New car paranoia?

[Zrussian13]

I'm guilty! I have driven mine in the rain twice since last year When weather is bad I just take the explorer. Less of a chance for some bone head to hit it. My GT/CS does live outside for now so it does get wet. I felt guilty the other day driving in to work when a 2008 Shelby GT500KR turned in front of me! He was driving it in the rain!

My low mount turbos love rainy days and handle it surprisingly well. It's hard staying out of boost though....

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[Toretto]

I'm guilty and fall into the bold 100%, as my Mustang is one of the fair weather weekend toys. I need my truck on a daily basis, but you better believe I'd rather drive the Mustang to work far, far more often than I do. Lack of use was one of many factors in talking myself out of bumping to a GT500. I don't use what I have enough (currently at under 13K miles), so why bother buying another Shelby I'll drive even less due to paranoia?

I don't and won't take the Mustang to a major store where it will sit in a lot any length of time, but it often gets the nod for a quick trip to a drive through or the beer store. It's somewhat known as the beer run car around the house.

Exactly, and I respect your rationale with regards to your stang usage.

I, on the other hand, lives a quarter mile at a time

 

[TMustang66]

"These cars are meant to be driven", so enjoy the hell out of all of it - not just the look of it when it is all clean" - Carroll Shelby

 

[Zrussian13]

Exactly, and I respect your rationale with regards to your stang usage.

I, on the other hand, lives a quarter mile at a time

For those 10 seconds or less I'm free.

 

[MACHtobers Very Own]

I think you need to find a happy medium or since it's your car and only your car what works for you

-I drive mine on weekends
-when it's nice and I don't have to travel to 19 places for work.
-not winter (sorry it snows where I live)

Yeah that's not the daily driver approach but I drive the car. It's parked outside and gets rained on. It's ok.

I met a guy who had a very verynice exotic car and he admitted he drove it twice in a year. It made him
Happy and it ain't trickin if you got it.

Enjoy it. Whatever that means to you.

 

[xSouthSyde]

People like to obsess over things. Its not something I personally get, but its something a lot of people do.

Especially consider a lot of people save up for years to be able to afford something like this. The thought of having their prized possession break or wear out is too much.

I see people who don't take their cars out in the rain, they recoil at the thought of driving in the winter. Consider the car "worn out" at 40k miles. I see posts regularly of people who own a stang for 4+ years and never crack 10k miles. They never experience the true capability of the car because all they do is drive down to the local DQ once a week in the summers. They spend their whole life suffering in a Nissan Altima, waiting for the day they can finally have their dream car, and when they finally get it, they'd rather continue driving their old Altima for fear of damaging their holy grail car.

If that's what they like then that's fine, me personally, I intend to drive my car until the wheels fall off. Every day, rain, snow, ice.

I used to be like the person you described PERFECTLY!
I used to drive a $2000 car 6 days a week and have my $70,000 car in the garage that I would drive once a week or once a fortnight.
I think this was because my family never had nice cars growing up and once I was able to save up to afford one, I was so protective of it that I would be almost to scared to drive it. (The days I did drive it, I wasn’t being shy with it).
Now I’m a little bit older and I daily my Mustang, and it puts a smile on my face every time I get into the drivers seat after work.
I still stress over where I park my car and who I park next to but it’s one step at a time for me.

 

[Duece McCracken]

It's just a Mustang. Drive the thing.

There's 3 factors that deter me from my "spirited commute" in my E85 Bullitt.

1.Snow
2. Below 32 degrees
3. Salt on the roads

Besides that, it's game on.

MP4S do acceptable down to freezing, and are awesome in the rain.

Everyone is like " OMG, can't believe you took the Mustang in, they are terrible in the rain!"

Nope, drivers are terrible in the rain, not the car. Good tires, good maint, good habits, no problems.

Go out and get those smiles per gallon. No sense in it getting dust or being paranoid.

 

[Rapid Red]

For those 10 seconds or less I'm free.

I like a road course, like the chase, I get the blast-off and have experienced it. It being like a gunfight at high noon.

 

[SINBUSTER007]

People like to obsess over things. Its not something I personally get, but its something a lot of people do.

Especially consider a lot of people save up for years to be able to afford something like this. The thought of having their prized possession break or wear out is too much.

I see people who don't take their cars out in the rain, they recoil at the thought of driving in the winter. Consider the car "worn out" at 40k miles. I see posts regularly of people who own a stang for 4+ years and never crack 10k miles. They never experience the true capability of the car because all they do is drive down to the local DQ once a week in the summers. They spend their whole life suffering in a Nissan Altima, waiting for the day they can finally have their dream car, and when they finally get it, they'd rather continue driving their old Altima for fear of damaging their holy grail car.

