300A GT 6MT test drive

[highvoltage]

The Tariff's are on top of spot prices??? Ford is going to buy at spot or some agreed upon markup from spot which has NOTHING to do with a Tariff. The Tarif just makes the metal from China less appealing..

yup buy American and you don’t get the tariffs. All part of bringing jobs and wealth back to America instead of sending it to China.

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[djcwardog]

I drove a red 401A first, then bought my 300A. They make so much standard in these cars that I decided to forego the usual upgrades and focus on a great engine. I’ll eventually do a custom audio system. This one has the Active Valve Exhaust (AVE). Only other option was the 19” wheels. I love the vapor blue paint and black/slate gray cloth interior. I prefer the look of two separate screens instead of one large wrap-around screen. I’ve got my seat adjusted where I want it so I don’t miss the electronic seat buttons.

 

[highvoltage]

I drove a red 401A first, then bought my 300A. They make so much standard in these cars that I decided to forego the usual upgrades and focus on a great engine. I’ll eventually do a custom audio system. This one has the Active Valve Exhaust (AVE). Only other option was the 19” wheels. I love the vapor blue paint and black/slate gray cloth interior. I prefer the look of two separate screens instead of one large wrap-around screen. I’ve got my seat adjusted where I want it so I don’t miss the electronic seat buttons.

you sure that’s not a 301a? Thought the 300a was just basic seats without the vinyl on the sides? Do you have interior lighting?

 

[Q6543]

Looks awesome, that’s 300a, there is no vinyl all cloth.

 

[wilkinda65]

<$300/mo lease and $5000 gas card.

But they would have to replace the diff first. I'm not putting up with that transmission ratio without a fight even if the car was free. Did Ford screw with the trans ratios? I didn't turn anything up in a quick search.

If you're gonna "sin", sin BIG, or why bother? They should have brought the D5 ratios back if they were going to saddle the car with the 3.55 and a hefty sin tax. THAT would have been a compelling factor in raising the status of S650 in the 'want' category.

If I had to *buy* the car, it would have to come with the EB hood - the GT vents are useless and an eyesore to boot. Or replace with the big-ass TrackLouvers or GT500 style and get some actual cooling. Typical Ford, all show and no go. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing RIGHT! Your momma should have taught you that when you were eight.

And I would also look good and hard at replacing the entire front bumper with one from the S550. Or at least heavily influenced by that design ethos instead of the obscene amount of pointless openings festooned with black plastic as an afterthought. At the bare minimum I would repaint the upper grill's lower band in body color or in some kind of contrast (eg. white on yellow car?) to make it palatable.

That tuner bumper while ghastly in its own right, has the right idea.


How is fake leather seating going to fix the suspension, the rear diff ratio, or the badly conceived instrument panel and its displayed content? Opensource it, let me design a UI that doesn't suck, I'll happily tackle it.

The other car was a vert. I don't like verts and I have no frame of reference. So it would be pointless to spend time in one.

I already have a car with Ford "premium" interior. It's a joke. For the up-charge the least they could have done is contract it out to Katzkin and use some of the better materials.

I'm a specialist in base trim cars. 300A, 100A, 101A, except for the latest 200A which I had to get since I wanted the Brittany color. I'll happily sit on a seat covered in grandma's old couch cloth if the seat is contoured correctly, the bolsters effective, and it doesn't also smell of long-hair cats (to which I'm allergic).


They absolutely should. Why are executives rewarding failure? It's been one disastrous product rollout after another. The software team or at least the art department needs their clocks cleaned. And we are all familiar with the ahem quality of the assembly floor and of the suppliers.

When they changed the front bumper on the S550 to its last configuration is when I was turned off by it. Unless it was the Mach1 or GT500 it was a no go for me.

 

[Mikepol2]

after the above, I'm quite done with German engineered stupidity. Ford by comparison is a jewel of enlightened thought, even if Detroit engineering graduates can't manage to paint a car properly or butt 2 pieces of sheet metal together without a 6mm gap.

For many years I had a pickup for a daily and a Mustang for fun. About 10 years ago I experimented with one car to cover both needs and bought a 2011 Audi S4. Worst 18 months of my life. 3 days in the shop to replace the THERMOSTAT??!! Oh, because you have to remove the supercharger to get at it!? Almost everything that needed repairs was paid under warranty but the constant trips to the dealer (which was not nearly as convenient as the Ford dealers on every block) were exhausting.

