Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. After 6 days of ownership, my GT's first contact with an unwanted object. I was pulling into a typical suburban driveway last night, with a gutter dividing the street from the drive, and thought I was being careful and taking it slow and then SCRAAAAPE!!! My lower front bumper now has a case of curb rash. You do have to get down on your hands and knees to see it, but I know it is there.

This is my first car with a front end this low after years of driving trucks. Is this normal and do I just learn to live with it, or do you all have any other advice? Avoid all driveways with gutters? Attack gutters at an angle? I figure there is no point shelling out $$$ to have a bodyshop fix it if it is just going to happen again.

 

my driveway is on a hill and i have to pull all the smaller cars in on an angle. and to top it off my mom has a monster excursion. soo my plan of "attack" is when in about 10 minutes from home im gonna call and be like mom im 10 minutes from home, can u pull the truck out??....then im gonna slowely pull it in on an angle.......im gonna have it on the street more often than not.....but its gonna be crazy with my friends 02 GT he always parks on the opposite side of the street.....im gonna make him pull in back of me this way the path isnt too narrow

 

I feel for you buddy, I have a very steep driveway and when I exit it, I always have to take it almost millimiter by millimiter, trying to put the wheels where i feel the tarmac it's a little bit flatter than in other places...

I don't know what to say, I personally would probably have it repaired, unless I would feel it would happen again very soon.
Anyway sorry to hear that, again.

 

Ouch, Jim that stinks. I'm sure the same thing will happen to mine soon after I get it. I've been driving a lifted Jeep for the last five years and and I'm not used to worrying with little things like gutters, potholes, curbs, ditches, pedestrians, etc . Driving a car that is low to the ground is going to take some getting used to.

 

Happened to me on my first Mustang test drive (V-6!). I was heading down a road and decided to see how it handled a quick turn, so I made a looey into a business lot and on the way out......whoops....my wife turned to my 8 year old twins sitting in the back and asked them "do you like this car, because Dad just bought it" !!
I've been scoping my commute for hazards, knowing that I am going to have to be careful, cause I drive a truck too. If you can't see it and you're not selling it and it doesn' cause premature rust, why fix it ?

 

Compared to the front of my other car the Mustang is like a 4x4. Just kidding. I have a 2004.5 Jetta Gli that has a factory body kit with very low front valance. I am so used to driving my other car carefully because of the lower front valance that I rarely think about driving the Mustang any differently. I just go slow over speed bumps, into parking lots, and pull into the driveway on an angle.

 

You're lucky you don't have a Roush, it has about 3" ground clearance up front

 

I have been worried about this too. I go from the street to a curb gutter and then up a steep driveway. I'm concerned what will happen after I lower the car. You are talking about problems with the stock suspension, right?

 

Try backing it up if you can, maybe that will make a difference

 

I've been driving SUVs for that last 15 years but my old habits of watching out for problems with curbs and bumps came back to me right away since I learned the hard way to watch for curbs when I owned my 1988 conquest tsi.
The worst thing I ever did was back out and turn too soon and scraped the curb with the side of my airdam tore off the paint in about a 6inch gash - 2-3 inches wide... I was p.o'd.
Never again! (knock on wood)

 

you could try making some really small ramps to help with the severity of the drop on your driveway. it helped my friend alot.

 

Yup.

 

Good idea for some others who are worried about this. The problem is that it didn't happen on my driveway, but someone else's. Fortunately mine is no problem. I've seen homes with mini trench-plates covering their driveway gutters, but always assumed someone in a wheelchair lived there. Now I now another reason for them!

I'll have to practice the inching in/out at an angle thing (and remember to back in as Galaxie mentioned where I can't "attack" the curb at an angle) before I get mine fixed.

Thanks, guys, for the advice!