We've had the car for almost two weeks now and have just hit the 500 mile mark. My wife has driven it the most, but I did get to drive it on a trip this past weekend and for several days this week on my commute to/from work.
1. Steering/Handling: The car really shines here. Precise and responsive, and it feels connected to the road. I love the variable rate steering. I have managed to get it to torque steer a little bit, but I was really getting on it at the time. It was easily controllable. Our MkV GTI would have been torque steering like crazy under those conditions.
2. Ride quality: It's a firm ride, but not harsh. Haven't experienced any body roll yet in day to day driving. Very stable at speed on the highway (80 mph).
3. Power: It has plenty of power for day to day driving, it's easy to down shift and pass with no worries. Acceleration is smooth, without the rawness you find in other car in this segment (MS3 for example). Very refined feeling, maybe a bit too refined. If you're looking for raw power you may be a little disappointed. Coming from a GT500, the lack of raw HP is noticable but the car has more than enough power to make it fun to drive - very much so.
4. Interior: Very, very nice. Soft touch material everywhere, and you can tell that Ford put a lot of effort into the interior design. I'm guessing that the ST borrows quite a bit from the Titanium in this regard. The interior has a nicely refined high end feel to it.
OK, this is blasphemy, but... I sat in a brand new '13 GT500 the other day, and having gone directly from the ST to the GT500 I was less than impressed with the Mustang interior. It was a combination of interior design, controls, electronics, etc... and the Mustang looses. Badly. Man, when the Focus has a nicer interior than the 'Stang...
5. Electronics: Sync/myFordTouch (MFT) is pretty damned awesome. 2 LCD displays with a touch screen interface, steering wheel controls and voice commands. It feels a bit like sitting in a spaceship cockpit. On the downside, MFT does occasionally freeze or hang up. Doesn't happen often, but it's irritating when it does happen.
The main LCD display has a home screen that is split into four quadrants, one each for navigation, climate, phone and entertainment. The home screen gives you a simplified overview of each sub-system; tapping the corner of any quadrant expands that sub-system to fill the screen and provides detailed info. You can set a wall paper for the home screen (like the wall paper on your computer at home).
The nav system works well, but the display isn't as detailed as what I was used to on my '11 GT500 (sd card based data vs. dvd based data). Touch screen climate controls are nice and are easy to use. Same for the phone. It's easy to add phones using the touch screen interface, but most of the phone usage thereafter is via voice commands.
The entertainment screen allows you to select your source (radio, sirius/xm, usb1, usb2, sd card, video input), and displays info about the media you are playing. If you are playing music from a cd or other device, it displays the track name, artist name, and will display album cover art if you have it loaded on your digital device. You can also set the system up to download cover art from Gracenote via your phone. It stores the cover art it displays (either downloaded or from a digital device), and if you later play a song it has cover art for from a device that does not have cover art, it will display the stored cover art. Magic.
6. Overall: I'm giving the ST a full 5 stars. I'm very impressed with it. It's fast, fun to drive, interior quality/design is fantastic, and the electronics suite is 1st rate. I'm getting 26 mpg on my daily commute. It is the perfect DD.
I'm seriously considering ordering an ST3 for myself and letting the '13 GT500 I have on order go. It's that nice. Shocking, I know.
1. Steering/Handling: The car really shines here. Precise and responsive, and it feels connected to the road. I love the variable rate steering. I have managed to get it to torque steer a little bit, but I was really getting on it at the time. It was easily controllable. Our MkV GTI would have been torque steering like crazy under those conditions.
2. Ride quality: It's a firm ride, but not harsh. Haven't experienced any body roll yet in day to day driving. Very stable at speed on the highway (80 mph).
3. Power: It has plenty of power for day to day driving, it's easy to down shift and pass with no worries. Acceleration is smooth, without the rawness you find in other car in this segment (MS3 for example). Very refined feeling, maybe a bit too refined. If you're looking for raw power you may be a little disappointed. Coming from a GT500, the lack of raw HP is noticable but the car has more than enough power to make it fun to drive - very much so.
4. Interior: Very, very nice. Soft touch material everywhere, and you can tell that Ford put a lot of effort into the interior design. I'm guessing that the ST borrows quite a bit from the Titanium in this regard. The interior has a nicely refined high end feel to it.
OK, this is blasphemy, but... I sat in a brand new '13 GT500 the other day, and having gone directly from the ST to the GT500 I was less than impressed with the Mustang interior. It was a combination of interior design, controls, electronics, etc... and the Mustang looses. Badly. Man, when the Focus has a nicer interior than the 'Stang...
5. Electronics: Sync/myFordTouch (MFT) is pretty damned awesome. 2 LCD displays with a touch screen interface, steering wheel controls and voice commands. It feels a bit like sitting in a spaceship cockpit. On the downside, MFT does occasionally freeze or hang up. Doesn't happen often, but it's irritating when it does happen.
The main LCD display has a home screen that is split into four quadrants, one each for navigation, climate, phone and entertainment. The home screen gives you a simplified overview of each sub-system; tapping the corner of any quadrant expands that sub-system to fill the screen and provides detailed info. You can set a wall paper for the home screen (like the wall paper on your computer at home).
The nav system works well, but the display isn't as detailed as what I was used to on my '11 GT500 (sd card based data vs. dvd based data). Touch screen climate controls are nice and are easy to use. Same for the phone. It's easy to add phones using the touch screen interface, but most of the phone usage thereafter is via voice commands.
The entertainment screen allows you to select your source (radio, sirius/xm, usb1, usb2, sd card, video input), and displays info about the media you are playing. If you are playing music from a cd or other device, it displays the track name, artist name, and will display album cover art if you have it loaded on your digital device. You can also set the system up to download cover art from Gracenote via your phone. It stores the cover art it displays (either downloaded or from a digital device), and if you later play a song it has cover art for from a device that does not have cover art, it will display the stored cover art. Magic.
6. Overall: I'm giving the ST a full 5 stars. I'm very impressed with it. It's fast, fun to drive, interior quality/design is fantastic, and the electronics suite is 1st rate. I'm getting 26 mpg on my daily commute. It is the perfect DD.
I'm seriously considering ordering an ST3 for myself and letting the '13 GT500 I have on order go. It's that nice. Shocking, I know.
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