The performance was OK, not great, and like most German cars the experience was vanilla, not nearly as charismatic as a Mustang. Seats were gorgeous but hard as a rock. And of course I lost all the utility of having a pickup truck (which I had vastly underappreciated until I didn't have one anymore).

Threw in the towel and found a great deal on a new Silverado for $14K off sticker at a little Chevy dealer about 3 hours away. Emerged from a wooded area at the top of a hill and saw the dealer down in the valley. As I start down the hill the "low oil" light comes on the dash. Rrrrrgh! And of course it took "special" Audi oil which the mom and pop gas station didn't have so I put in a quart of generic 10W-30 but wait... no dipstick, all electronic, so I had to drive around for 30 minutes within sight of the dealer adding oil and waiting for the light to go out. It was like the car was giving me a big fat middle finger for a goodbye present.

Have driven plenty of Audis, BMWs, and Mercedes. Never again will I own one.

 

[djcwardog]

Looks awesome, that’s 300a, there is no vinyl all cloth.

Yes indeed, the seats are all cloth, as are those inserts on the door panels. Notice that there is no e-brake (drift?) handle either, just a small switch. Guess I’ll have to drift in my Godzilla F250SD! Uh, no…. It also seems like they left off some of that chrome trim around bezels, etc. More of a muted look, I like it!

 

[highvoltage]

Looks awesome, that’s 300a, there is no vinyl all cloth.

Looks kinda like it in the pics but whatever not a big deal

 

[highvoltage]

Yes indeed, the seats are all cloth, as are those inserts on the door panels. Notice that there is no e-brake (drift?) handle either, just a small switch. Guess I’ll have to drift in my Godzilla F250SD! Uh, no…. It also seems like they left off some of that chrome trim around bezels, etc. More of a muted look, I like it!

Only ones that get an ebrake handle are PP and DH. Just Premium and 301a GTs are the same way which sucks. I miss having an ebrake.

 

[Mikepol2]

don't own a sword. Now a Klingon Bat'leth on the other hand...

"Mah! Cho-eee chu!"

(In my best Commander Kruge accent )

 

[P2]

As I was reading through this thread, there was one thing that kept coming to mind. What's the OP's point here? His motivation? He trashes the Mustang and yet he's owned so many of them?! That's a head scratcher! ...and then I ran across this comment...

don't own a sword. Now a Klingon Bat'leth on the other hand...

...Tells me everything I need to know about the OP and paints a very telling picture... IMHO.

 

[Instant Action]

For many years I had a pickup for a daily and a Mustang for fun. About 10 years ago I experimented with one car to cover both needs and bought a 2011 Audi S4. Worst 18 months of my life. 3 days in the shop to replace the THERMOSTAT??!! Oh, because you have to remove the supercharger to get at it!? Almost everything that needed repairs was paid under warranty but the constant trips to the dealer (which was not nearly as convenient as the Ford dealers on every block) were exhausting.

The performance was OK, not great, and like most German cars the experience was vanilla, not nearly as charismatic as a Mustang. Seats were gorgeous but hard as a rock. And of course I lost all the utility of having a pickup truck (which I had vastly underappreciated until I didn't have one anymore).

Threw in the towel and found a great deal on a new Silverado for $14K off sticker at a little Chevy dealer about 3 hours away. Emerged from a wooded area at the top of a hill and saw the dealer down in the valley. As I start down the hill the "low oil" light comes on the dash. Rrrrrgh! And of course it took "special" Audi oil which the mom and pop gas station didn't have so I put in a quart of generic 10W-30 but wait... no dipstick, all electronic, so I had to drive around for 30 minutes within sight of the dealer adding oil and waiting for the light to go out. It was like the car was giving me a big fat middle finger for a goodbye present.

Have driven plenty of Audis, BMWs, and Mercedes. Never again will I own one.

Watch the YouTube channel I do cars and you will see how utterly complex German car engines are to repair. The Coyote is a marvel of simplicity compared to them. Mercedes seem to be the best built followed by BMW and then Audi last. Sold my MB GLC 63S a few months ago after a series of small problems and now I’m happy I did seeing how much they had to remove to fix just an oil pan leak. Then the front diff went too all at 15,000 miles. I’ve owned at least one of the German big 3 since the early ‘70s and have now sworn them off after watching their engines torn down over and over.

 

[horned-toad]

What's the OP's point here?

to review the S650 from a S550 owner's point of view. That should have been self-evident. And no, I don't own a klingon sward. Geez what kind of loser do you think I am?

Since you're in VA we could meet up.

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