S550 Character - Fun?

[bennyboysvuk]

I currently drive an M135i and it's way too competent to be any fun at normal road speeds. The engine is barely audible at all and the DSC systems require a long press of a button to turn off.

I've not driven the S550 Mustang, but I wonder if it is more likely to be fun without having to be driven at high speed to get kicks. I guess for me, character could be defined as:

A bit of a handful exiting tighter corners.
Lots of engine noise entering the cabin - ie the V8 must always be audible, even at tickover or when cruising at 45mph following other traffic.
Generally more interesting to drive than a modern BMW

And not so much character, but something I deem as important - Easy to turn off the TC. Is it a single touch of the button or a long (3 second) press to turn it off?

[Gibbo205]

Hi there

I've driven M135i and found it a rather boring car, capable yes but very boring especially if its the AUTO one, just does everything with no fuss.

The Mustang out the box is a lot more playful even at legal speeds, but not as capable as the M135i unless your a very capable car. But the Mustang's handling can be transformed for around £2000 at which point I'd rate it better than the M135i in the dry and it still keeps the fun factor at legal speeds but is a lot more controllable.

In the wet though even with best suspension and tyres, the handling is still behind European rivals, but if your reasonably handy behind a wheel you will have great fun in the wet.

[bennyboysvuk]

Gibbo205 said:

Hi there

I've driven M135i and found it a rather boring car, capable yes but very boring especially if its the AUTO one, just does everything with no fuss.

The Mustang out the box is a lot more playful even at legal speeds, but not as capable as the M135i unless your a very capable car. But the Mustang's handling can be transformed for around £2000 at which point I'd rate it better than the M135i in the dry and it still keeps the fun factor at legal speeds but is a lot more controllable.

In the wet though even with best suspension and tyres, the handling is still behind European rivals, but if your reasonably handy behind a wheel you will have great fun in the wet.

I'm much happier with DSC off and love a bit of drifting so I much prefer a car to have low limits and friendly over the grip limit behaviour. Wet weather driving in the Mustang sounds like fun!

The M135i is just capable and mundane. I long for a car with more verve to it that actually feels a bit more organic. All the new BMW stuff feels a bit electric. ie. more like the engines are merely for propelling the car and should be neither seen or heard.

[Gibbo205]

bennyboysvuk said:

I'm much happier with DSC off and love a bit of drifting so I much prefer a car to have low limits and friendly over the grip limit behaviour. Wet weather driving in the Mustang sounds like fun!

The M135i is just capable and mundane. I long for a car with more verve to it that actually feels a bit more organic. All the new BMW stuff feels a bit electric. ie. more like the engines are merely for propelling the car and should be neither seen or heard.

Modern BMW do not interest me any more, I am an ex CSL owner, the best M car they ever built and still own a track ready E46 M3.

Drive a Mustang, its a lot of fun, not quite as easy to drift but once your used to it, fine.

[300bhp/ton]

bennyboysvuk said:

I currently drive an M135i and it's way too competent to be any fun at normal road speeds. The engine is barely audible at all and the DSC systems require a long press of a button to turn off.

I've not driven the S550 Mustang, but I wonder if it is more likely to be fun without having to be driven at high speed to get kicks. I guess for me, character could be defined as:

A bit of a handful exiting tighter corners.
Lots of engine noise entering the cabin - ie the V8 must always be audible, even at tickover or when cruising at 45mph following other traffic.
Generally more interesting to drive than a modern BMW

And not so much character, but something I deem as important - Easy to turn off the TC. Is it a single touch of the button or a long (3 second) press to turn it off?

I haven't driven a rhd UK example yet. But I did do over 1850 miles in a LHD 2.3T in Florida.

I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. If looking on paper or at the website I'd want a V8 manual coupe. But I was driving the auto 2.3 turbo convertible.

However it turned out to be bloody brilliant. The convertible might not look as good as the coupe from the outside, but when driving it, you don't know this, nor care. And putting the roof down is just such an awesome thing from a sense of occasion point of view.


The 2.3 might not be the fastest thing ever, but the autobox with many sports modes and paddle shifts worked really well with it. When on the throttle the engine even sounded passably nice too. But not so on tickover or when stationary.

In fact, even with a V8 and a stock factory exhaust it'll be muted on tickover and light throttle use. You'll need an aftermarket exhaust to make the most of the V8 soundtrack.


In terms of fun, the Mustang was great. It felt like a slightly enlarged MX-5. A little wider, a little heavier and a little faster. But had the same fun and excitement.

I suspect a manual V8 will be a bit more of a handful and more easy to get out of shape. But the S550 seemed very planted and capable.

I came away thinking to myself, that it would make a truly brilliant everyday car. 100% capable, but highly enjoyable.


