Ford Mustang Mach-E

[gbasden]

Yeah. I really wasn't prepared. I am coming off of a 480 HP car, so it was no slouch in the acceleration department. But this thing is wicked fast.

Pickup process went really smoothly - they honored the price protection and sold it at MSRP, so I'm pleased. I'm very happy it's in my driveway! Now to go play with the settings for an hour or so...

[Zaxxon]

[stessier]

The Ford tracker is now saying it's in Final Preparation and the dealer should be reaching out soon...but I stand by my GIF.

Why aren't you at the dealer asking them: 'Ready now? How about now? Now?'

I was (well via text)!!! Slow pokes were probably busy with another customer. The car is on the truck and will be delivered by 6pm and he'll send me some pictures. Will be able to take it home Saturday!!!

You misspelled '6:05 PM tonight'.

In all seriousness, Saturday? Mine came off the truck last night and I could have picked it up at 10am if I didn't have pesky work responsibilities.

They said it usually takes two days for them to complete the inspection/prep process. They got a second Mach E yesterday...maybe mine was going to be prepped second.

Today I have to figure out the bank loan and insurance before everyone disappears for the weekend.

[coopasonic]

A Mach-E parked next to me and I really liked how it looked. I was surprised at how big it was… the tires, the profile, I felt so small in my Model 3. I guess I expected more of a sports car sedan.

Yeah, I think it's going to feel a bit odd at first coming from my ICE Mustang GT but the 3.5 second 0-60 will console me. I'd rather it was a sports sedan but my wife is much happier with the larger profile.

3.5 seconds. Man, if you talked to my teenage self back in the late seventies I wouldn’t be able to contain myself.

The supercar of my teenage dreams was a Ferrari F40. It was slower. Car guys that scoff at BEVs baffle me. I can only assume they have only looked at early Nissan Leafs.

[stessier]

And my dealer won't accept outside financing. Grrrrr.

So I finance through them then refinance the next day. Annoying.

[Carpet_pissr]

And my dealer won't accept outside financing. Grrrrr.

So I finance through them then refinance the next day. Annoying.

You might have to wait 3-4 months before a refi.

[pr0ner]

And my dealer won't accept outside financing. Grrrrr.

So I finance through them then refinance the next day. Annoying.

Why not? Aren't you just handing them a check for the entire price of the car from your bank?

[Carpet_pissr]

And my dealer won't accept outside financing. Grrrrr.

So I finance through them then refinance the next day. Annoying.

Why not? Aren't you just handing them a check for the entire price of the car from your bank?

Bc that’s one big area where their margins are, almost never the cars themselves.

[coopasonic]

And my dealer won't accept outside financing. Grrrrr.

So I finance through them then refinance the next day. Annoying.

Why not? Aren't you just handing them a check for the entire price of the car from your bank?

Bc that’s one big area where their margins are, almost never the cars themselves.

Add-on/back-end products even more so but yes, financing is a significant piece of the profit pie for dealerships and they basically have him at their mercy.

[LordMortis]

And my dealer won't accept outside financing. Grrrrr.

So I finance through them then refinance the next day. Annoying.

That's pretty common. (Though common should not be confused with justified and usually it's not forced, it's just that it's thousands of dollars no brainer to finance and then instantly change the terms to something advantageous to you) Everyone wants their cut. FMCC, the dealership, etc... That's where all of the incentives/rebates are. The last car I bought in 2008, I was even encouraged by my dealership to finance with them and either pay the loan off the next day or move it to a credit union. I took something like $6500 in incentives (aka dealer rebates) for a 5 year loan at 8% and then the next day refinance through my credit union at 3.5% for three years and then proceeded to pay the car off in four months anyway.

Paging Zaxxon about how horrible dealers are and the racket they have going on.

[Zaxxon]

Paging Zaxxon about how horrible dealers are and the racket they have going on.

[stessier]

Just got another call from the General Sales Manager - we have to do the sale tomorrow because their finance manager is on vacation all next week. I guess that's what happens when dealerships don't have inventory?

[gbasden]

[Zaxxon]

Sweet.

[stessier]

Congrats!! I really do love that color.

[stessier]

She lives!

[The Meal]

Beautiful rides, gents!

[Zaxxon]

Fantastic. Great colors both.

[Kurth]

Wow. Those are some great looking cars, and I’m not even a car guy.

Now I understand why my son so badly wanted to stop by the Ford dealer last weekend when we were shopping for an EV for the kids to drive. Very glad he’s going to be puttering along in a Nissan Leaf and not one of those!

But if this EV thing works out for us, I may have to look at the Mustang for myself in a year or two!

[gbasden]

Awesome, Stessier! I'm glad yours finally made it!

[Zaxxon]

We definitely need some AARs after a few days of driving and maybe a fast-charge or two.

