Hi, considering a new or near new (2011-2012) mustang V6 preferably with the performance package for a DD. I wanted to see if anyone on here has experience with these. Is it worth holding out for a car with the performance package? It seems the most important part of the upgrade might be the better gearing. The suspension could always be modified with aftermarket pieces. Any advice / comments would help. Thanks.
This question has been asked before on the board. There are several V6 owners on the board, one guy has a V6 manual with performance pack and a thread in the build section, although I don't recall an update in a while.
I just handed in my 13 V6 auto 'vert for a 14 V6 auto 'vert two days ago. They make stunningly good DD's. Mainly city driving the old one returned 21mpg. On a long freeway trip, even at 80mph you can get a genuine 29-30mpg. As our car is mainly driven by SWMBO we have the auto, it's really very very good, although I would go for the manual if I drove it daily not her. In Sport mode it holds gears very well.
All round, great DD and family hauler (mom plus a car pool of three 7/8th graders).
Do it!
In reply to RollinM:
Yes, it's been talked about before. I recently read this article that I found mildly interesting.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/09/ur-turn-confessions-of-a-v6-muscle-car-owner/
bravenrace wrote: In reply to RollinM: Yes, it's been talked about before. I recently read this article that I found mildly interesting. http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/09/ur-turn-confessions-of-a-v6-muscle-car-owner/
That's an interesting read and I totaly agree with much of what he said. Note I've also had a 94 GT in the past which went from stock to supercharged to supercharged 351 to NA 351, so I've had my share of V8 fun. The V6 really is very very good in DD use.
One thing I find hard to belive though are the VIR lap times:
Each year, Car and Driver conducts their annual Lightning Lap, which tests all sorts of sports cars, from the Golf GTi to Lamborghini’s, around Virginia International Speedway. At the time of my purchase, my V6 Mustang was tossed around the track with cars faster, slower, and it’s peers. Here is where things get impressive- The V6 Mustang, once considered a rental-fleet joke, posted a time of 3 minutes, 12.5 seconds. That lap time beat V8 muscle cars: Dodge Charger SRT 8 (3:18.2), Challenger SRT8 (3:16), Rally legends Subaru WRX STi (3.13.8) and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution MR (3.13.3), and a variety of other impressive contenders: BMW 335is (3.13.8), Lotus Elise SC (3:16.6), Lexus IS F (3:14), and the 2010 Mustang GT 3:13.3 (Since then, the latest iteration of the Mustang GT with the 5.0 Coyote power plant beat the V6, posting an impressive 3:08 lap time).
I mean, I agree it's a great car, but faster than an Evo or an STi, that just doesn't compute.
If I were actualy putting my money on the line to buy one rather than getting a new company car each year I"d either spring for the V6 vmanual or a V8 auto. While the V6 auto is perfect 99.999999% of the time, it just doesn't launch that hard when you want to play. A manual so you can get the revs up or the extra low end torque on the V8 would help. Modern electronic autos just don't allow you to brake torque for a 5krpm launch.
Keep in mind the SVO is planned to be released for the 14 (maybe 15?) model year, iirc. Just getting your ducks in a row.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson:
I had a problem believing the lap times also, and did a limited amount of searching to try and verify it. I may have missed it, but I couldn't find anything directly from C&D to verify or refute it.
The only reason I won't buy one is that in my head, I'll always be telling myself that I could have had a V8. If there never was a V8, or if they put a new body on the V6 and called it something different, I would be all over it.
That is a really stupid and maschiostic reason, isn't it? Odd because in just about everything else I don't care. For some reason I feel that a pony car needs a V8.
Just remind yourself of the $8,500 difference in base price V6 to V8
Screw waiting for the performance pack. Just pick up used bits of GT suspension off a Mustang forum. Boom, performance package.
HAHA ^ Good point there.
Here's the 2012 Lightning Lap graphic showing the V6 Mustang faster than the Evo:
szeis4cookie wrote: Here's the 2012 Lightning Lap graphic showing the V6 Mustang faster than the Evo:
I'm reading, but I'm still not really beliving. I own a V6 Mustang, I think it's a great car, but come of it, faster than the boost buggy rally boys, I just can't get my head around that.
