Good Morning!

I've had my 2013 Mustang GT Premium in Race Red with Brick Red for a little more than two weeks now. I've put nearly 1000 miles on the car, and I have a few observations I'd like to report.

First, let me say that I enjoyed my 2005 GT a great deal, but what that car gave me was a "warm fuzzy." I did my routine maintenance, kept it nearly bone-stock, and it ran. Best car I ever traded-in by a long shot.

Now for the new. I find that this car handles extremely well, compared to previous and I suspect a good part of this owes to the GT Track Package. The car seems noticably flatter through turns, and it takes the turns such that I have more confidence. The Brembo brakes make a huge difference in stopping performance, and I am quite satisfied with the whoa this Mustang will exert to arrest its giddyup. I couldn't be much more satisfied with these aspects.

I love how the car looks and sounds. I know there are those who think the factory mufflers are too quiet, but I actually like the understated note. I've heard a couple with Borla and Roush exhausts, and while either set-up sings a sweet song, I also like the baseline. The one exhaust set-up I've heard for these cars that I really like is the Cervini side exhaust, but that's another matter altogether. I like it as it is.

As you may have noted, I added the Laguna Seca wheels in red to the car before I officially took delivery of it. Therefore, I can speak to how the Track Pack wheels may be different, although I've decided to put some all seasons on them for the wet months here in Texas, and keep the Pirelli Corsas on the rears indoors during the cooler season, per manufacturer recommendations.

I love the way the car looks, but for a few minor details. The things I do not like about this car are similar to the reasons I wouldn't buy the 10-12 car. I didn't like all of the grey plastic moldings around the bottom of the cars. This year, they went back to a body-colored skirt on the sides, and most of the grey plastic is gone from both the front and back ends. It's on the back end that I remain annoyed. The two piece of grey plastic (the one in the inset for the license plate, and the piece on the difuser are terrible dirt collectors. The tail-lights and the black-out panel on the decklid are dust magnets, but I can live with that, but the two grey plastic pieces on the bumper are just visually unappealing as hell, IMO. I'm hoping some enterprising aftermarket outfit will come up with pieces to replace these that will match the black-out panel, or something.

I love the headlights and foglights. One of the other things I hadn't liked about the 10-12 cars is how the GT grill lights are set in such a way as to have the top 10-15% of the light obscured. This car "corrects" that, and I like the way these sit.

I love the glass roof. In the evenings, or mornings, I open the shade and it makes for a nice visual impression. I like the seating, although I suspect I might have liked the feel of the Recaros a bit more, but I wouldn't have been able to get those in Brick Red. (Pity, as that's the only reason I didn't go with the Recaros.)

I'm a long legged guy, and I'm comfortable in the car, (I'm 6'3") but truth be told, I could just as well do a rear seat delete and be fine with it because nobody's EVER going to sit behind me in that car unless they are a literal stick-figure.

I am also adjusting to the louvers on the quarter glass. They virtually eliminate the already low visibility through there, and there are a few places where I've had to learn to lean way forward and to the right because the set of the intersection is at roughly 45 degree to the roadway I'm crossing. I may ultimately take them off, but I'm giving them some time to grow on me.

I like the looks of the car. Some have mentioned not liking the nose piece in front of the hood, but I actually like it. The extractors on the hood are a nice touch, and I like the pedastal spoiler.

I didn't buy the rear camera, and I didn't get the electronics package, but I must say I like the Sync feature. The first two days, trying to learn its commands and what it wanted from me, there was one moment of frustration where I think I yelled "STFU" when it told me for the third time that it didn't understand, and was going through the list of help menu options for the third time. When I yelled at it, it dialed Ford Customer service...LOL!

Now that I know what she wants to hear from me, she and I get along famously. It's just like being married!

Speaking of loud sounds, I must say that the Shaker Pro is an improvement over the Shaker 1000 systems I've heard. (My previous '05 GT had the shaker 500, so no real comparison there.) It handles the bass much more happily, and it sounds pretty good even when at full volume, but like others here, I am happier listening to the sweet notes of the engine most of the time. I also found that since this car drives differently, keeping the radio off has helped me learn the sounds the engine makes, and I've improved my driving of the car by listening to it closely.

Speaking of gears, I had a minor malfunction with the clutch yesterday evening. I've actually been pretty easy on the car so early in its service life, and have only really gotten on it a time or two(or three ) but last evening, I decided since my wife was suffering what I will now term "Coyote Envy," I'd let her drive the car a little bit. She's a good driver, and she grew up in a country where most cars were equipped with manual transmissions, and she likes a manual better except in traffic jams, and she's had more recent refresher training with her 2013 V6 car.

So I took her to a quiet strip of less-traveled road with a decent surface, and I tried to show her where she ought to shift, RPM-wise, and what to look for with the gears, and so on. I did a couple of quick Track-App 0-60 timings just to show her that feature, and then we switched seats. She did fine, and loved the acceleration of the car, but mind you, we weren't exactly launching for a drag-race or something, and as we turned around, she went to shift up and she said "huh?" and I said "what?" and she said "that was weird...the clutch. It was like the clutch pedal didn't come back up. Then it did."

I told her to pull over, and we switched back around, and the devil in me said to her: "Great, you broke my car in half-dozen shifts..."

So I get in the seat, we buckle up, I apply the clutch, and all seems normal, and I thought, "nah, it's just different than her V6 and it was a perception thing or something," but I got after it a little accelerating along and it seemed okay, so I turned around again, and decided to just check it out. I accelerated rapidly, the 1-2 shift went fine, and the 2-3 shift went fine, and the 3-4 shift also went fine, but then I noticed the clutch pedal had not returned all the way. I immediately pushed it to the floor, and pulled the car out of gear, and coasted, but the pedal was like 1-1/2-2 inches off the floor without my foot near it. I pulled over onto the shoulder, and stopped, and about that time, the pedal returned. I worked the pedal down and up about a half-dozen times, and it seemed normal again.

