Ford Mustang scores appalling 2 star Ancap rating

[convas]

You younger blokes who haven't experienced anything earlier than Commodores have no idea just how weak early Holden diffs were.

They were adequate until the old red motors appeared. Then their basic weakness became very apparent. Diffs and axles. All easily busted by irresponsible behaviour

In my younger days I had a VH SLE 5 litre trimatic on nitrous and gave that car hell, as you do when you are in your 20's and had no diff or axle problems ever, only thing I busted was harmonic balancer spun off its collar and a couple of push rods went through their rocker arms, all factory stock stuff, except for the nitrous.

 

[Immortality]

Clearly not. Fords iconic Pony car is built to a price point with pathetic 3 link semi-trailing rear suspension that is worse than the semi-trailing rear suspension fitted to every commodore since for ever..........

 

[Towcar]

When you watch those film clips it seems obvious that poor driving us the principal cause in every case but it also seems that the available power is more than many drivers can handle.

Each car got out of shape very quickly after taking off. Too much grunt, too little ability.

Each video showed the driver loosing it is the same way as the car snapped back at relatively low speeds, there is a fundamental handling flaw right there. My 16 year old commodore station wagon behaves better with similar power.

 

[Immortality]

Each video showed the driver loosing it is the same way as the car snapped back at relatively low speeds, there is a fundamental handling flaw right there. My 16 year old commodore station wagon behaves better with similar power.

Yep. I did something similar in my old VH but it was on gravel....

Once it was obvious the ass wasn't going to pull back in, in time, I simply turned the wheel the other way and did a full loop instead

I think the issue is the single top trailing arm mounted in the center, our cars have 2 and were more likely to axle tramp when the top trailing arm bushes were stuffed.

 

[c2105026]

Re: ANCAP - two things.

1 - the system has a degree of corruption built into it. I have personally seen this. The RTA conducts (or at least it did) ANCAP at its Huntingwood crashlab. In 2005 I witnessed a test as an RTA graduate engineer and the car, a popular SUV, failed - bad. Manufacturer reps were there to convince RTA to run the test again, as a 'mulligan'. Car then got 4 stars, quite good for back then.

2 - I would not be surprised if cars were being designed just to get good marks in the test. Frontal impact and side impact are but two ways a car can crash. There is roll over, sideswipes, rear-end shunts. A car may perform in an ANCAP test beautifully, getting full marks, but in a modest 45 degree impact coupled with a rolling spin completely fail.

I don't buy according to ANCAP, I just do my best not to crash instead.

 

[Bob Watson]

Look as far as I am concerned people still associate Mustang with Steve McQueen in Bullitt. Now remember this is back in the days when all cars were made of steel ( Australian cars too ). Now both Holden and Ford Heads are being given a choice between one car that looks like a Mazda with 400 gears and a Mustang GT etc. I wonder how long people will have to go before they have to replace their cars, because they can't handle Australian conditions. The head people at both Holden and Ford tell us they have extensivly tested their vehicles in Australian conditions. What about out in the bush when you can hit a pothole in the road and take a week to get out of it. Mustange has been having troubles since the 70's and they even dropped out a 4 cylinder version which sounded like a nail in a fruit tin. Not only the History has gone from Holden, but the soul also. Thank god I have a real Holden.