To the O.P. They are great cars, as mtn said, if the V8 didn't exist people would be going wild over the V6's
bravenrace wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: I had a problem believing the lap times also, and did a limited amount of searching to try and verify it. I may have missed it, but I couldn't find anything directly from C&D to verify or refute it.
Just before I canceled my C&D sub, I read the same article (a few years ago), and they did a remarkable job bashing the V6 and GT, as well as the Vette's even though the cars trounced not only their market, but quite a few cars that are well outside of their performance "range".
I don't understand what they have against Ford and GM. They spend the time to rip a new hole even though by their own measurements, the Big 2.5 examples are better. I think it's one reason why they changed the scoring of the comparo tests to put more emphasis on opinion vs raw numbers.
It's not cool when a car you don't like is faster accelerating, on a track, and gets better gas mileage. So C&D in particular has a BMW bonus score.
In reply to alfadriver:
I remember C&D mentioning that the '11 v6 would have posted an even faster lap time if it weren't for the electronic speed limiter kicking in down the straightaway. 
alfadriver wrote:bravenrace wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: I had a problem believing the lap times also, and did a limited amount of searching to try and verify it. I may have missed it, but I couldn't find anything directly from C&D to verify or refute it.Just before I canceled my C&D sub, I read the same article (a few years ago), and they did a remarkable job bashing the V6 and GT, as well as the Vette's even though the cars trounced not only their market, but quite a few cars that are well outside of their performance "range". I don't understand what they have against Ford and GM. They spend the time to rip a new hole even though by their own measurements, the Big 2.5 examples are better. I think it's one reason why they changed the scoring of the comparo tests to put more emphasis on opinion vs raw numbers. It's not cool when a car you don't like is faster accelerating, on a track, and gets better gas mileage. So C&D in particular has a BMW bonus score.
I'm not going to defend C&D, as after something like 25 years of subscribing, I stopped getting it several years ago, but there is a lot more to a car than numbers. I've owned six Mustangs and considered a new V-6 Mustang before I bought my BMW, but there's no comparison. The BMW is a much more refined and pleasing car to drive. And although I paid less than half for my 330 as a new Mustang, I realize I'm comparing a used BMW to a new Ford. But my point is that after years of 3 series winning comparison after comparison in C&D when the numbers didn't seem to support it, I now finally understand.
Forget the track, the Mustang is light years better than the boost buggies as a DD which is what the OP asked.
The thing to consider are these are stock cars. WRXs have always had understeer issues as delivered from the factory. More front Camber and other tweaks can fix that, but allowing such mods makes the comparison more difficult.
I rented a V6 Mustang for my East Coast vacation a couple of months ago, and it was the first time that I could imagine a new Mustang in my driveway since I was a teenager ogling the original 5.0. They really are good cars. A bit overstuffed for my taste, but oozing goodness otherwise.
In reply to bravenrace:
Well, the problem wasn't limited to BMW's- it's one thing to give a BMW the nod in a head to head even if it were slower. If they think it's worth the $10k more, great.
But it's another when it's that much faster than a LOT of other cars, ones that should be fast, and yet instead of being impressed with the speed, it's bashed for other things- when the point of the article was speed.
That's what the flying lap is all about- speed and more speed. So in that set, numbers are more important than impressions.
There was another article that really got me going- they did a study of the cheapest cars focusing on fuel economy. What would be a good car for economic driving. Well, the focus was the second fastest in all tests, and also the second most fuel efficient in THEIR driving. The winners were not the same in the rest of the tests. Naturally, the focus finished in last place. So a performance magazine tests for fuel economy, you would think those two sets of numbers would be the most important. They were not.
The needless bias got really grating.
Anyway, OP, mustang is a fine car.
I sat in my friend's '11 base GT the other day and played with the loud pedal. I forgot how perfectly those seats fit me. I'd assume that those are the same seats in the regular V6 cars.
