.

 

[TurboMetal]

Enjoyable write up and read for my sunday morning at work. Thanks for posting pwguy.

I see the EBM as a jack of all trades and great choice for a DD. This setup is the reason I have a mustang, it stopped me from getting a WRX instead.

 

[PRG3k]

The Ecoboost brought back memories of my old 3000GT I had back in the 90's and early 2000's. In fact I bought it because it evoked a lot of those same passions I had in regards to those 90's turbo coupes. That's why I bought it. Its a great overall car.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Very good post, although I only opened it in hopes to learn a practical way to get rid of the 5.0 badge on my Mustang. LoL

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