If that's what they like then that's fine, me personally, I intend to drive my car until the wheels fall off. Every day, rain, snow, ice.

yup one of these people your describing also, but i dont go to the DQ, i went to the cruise-in's near me on saturdays, and i dont drive a Nissan....i drive a ford edge ST (performance vehicle), and soon to be bronco sport (slightly less performace vehicle).... also it is my "personal" time away from the family. i enjoy it just like everyone else does in theirs.... just because i have a nice car and (expensive) one, doesnt mean i have to drive it like i stole it....
also im a bit of old school where you actually value your money, and buy nice things that you like and then take care of them and not destroy the crap out of them....
our society today is a throw away generation, you get something and when the newer model comes out you throw it away and buy another new one...no matter the cost.
i make things last for decades, not years.... why this country has a problem with Debt!
if that makes me a bad guy then i am the baddest guy around!
and i dont have a big house, or filthy rich, i have a family with 2 kids, and 5 cars. live in a 1,200 sq ft house and we are doing just fine.

 

[ice445]

I could be dead tomorrow, and if I could regret something, it would probably be not driving the Mustang more. Luckily in my case, I drive it pretty much every day from March to early November. I'm just about to hit 20,000 miles in 3 years. I do park it up for the winter and switch to my beater, but that's mostly because salt makes everything look bad underneath eventually. Silly, I know, but this is my first new car so I'm enjoying that aspect of how clean the steel is underneath.

The funny thing is dings and rock chips (of which these cars attract like crazy) don't bother me in the slightest, it's just a fact of life when you're enjoying the damn thing. I do value my beater though, there's something amazing about having a car that you can just....beat on, lol. Throw dirty shit in the trunk, park up front at the grocery store, drive behind the dump trucks throwing rocks without a care in the world, etc. I'll always have a car like that since beyond the practical value of not having to give a shit, it keeps my mechanic skills up to par now and then. I'd hate for that book of knowledge to close up on me....

 

[MCS]

Speaking personally I had every opportunity growing up. Very fortunate. I work pretty hard and life could have turned out very different for me. Yes, I'm the guy that parks 9 counties over away from the peasants that drive Dodges (fun poke here) and walks to the grocery store. Yes, I'm the guy who washes her regularly and keeps her in as close to shape as I can like when she rolled off the lot.

That being said I'm also the guy who purchased a 15k supercharger kit and took it to the dealership because of warranty and Ford and Roush have a partnership. I'm also the guy who is stressing the F out because the installation isn't going smoothly and now the car keeps stalling at stop lights and nobody seems to know why.

We obsess about the things we can't control. My fate is in someone else's hands.

 

[Vlad Soare]

MP4S do acceptable down to freezing, and are awesome in the rain.

I wouldn't say down to freezing. In my experience they work normally down to about 50 °F, after which their performance degrades rapidly. At 41 °F and below they have almost no grip.
Below 44 °F it's winter tires for me.

Everyone is like " OMG, can't believe you took the Mustang in, they are terrible in the rain!"

Nope, drivers are terrible in the rain, not the car. Good tires, good maint, good habits, no problems.

True. Actually, I would phrase this a bit differently. Mustangs are terribly fun in the rain.
Modern cars, with their wide tires and astronomical amounts of grip, tend to kill the fun. You need very high speeds to unsettle them, much higher than is practical (and safe) on public roads. With PS4S on hot dry tarmac I can't get the rear wheels to spin at legal speeds to save my life. Whereas in the rain... a bit of throttle at the right time, with the right amount of steering, will cause it to wag its tail, which I really love.
Rain is fun. Snow... even more so.

 

[Gfswindle]

I daily my vehicles through the snow, ice, rain, and sunshine. Heck my first real sports car which was a 95 camaro v6 I had during HS went off road through fields and down creek bank rock trails regularly to get to local hang out spots, I worshipped that car as a teenager and it was washed/waxed on a weekend basis. Rock chips, etc are just badges of honor to be worn as a sign that you enjoy driving a vehicle. I went to a local cars & coffee awhile back and a lambo was there and it was covered in road grime and had alot of rock chips. I was proud of the owner because you could tell it was driven and enjoyed.

 

[wynand32]

Along these lines of paranoia and anal retentiveness, my wife pointed out to me after a walk last night that the windshield on the right edge isn't as inset as on the left. It's flush with the lip while on the left it's about a centimeter inset.

I know it doesn't matter, but now it's bugging me. I asked her why exactly she pointed it out to me.

 

[Qcman17]

My car is not a daily driver and is my fun car. I have about 18000 miles on it in 3.5 years and really love this car. I do take very good care of it, park it during the winter & park it far away from the idiots.. But I do enjoy it regularly and drive it every chance I get.

I also plan to keep it for a long time too so I'm good with how I'm using it. I don't sweat the noises this thing makes like so many on here,

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