Also, I've seen a fellow GRM'er's V6 Performance Package Mustang, and wow, it's nice. They have come a long way.
alfadriver wrote:bravenrace wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: I had a problem believing the lap times also, and did a limited amount of searching to try and verify it. I may have missed it, but I couldn't find anything directly from C&D to verify or refute it.Just before I canceled my C&D sub, I read the same article (a few years ago), and they did a remarkable job bashing the V6 and GT, as well as the Vette's even though the cars trounced not only their market, but quite a few cars that are well outside of their performance "range". I don't understand what they have against Ford and GM. They spend the time to rip a new hole even though by their own measurements, the Big 2.5 examples are better. I think it's one reason why they changed the scoring of the comparo tests to put more emphasis on opinion vs raw numbers. It's not cool when a car you don't like is faster accelerating, on a track, and gets better gas mileage. So C&D in particular has a BMW bonus score.
Yes, 100% this. 150% even. I saw one where whatever vette trounced whatever Porsche. Completely. 0-60, 60-0, slalom, acceleration, skidpad, roadcourse, everything. Then the Vette was 50k less expensive or some ridiculous nonsense, and they had the gall to declare a used Porsche of equivalent price to the vette the winner. I don't even pick it up at the dentist office anymore.
That Lightening lap is really telling. The Camaro is one of the fastest cars there, and it was faster than any of the Porsches they tested this year. A CAMARO. nice. I was surprised to see how much faster the Camaro was than even the BOSS iterations of the Mustang, too.
In short, the V6 Mustang is awesome.
In reply to alfadriver:
Yes, it was about the flying lap ONLY. They didn't lie about the results and gave the Mustang credit where it was deserved. That was the point of that article.
But the point of the magazine is to let people know which cars are best not in just one specific measurement, but overall. I don't know what the bashing was about, so I can't comment on that specifically, but I think that in general if they test vehicles against one specific parameter, they owe it to their readers to point out other flaws that may exist in those same vehicles so that they aren't mislead into thinking the car with the good numbers is automatically the best car.
In reply to bravenrace:
Having had rentals of the cars that they compare in the econo class, I understood that their reviews were more bias than reality. The "good" cars have flaws, some more glaring. But those are regularly overlooked. And when they are writing an article on a specific performance feature, you would at least expect that it would be noticed.
The flying lap article I read was quite a while ago, when the V6 and V8s trounced a lot of other cars, and at that time, they did not give any credit to the faster cars- more making fun of the live axle than being astonished that it was so fast. And apparently easy to drive fast based on the driving skills of their writers.
What's really funny is that I know quite a few of the writers, since they are all here in Ann Arbor. Wish that changed my opinion of the magazine, but I glance at it occasionally here in the library. Still...
I don't miss it, or R&T, or Autoeveryotherweek.
So IF someone were in the market for a 4 seat coupe or convertible for a Michigan daily driver with at least two of the passengers over 5' and growing what would be the better car to hustle around?
2011/later Mustang V6 Challenger Camaro
Assuming that a manual transmission and PROPER wheels, tires, performance pack springs are to be used.
Adrian_Thompson wrote: The V6 Mustang, once considered a rental-fleet joke,
To me, this is what I'm impressed with. It wasn't that long ago that the V6 Mustang was the "sports car" of the rental fleet, which really was a joke. Either that, or the ultimate "secretary's car". Now, regardless what the actual lap time at VIR was, or what any car mag opines, it's a damn good performance bargain. It can run with some pretty big dogs.
And for the record, I've been a subscriber to C&D since the early 80's. I still enjoy it. Do they have a slant towards BMWs? Perhaps, though they've really panned some of the new ones. They also picked the Accord for 10 Best how many years in a row, and they don't seem to get a ton of static for that. The way I've interpreted their recent reviews of many American cars has been mostly positive. Regardless, I don't mind their opinions, even if I don't agree. If I want to read a magazine with no opinion at all about cars, or a clueless one, I'll subscribe to Consumer Reports.
That is a really stupid and maschiostic reason, isn't it?
Your words, not mine! 
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