Can't really comment vs the BMW as I've not driven it. But I would say my experience of BMW's has been, highly capable, but somewhat more sterile.

The Mustang is just a fun vehicle, in detail as well as in ability. Such as the Mustang horse image projected from the door mirrors on to the road in the dark.



On the flip side, I have driven some s197 Mustang GT's, including a modded supercharged one and I have a 4th Gen Camaro.

Both of these are dynamically less capable and less able than the S550. But in many ways I think they are more fun because of it. You really have to "drive" them to get them to perform and work harder for the rewards. But the feeling they give you in return is also more because of it.

[bennyboysvuk]

Thanks for the replies. I'll certainly test drive one as part of my narrowing of future car choice.

I've just popped into my local Ford garage and sat in a V8 and played with the throttle a bit. It's nice to hear that the V8 is clearly audible from the driver's seat and actually sounds quite throaty from anything over tickover. The exhaust note is fabulous too and I would imagine can be more clearly heard in the convertible version.

My only concern is that they're absolutely vast. I parked my M135i next to one and the Mustang dwarfs it. I love big cars on big roads, but some of the narrower parts of my commute might be a bit more tricky in the Mustang. I'll have to test drive one to find out for sure.

[300bhp/ton]

bennyboysvuk said:

Thanks for the replies. I'll certainly test drive one as part of my narrowing of future car choice.

I've just popped into my local Ford garage and sat in a V8 and played with the throttle a bit. It's nice to hear that the V8 is clearly audible from the driver's seat and actually sounds quite throaty from anything over tickover. The exhaust note is fabulous too and I would imagine can be more clearly heard in the convertible version.

My only concern is that they're absolutely vast. I parked my M135i next to one and the Mustang dwarfs it. I love big cars on big roads, but some of the narrower parts of my commute might be a bit more tricky in the Mustang. I'll have to test drive one to find out for sure.

I struggle to believe they are too big for a commute. Plenty of larger UK/Euro cars are used daily all across the UK without worry.

[mac96]

Plenty of bigger cars out there from Audi or Mercedes etc, and no one says they are too big.

You may have spotted it when you looked at one in the dealers, but TC is turned on/off by flick of a toggle switch, not need to hold button down or fiddle with menus.

And it is definitely fun. The V8 also has the advantage of sounding good when you want it to, but not being noisy at motorway cruise speeds.(at least at vaguely legal UK speeds!).

[Gibbo205]

mac96 said:

Plenty of bigger cars out there from Audi or Mercedes etc, and no one says they are too big.

You may have spotted it when you looked at one in the dealers, but TC is turned on/off by flick of a toggle switch, not need to hold button down or fiddle with menus.

And it is definitely fun. The V8 also has the advantage of sounding good when you want it to, but not being noisy at motorway cruise speeds.(at least at vaguely legal UK speeds!).

Actually this is untrue.

One flick of the TC switch only disables TCS, stability control is still enabled, to disable this you need to hold the switch up for 10-15s to disable ECS.

Best bet is to select race mode, then hold the TC switch up for 10s until it says ECS de-activated.

Now your in the no help systems mode!

[mac96]

Gibbo205 said:

mac96 said:

Plenty of bigger cars out there from Audi or Mercedes etc, and no one says they are too big.

You may have spotted it when you looked at one in the dealers, but TC is turned on/off by flick of a toggle switch, not need to hold button down or fiddle with menus.

And it is definitely fun. The V8 also has the advantage of sounding good when you want it to, but not being noisy at motorway cruise speeds.(at least at vaguely legal UK speeds!).

Actually this is untrue.

One flick of the TC switch only disables TCS, stability control is still enabled, to disable this you need to hold the switch up for 10-15s to disable ECS.

Best bet is to select race mode, then hold the TC switch up for 10s until it says ECS de-activated.

Now your in the no help systems mode!

I stand corrected! As far as I am concerned, even with everything on it seems quite 'playful' enough, and I would be reluctant to turn everything off on the road!

[Gibbo205]

mac96 said:

I stand corrected! As far as I am concerned, even with everything on it seems quite 'playful' enough, and I would be reluctant to turn everything off on the road!

Agreed, the TC system is very restrained and its possible to spin the car even in normal mode, particular in the wet and cold. Wet mode works quite well on those cold wet days at keeping it on the black stuff.

[bennyboysvuk]

300bhp/ton said:

I struggle to believe they are too big for a commute. Plenty of larger UK/Euro cars are used daily all across the UK without worry.