[Zaxxon]

Passed two Mach-e on the way home today. One was a bright blue GT. Sweet-looking car.

[stessier]

I guess the one thing I can say about the buying experience is that it was relatively quick - 30 minutes in the finance office. We were forced to use their financing and the best rate they could get was 3.16%. Our credit union was giving 2.99%, so we'll be refinancing asap. In a lighter moment, our credit scores were higher than when I had last checked them and my wife, who earns 1/12 of what I do, was 8 points higher. She commented that she's known for a while I couldn't be trusted. I will say it was eye opening that they allowed me to simply use my $1000 deposit as my only money down and finance the remaining $57k. No wonder people can get upside down and in trouble so easily!

In the office, the cost was incorrect as they had the SecureEtch on the form even though we'd talked about it last year and I reminded my salesperson on Thursday that it wasn't to be included. They took the charge off, but it's unclear if they actually did the etching or not (doesn't bother me either way, I just didn't want to pay for it). They also swear that I'll be getting the price protection, but will only mail me a check after they get it in about 45 days. So right now I've financed about $2k more than I should have. Again - annoying. The sales manager made a big show about how thankful I should be they weren't charging ADM and they've had to combat so much fraud and that is why we had to use their financing - which was all complete bs, but I just wanted to get my car and get out of there so I nodded along sympathetically.

My wife had to get to a girl scouts function, so she actually let me drive the new car home and told me to take the long way - so I ended up going 30 miles to get 8 miles home. I took it on the highway and, being early Saturday morning, was able to come to a near stop on the on ramp and then put the pedal to the floor. I don't drive fast normally, so I legitimately scared myself with how fast I was at 65. It was quite fun. On the highway, I was able to test out the Blue Cruise which seemed to work reasonably well - it ping ponged a bit from lane edge to lane edge, but given that it wanted my hands on the wheel anyway, I just added enough input to keep it centered. I remember the Munro Live episode where it failed and clicked off on a wide sweeping curve, but I didn't have that experience despite taking very similar curves at 65mph. The only time it failed was on a back road (where I was surprised it even let me engage) and the center lane turned into a full turn lane to make a left and the car started to steer me that way. I quickly took back control. This is also my first car with adaptive cruise control and it is quite nice. I still don't fully trust it, but can see how nice it will be on long trips.

When I got home, I spent a bit over an hour running through all the settings and making it mine. The only thing that doesn't appear to be working is connecting to my home wifi. I have to do a bit more research on that. I also thought the keypad on the door for keyless entry was an issue, but I realized I misunderstood how that was to be setup and believe it should work fine when I try it tomorrow. With a little luck, I'll talk my wife into a longer drive tomorrow so we can burn off some battery and verify DC charging works. Oh - on my 30 mile trip home, about half at 68mph, I got 4.2 mi/kWh which really shocked me. The AC was set to 65F and it was only 75F outside, but that's still really good.

Starting June 25th, we leave for a two week trip to MA. I'll be sure to do an AAR when I get back with as much geeky stuff as I can remember to record.

[gbasden]

They also swear that I'll be getting the price protection, but will only mail me a check after they get it in about 45 days. So right now I've financed about $2k more than I should have. Again - annoying.

That's some bullcrap. Our dealer pulled out the original sales slip from before the price increase and that's what we paid. I didn't even have to mention price protection.

I had adaptive cruise on my previous Mustang and it worked like a charm. From my limited experience with the Mach-E it seems to be equally as good. I don't fully trust Bluecruise yet, but other than some slight lane wandering it seemed to work just fine.

[stessier]

They also swear that I'll be getting the price protection, but will only mail me a check after they get it in about 45 days. So right now I've financed about $2k more than I should have. Again - annoying.

That's some bullcrap. Our dealer pulled out the original sales slip from before the price increase and that's what we paid. I didn't even have to mention price protection.

I agree, but not much I can do. If you read the bulletins that Ford sent out, it is up to the discretion of the dealership if they want to give the customer the cash up front or wait for the checks to arrive from Ford and then deliver the money. That and the financing, though, make me not want to deal with them in the future.

[Carpet_pissr]

She lives!

[Carpet_pissr]

I may have to look at the Mustang for myself in a year or two!

Better put your order in now!

[Jaymann]

Welcome to the Sweet Electric Rides Club (SERC)!

[stessier]

Hey gbasden, how many key fobs did you get? We got two, which was unexpected (although welcomed!). PAAK setup fine on my Pixel 6 Pro, but we can't get it to setup on her Pixel 4a5G. Annoying, but not really an issue with the extra fob. She just throws it in her purse and away she goes.

