Summary of 2021 Ford Mustang Changes: There’s good news and bad news

[Norm Peterson]

A steep hill start is impossible (and poor driving technique) without a handbrake. Jumping from foot brake to gas and lifting the clutch you will roll backwards which in the UK is an instant fail of the driving test.

Rolling backward on a hill start would have been an instant fail on my driving test as well. It's been too long for me to remember everything about my driver's road test, but I doubt any of us used the p-brake.

U.S. Domestic cars of the time typically applied the p-brake by means of a foot pedal to the left of the clutch pedal (left hand drive, remember). Releasing was by hand but was an "all-the-way" release unless you modulated the release with your left foot, which on a hill start would already be busy operating the clutch pedal. These cars didn't have nice console-mounted handbrake levers like your XKEs and MGBs had back then, or what Mustangs have today.

That's how we had to learn, and there just wasn't any other way. So maybe you'll understand how I might feel that "impossible without help" is mostly in the driver's own mind here.


Norm

Sponsored

 

[Mr. Met]

 

[Bikeman315]

Originally, something about the 2021 Mustang.

Then..........

1. Active Cruise Control
2. Regular Cruise Control
3. Auto Stop Start
4. Piss
5. Poop

Please feel free to add anything I missed.

 

[13GetThere]

Since we're beating up on hill start assist now. I like it. I could and did live without it. I even taught my wife how to drive a manual, and start the car from a stop on a hill; without using the hand brake or rolling backwards. It was no big deal. But the cars we drove had mechanical linkages to the clutch, and it was easy to feel the clutch and pressure plate engage. It's harder to get that same feel in newer Mustangs, so HSA is nice to have. It's just something else that raises the price of the car that some don't need, some think it's a convenience, and some have to have it in order to be able to drive the car.

 

[RPDBlueMoon]

I wonder how thoughts on cruise control and acc differ by age, there should be a poll. When ever I'm in the car with my mother I always note she wont use cruise control. Her reasons are she doesn't know what to do with her foot and it wasn't in cars she learned to drive in. Always makes me laugh. I suspect its like any technology, on average newer generations are more willing to embrace it.

"To advocate replacing the horse, which had served man through centuries, marked one as an imbecile. Things are very different today. But in the ’90s, even though I had a successful bicycle business, and was building my first car in the privacy of the cellar in my home, I began to be pointed out as “the fool who is fiddling with a buggy that will run without being hitched to a horse.” My banker called on me to say: “Winton, I am disappointed in you.”

-Alexander Winton (sold first car in U.S.)
The Saturday Evening Post 1911

I am pretty young and I use cruise control/automatic cruise control all the time in my other car but I never use it in my GT350 unless its raining out. Its way too much fun to go through the gears on the highway. Cruise control isn't a deal breaker for me in sports cars imo because its fun to drive them. In other cars it sucks to not have it.

 

[sigintel]

Originally, something about the 2021 Mustang.

Then..........

1. Active Cruise Control
2. Regular Cruise Control
3. Auto Stop Start
4. Piss
5. Poop

Please feel free to add anything I missed.

Yall remember how superman saves lois?
If every mustang simultaneously does a burnout facing East at midnight Zulu on Sunday...
Maybe... just maybe... we can reverse time to go back and do 2020 over from scratch.

...since holidays botched, maybe we just skip ahead to 2021?

 

[Gregs24]

We have an induction hob because it is better than gas or an open fire. Both of the alternatives work but I don't burn my food / hand with the induction hob.

I'm not a young thing but do like new ideas and technology that is better than before. If everybody was satisfied with what they have the Human race would never move forward.

I'll leave you luddites to your reinforcing conversation on this one

 

[Interceptor]

I just spead read this post. So nothing new.....

 

[Norm Peterson]

... but I never use it in my GT350 unless its raining out.

In the rain is one of those times you should not be using CC. Whether or not it's the "active" kind.


Norm

 

[Gregs24]

In the rain is one of those times you should not be using CC. Whether or not it's the "active" kind.


Norm

In the old days yes, possibly in some circumstances it could contribute to a loss of control, but modern systems are capable of coping with wet weather and standing water. Never had any problems in the wet with any of my recent Ford's with CC or ACC.

 

[Norm Peterson]

We have an induction hob because it is better than gas or an open fire. Both of the alternatives work but I don't burn my food / hand with the induction hob.

I'm not a young thing but do like new ideas and technology that is better than before. If everybody was satisfied with what they have the Human race would never move forward.

I'll leave you luddites to your reinforcing conversation on this one

I'm afraid that "better than before" doesn't have any universal definition, but even if there was, keeping up with the neighbours (or trying to out-do them) by always chasing the latest tech wouldn't be it. Just being newer isn’t it, either; sometimes that only means ‘different’, which need not be for any functional improvement reason.

FWIW, my son might disagree with you about “induction hobs”. He spent 15 or 20 years in the restaurant business and I know he prefers gas over the alternatives. I did have to look up what you meant by 'hob', which to me is a machine tool used for cutting gears. I do have one question for you, though - are you OK with having to drop back to using an old-fashioned analog meat thermometer?



Norm

 

[Norm Peterson]

In the old days yes, possibly in some circumstances it could contribute to a loss of control, but modern systems are capable of coping with wet weather and standing water. Never had any problems in the wet with any of my recent Ford's with CC or ACC.

Just because you want to use it in the rain and haven't had a problem yet still doesn't make it right. It may have just made you lucky so far. This is not the place to be using that particular technology.

Boldface mine; wet normally qualifies as slippery . . .

WARNING: Do not use cruise control on winding roads, in heavy traffic or when the road surface is slippery.

WARNING: Do not use the adaptive cruise control when entering or leaving a highway, on roads with intersections or roundabouts or non-vehicular traffic or roads that are winding, slippery, unpaved, or steep slopes.

Norm

 

[Gregs24]

I'm afraid that "better than before" doesn't have any universal definition, but even if there was, keeping up with the neighbours (or trying to out-do them) by always chasing the latest tech wouldn't be it. Just being newer isn’t it, either; sometimes that only means ‘different’, which need not be for any functional improvement reason.

FWIW, my son might disagree with you about “induction hobs”. He spent 15 or 20 years in the restaurant business and I know he prefers gas over the alternatives. I did have to look up what you meant by 'hob', which to me is a machine tool used for cutting gears. I do have one question for you, though - are you OK with having to drop back to using an old-fashioned analog meat thermometer?



Norm

In a commercial kitchen gas is 'better' than induction but in the home the opposite is true in my experience. Both are better than a fire !

Anyway moving on to meat thermometers really is extreme thread drift so best left there !

We will have to agree to differ on other car technology, but the world will move on with or without you.

Sponsored