It's only too big if I don't want to alter my driving. There's a narrow railway bridge which is fine for two 1 series sized cars to pass through, but much bigger than that and it feels uncomfortably narrow. Then there are sections with overgrowing hedgerows where again, it's tight enough to be clipping hedgerows when there's oncoming traffic. Increasing the width of my car even by 10cm means that I'd be stopping more often to avoid scratching the thing terribly. Just for example, do you know the roads around Holmbury St Mary, near Leith Hill not far from Dorking?

[300bhp/ton]

bennyboysvuk said:

It's only too big if I don't want to alter my driving. There's a narrow railway bridge which is fine for two 1 series sized cars to pass through, but much bigger than that and it feels uncomfortably narrow. Then there are sections with overgrowing hedgerows where again, it's tight enough to be clipping hedgerows when there's oncoming traffic. Increasing the width of my car even by 10cm means that I'd be stopping more often to avoid scratching the thing terribly. Just for example, do you know the roads around Holmbury St Mary, near Leith Hill not far from Dorking?

I don't know those roads intimately no. But I have driven on roads all across the country and live in a village setting myself.

I think the Mustang is about the same width as a BMW M4.

[mac96]

I do know the roads you are talking about, and yes they are quite narrow. I think a Mustang would change your driving style on those sort of roads, in my case probably for the better, but it is far from impossible.
You see plenty of transit size vans batting around the lanes, although height obviously helps!

[slowhand99]

bennyboysvuk said:

It's only too big if I don't want to alter my driving. There's a narrow railway bridge which is fine for two 1 series sized cars to pass through, but much bigger than that and it feels uncomfortably narrow. Then there are sections with overgrowing hedgerows where again, it's tight enough to be clipping hedgerows when there's oncoming traffic. Increasing the width of my car even by 10cm means that I'd be stopping more often to avoid scratching the thing terribly. Just for example, do you know the roads around Holmbury St Mary, near Leith Hill not far from Dorking?

I feel your pain. The comment about transit vans is well made but they will be the reason you end up in the hedge/kerb/pothole etc as they come flying towards you checking their next delivery. Even 40 section tyres are pushing it with the Surrey potholes too.

[bennyboysvuk]

Gibbo205 said:

Actually this is untrue.

One flick of the TC switch only disables TCS, stability control is still enabled, to disable this you need to hold the switch up for 10-15s to disable ECS.

Best bet is to select race mode, then hold the TC switch up for 10s until it says ECS de-activated.

Now your in the no help systems mode!

Thanks for sharing your knowledge on this. It's slightly disappointing news, but better to be informed. It's one of those things that's rather difficult to try out on a test drive, rather like the electronic LSD in the M135i (which it turns out is next to useless).

Thanks all.

[croyde]

bennyboysvuk said:

It's only too big if I don't want to alter my driving. There's a narrow railway bridge which is fine for two 1 series sized cars to pass through, but much bigger than that and it feels uncomfortably narrow. Then there are sections with overgrowing hedgerows where again, it's tight enough to be clipping hedgerows when there's oncoming traffic. Increasing the width of my car even by 10cm means that I'd be stopping more often to avoid scratching the thing terribly. Just for example, do you know the roads around Holmbury St Mary, near Leith Hill not far from Dorking?

That's where I play with my Mustang GT. Love it

[Craigwww]

bennyboysvuk said:

It's only too big if I don't want to alter my driving. There's a narrow railway bridge which is fine for two 1 series sized cars to pass through, but much bigger than that and it feels uncomfortably narrow. Then there are sections with overgrowing hedgerows where again, it's tight enough to be clipping hedgerows when there's oncoming traffic. Increasing the width of my car even by 10cm means that I'd be stopping more often to avoid scratching the thing terribly. Just for example, do you know the roads around Holmbury St Mary, near Leith Hill not far from Dorking?

This is genuinely comical... You post on here like billy big balls wanting a big V8 with an organic feel, say your handy at drifting and want something you can chuck about in the rain and hear that mighty V8 burble.... then moan about it being too wide on the roads???

If you claim to have the skill to drift a mustang in the wet with no driver aids, surely you have the balls to drive a pretty standard width saloon along a country road without parking it in a hedge.. maybe you should stick to the little BMW instead.

[croyde]

Mine's for sale by the way. Don't want to sell it as I had hoped to keep it for ages like my e36 bought in 1998 but work problems

Much prefer playing with it around the Surrey Hills area and down to the South Downs and the coast. Them good 'ol boys in their '69 DodgeCharger had no problem with dirt roads and mine in Comp Orange looks good covered in dust and mud

Even a new 4 series or a Mondeo is as big as my GT.

I think it's the only orange one on PH classifieds so make me an offer.

[downthepub]

Have to admit pre-delivery I was a little concerned about the car being too big for UK roads, but after 4 months, have found it's absolutely nothing to worry about.