Why did you choose your S-550

[CrashOverride]

Congrats! That is a nice looking mustang. I dig the progressively darker racing stripes!

Sponsored

 

[dbegley]

Why did I get an S550 Mustang? I have been a Mustang fan for a long time. My first car was a '66 V8 coupe and currently own a '68 GT350. None of the Mustangs since the 70's appealed to me. But the S550 body style and IRS got my attentions. My summer car was a '97 Mitsubishi 3000 GT Vr4 which I loved dearly. But it was showing its age, using oil and parts were pretty hard to get & expensive. In a moment of inspiration I advertised my Vr4 and sold it to a guy in Las Vegas.

I read about the '17 S550 GT's, looked at Mustangs on the lot, drove a number of them. Loved that Coyote DOHC, 4 valves per cylinder, aluminum block, 435 HP, 400 ft lbs of torque. Decided I wanted:

• a loaded GT premium with a six speed, which I discovered are pretty rare,
• the Performance Pack,
• 401Equipment group,
• Decided I wanted a red one but a different red than my Shelby, it would be Ruby Red. With Ebony interior & power seats,
• Heated and ventilated seats,
• Nav package,
• BLIS cross Traffic Alert
• Adaptive Cruise
• Enhanced security package
• Reverse sensing system

The sales guys tried to find one already built but with no luck, in any color. So I ordered one late fall 2017. Probably the last GT Mustang ordered out of MN.

Things I am a bit disappointed about on this car?

• Lack of a rear spoiler. What was Ford thinking of deleting it on the PP cars? But I am not going to drill holes and add one.
• And why would the PP cars have the street performance suspension package with different springs? I will swap out those springs.
• Swapped out that clutch helper spring with that Steeda spring. I like to feel the clutch.
• Why on a $45k car Ford would leave that Hood prop. I added the hood lifts from Roush. (If I had to do this over I would order the Ford ones due to the installation process.)
• Replaced that resonator with an X pipe and
• Added Steeda jacking rails.

I might as well add things I am thinking of doing to it:

• Eventually I will opt for Ford's Performance packs. At least the 1 if not the 3
• Get rid of these summer tires and find some high performance all season tires.
• Rear louvers
• Side Louvers
• Lowering Springs - at the minimum the Street springs if not swap out for the track suspension. (anyone interested in the Ford PP package suspension if I swap to the track package?)
• Might swap out those chrome 5.0 and Running Mustang with black or NO replacements

Great car. Wish my wife liked it as much as I do. Apparently she was fond of my Vr4 and disappointed when it went away. It was getting too expensive to keep. Of course, what do I do but spend $45k on a new car.

 

[Sins550]

I wanted a new car that had some power and didn't cost me an arm and a leg. I had been driving a 1992 Integra for the last 13 years and wanted something "better". I originally wanted a Twin Turbo Mkiv Supra and seen a couple that I was interested in and tried to make a move on them but I didn't already have the check in hand..and with those cars, if you're not there within half an hour to a couple of hours of the listing, someone else will already have it in their driveway. So I sat back for a while, got everything I needed straight and started looking. After a while I really decided that I no longer wanted an older car like the Supra, especially coming from an old car already, even though it was my dream car throughout high school, watching/looking for all the videos I could (pre Youtube), I decided to let it go and look for something else (still JDM related) but realized how crazily priced everything else was. They were all either slow and cheap, moderately fast and very expensive or just straight TOO old. So I figured why not try something American? I looked at Camaros and the 392s and the Mustang mainly to see how they all performed and after doing some research I realized how much of a bargain the S550 was compared to the former two cars (and pretty much everything else), so I became hooked. Researching, watching videos, reading forums etc and fell in love with the Mustang again since the New Edge years and made it my goal to find one. Every day of searching and now I'm finally in a 2015 5.0 PP and couldn't be happier with my decision.

 

[Sins550]

Dbegley

Yeah I feel you on the spoiler thing. I didn't want to drill holes in mine either so I added 2 full length 3m tape along with the 3m tape already included on the track pack spoiler and also installed a zl1 addons wicker bill. I like the way it looks, feels like it's not even close to coming up and didn't have to drill into my trunk. It's been holding well.

 

[offroadkarter]

After getting priced out of the market on e39 m5's, I started looking into other options for something new to DD that was fun (DD'ing a 96 lifted Bronco for 5 years was getting old). I had looked into anything from C5Z's, 03/04 cobras, E90 M3's, and 11-12 GT500's.

Ultimately I decided I wanted a new car with a warranty so I wouldn't have to worry about fixing anything myself (wow how naive that thought was).

I decided to look into the S550's, my my local dealer had a Stage 2 Roush based off the PP GT so I went to test drive it. I figured if I didn't like the car, a 11-12 GT500 would be my fallback plan.

Seemed to work out, I was also interested in trying the Coyote V8 since I've only messed around with the DOHC 4.6 and was looking to try something new.

I was going to order a 17 but my dealer found me a 16 nearby with the options I wanted and a few others. Did a dealer trade and got the car.

24hrs after ownership, I was driving with my father from North NJ to Southern MD to meet up with the rest of my family that had gone down prior. The first moment I hit the highway and got up to speed, I realized I had made a mistake.

Driveline vibration!

When I test drove the car before, I never got it over 50 due to traffic and the roads we were on, at the time I didn't know this was such a widespread issue with these cars. To this day I'm still battling the dealer over this and I'll be calling ford customer service come spring to try and escalate to a field service engineer before the warranty ends this july.

Between the driveline vibration and the general poor build quality (interior rattles, body panel fitment), honestly I wish I just said screw it and bought a 03/04 cobra or 11/12 GT500. The worst part is, I went out and got something else because at the time, the e39 m5 market spiked in price and I wasn't going to drop 20 grand on a 100k + mile 15 year old German car. Last April I ended up picking up a 00 M5 anyways which I've enjoyed driving so much, I put 9000 miles on it from April til now, compared to about 3000 miles on the mustang. I even told my service adviser at my dealer straight up that my 18 year old German car is built better and has been more reliable for me than my mustang.

We'll see what 2019 holds, if they end up fixing the driveline issue with a new rear end or something I'll be very happy, but I have a feeling I'm going to have to fix this myself, I'm used to trying to re-engineer Ford's shortcomings at this point.

Sponsored