This morning, I drove it to work in somewhat spirited fashion, and it seemed fine. No hint of the problem of last night. I decided to do a search of this forum, and bingo, some of you have reported a similar problem.

Let me state that I don't seem to be having a transmission problem. I'm not getting any grinding or anything like that. This seems solely related to the clutch/clutch pedal.

I'm not sure what to make of the clutch issue. I've read a number of things, and I'm a little confused as to what is actually causing the trouble. It's not like I'm being hard on the car. It's something that seems to be a nuisance at the moment, and only under certain conditions I haven't tried to repeat (until I can learn about it.)

I am sure some of you will offer advice, but I just wanted to give you my 1K impressions of the car. It's a heckuva ride, and I do a lot of smiling when I'm in it.

You can see pics of the car in my album, here. Thanks for the welcome everybody, and if you have some idea where I should start with this clutch 'issue', please let me know.

Thanks!

Mark

 

How much did the Laguna wheels cost? Those didn't seem to be an option when I ordered my 2012 GT.

 

It's a beautiful car Mark. Good write up also. The Wifey's has just turned over 1000 miles also. She loves it, and I really enjoy it myself. It is quite different than the 2010 GT she previously owned.

 

ConnManX, They weren't an option. I ordered the car, purchased the wheels and tires separately, and had them mounted when the car arrived, while they did the dealer prep and the window tinting. The wheels are pricey.

 

Wanted33, thanks! The wife is loving hers too. (330 of the miles on mine were spent going to get hers.) We ran nose to tail once we cleared a traffic jam in Fort Worth for the remaining distance(two hours or so.) Race Red closely followed by Deep Impact Blue down the Interstate.

I've been doing some research on my little incident yesterday evening. From what I've been reading, this sounds a whole lot like the "clutch stayout issue" reported on the initial 5.0 cars for the 2011 model year. The thing is, I thought they fixed that issue by changing the pedal spring arrangement, or something. Surely that fix was applied to a '13 car??? Oh well, more research. I may swing by and talk to my service guy this evening.

 

My 13 seems to do something similar to your car, when driving hard the clutch only springs up maybe half way it feels... Its an odd feeling

 

Steve, that's it, exactly, like the pedal isn't returning all the way, or even probably most of the way, but it only happens when at higher RPMs(I wouldn't even call it driving 'hard' but more 'briskly - I baby this thing too much to call anything I do "driving hard.") It really seems a good deal like the "Clutch Stayout Issue" I've seen described elsewhere in other threads on the 2011 cars, but I thought that was fixed. I'm going to investigate some more. Thx. I didn't want to believe I was nuts, but if I am, I know I have company...LOL

 

Holy wordage. I'd hate to read the 5,000 mile evaluation.

 

Sorry, next time I'll try to stick to short grunts and whistles, but so as to overcome your frustration with the lengthiness, let me summarize:

"Ooooh... Aaaah... Like it! Small oopsey... Still like it."

Better?

 

Hilarious

 

Thank you sir!

 

Lol, I thought the same thing. I need an optometrist now after reading it on DROID.

 

Come on MM, is it my fault you aren't using a proper computer?

As I said to Tony above, "ooooh.... Ahhhh..." Those are the main points.

 

Sounds like a different problem than on the early 11' , like mine. The problem we had
was under high rpm shifts (above 6200) the pedal would stay on the floor until rpms dropped then would fully return. It did not come up an inch or two, it stayed all the way down.
The TSB changed to a different assembly and cured it. I beolieve it waas the GT500 pedal.

 

Postalworker, thanks, and I agree, it sounds a little different, but only a little. There are at least two of us who have had it happen now, so I'm not willing to say it's in my head just yet. It was pretty distinct.

Thanks!

Mark

 

Mark, thanks for the great review. It must have taken a long time to write. It gave me alot of great insight as I will be going from a 2010 GT to the 2013 GT.

Joe C

 

I'm actually starting to have the same issue with my 2012. It only seems to happen in spirited driving moments. I've been to the drag strip a couple of times but never had it happen there. Only other issue for me is getting it into 3rd gear during WoT.

 

hmm, I thought I was just imagining things but that clutch pedal thing happened to me a few times as well.

 

Jocatch, thanks, no, it's just that I'm a wordy SOB, as others have noted. You're going to love it.

D00m3dHitM4n,

I've never raced mine, on or off track. I figure these things probably keep enough data that such things would be used to void a warranty or some such, so I actually stay on the tame side. Race? No. Aggressive? No. Spirited? Occasionally. Brisk? More the case. I experienced the issue in something between brisk and spirited. The research I'm running into isn't really suggestive of a pedal problem. More, it looks like something either with the hydraulic mechanism or maybe the clutches themselves.

Not sure. Still studying. Thanks!

 

That's not good. I say that not just because of the problem itself, but now that's three 2013s. I'll be curious to see if any of our other 2013 GT folks start to report similar. Again, I've had no gearbox issues that I've detected. My problem has been entirely this weird cluth condition. I was worried I would talk to my service manager and be unable to reproduce it, but it may be he's already heard of this. Again, it could also be an anomoly. I'm not inclined to rush to throw Ford over a cliff. The car is phenomenal in all other respects, and this only happened to me once(twice if you count the wife a minute or less before.) I'm hoping it's something that is related to the newness of the car. I guess we'll see.

Thanks!

Mark