I'm really not a fan of the dial to shift from Park/Reverse/Drive. Just seems dumb to me. I also find myself wishing it had a regen paddle like the Bolt. I think the regen itself is fine in 1-pedal, but I use it most frequently for canceling cruise control rather than tapping the breaks and I miss that. Also, my wife is only 5'0", and it's a shame the pedals don't adjust.

Those are all the nitpicks we've found so far.

[stessier]

Fast charging operation confirmed!

We purposefully hadn't charged since Saturday and I got it down to 32%, so took it to the local EA station to test things out. Even though all four stalls were empty (the site has 2x 150 and 2x 350), I was polite and chose the 150kW charger. Having watched a ton of videos, I knew to activate the session in the app and then plug in. It worked flawlessly and I was at 132 kW out of the gate. It was 90F+ outside and my battery was cold, so I thought this was pretty good. In 19 minutes, I went from 32% -> 70% and 101 miles est. range to 217 miles. Pretty nice. When I unplugged, I was still getting 95 kW.

About 2 minutes after I plugged in, a E-tron came flying into the 350 kW spot next to me. The guy hopped out and seemed in a hurry and not very talkative, which was a bummer. Half the fun of the wait is supposed to be talking to the other chargers, no? Then what I thought was a Bolt came pulling in on the other side. He jumped out and grabbed the Chademo charger from the one I was using and stared at the end confused. I pointed out that wouldn't fit his car, so he went over to the next charger over which I pointed out needed to be reset. Then I noticed the charge port on his car didn't have the fast charge plugs and realized he was driving a Volt. I had to break the bad news that he'd only be able to use Level 2 chargers and the closest ones where about 12 miles away. He said he had just spent $6k refurbing the battery on it but was only getting 35 miles and was a bit bummed. He said he plugged it in every night and when they go about town, it's plenty, but he was hoping to top off quick and keep going. I tried to explain that was why he had a gas engine and it was working as designed, but I don't think he got it.

After he left, E-tron asked if I could help him because he still hadn't gotten it working. It wouldn't read his credit card. I asked if he had the app, and he did. He tried that for a bit and asked for more help because he still couldn't get it. We walked through finding the station in the app, locating the correct charger, and then he saw "First plug in car" and moved to do so when I told him the app lies and to activate the charger first, then plug in. Once again, a success! What amazed me is he had had the car for a while, but it always just worked with the credit card so he'd never had to do anything else. Given he uses the charging at least once a week, the membership price would be a much better option, but he didn't seem to get it. He asked if my car was a Tesla and how I liked it. Hard to remember that even some EV people only see their cars as Point A -> Point B devices and haven't watched over 200 hours of Youtube on the subject. Nice guy - but British so he might have been terribly rude and the accent prevented me from noticing.

[Zaxxon]

1) Awesome on your charging speed!
2) JFC that is a great summary of why the non-Tesla scene has so far to go. I really wish all networks and vehicles were required to support plug-and-charge.

[gbasden]

Hey gbasden, how many key fobs did you get? We got two, which was unexpected (although welcomed!). PAAK setup fine on my Pixel 6 Pro, but we can't get it to setup on her Pixel 4a5G. Annoying, but not really an issue with the extra fob. She just throws it in her purse and away she goes.

I'm really not a fan of the dial to shift from Park/Reverse/Drive. Just seems dumb to me. I also find myself wishing it had a regen paddle like the Bolt. I think the regen itself is fine in 1-pedal, but I use it most frequently for canceling cruise control rather than tapping the breaks and I miss that. Also, my wife is only 5'0", and it's a shame the pedals don't adjust.

Those are all the nitpicks we've found so far.

I got two fobs as well, but I've been exclusively using PAAK. The dial hasn't really bothered me - it doesn't seem significantly different from a lever floor shifter. I've been using one pedal and the button on the left side of the wheel to engage/disengage cruise control.

The one nitpick I have so far is that in the driving position that is most comfortable for my arms, my right leg presses into the center console in a not super comfortable way. It only happens after I drive for awhile and my legs are getting tired, I think. I may need to figure out a pad.

[gbasden]

1) Awesome on your charging speed!
2) JFC that is a great summary of why the non-Tesla scene has so far to go. I really wish all networks and vehicles were required to support plug-and-charge.

You aren't wrong. I don't plan on a ton of out of town trips with the Mach-E, so I'll mostly be charging at home. The one place that the Tesla experience is head and shoulders above the others is charging, though. If I have a subscription, why won't it honor it through plug and charge? Why does it sometimes work and sometimes not? Why are some of the chargers simply inoperable? It seems like it shouldn't be that hard.

[LordMortis]

You aren't wrong. I don't plan on a ton of out of town trips with the Mach-E, so I'll mostly be charging at home. The one place that the Tesla experience is head and shoulders above the others is charging, though. If I have a subscription, why won't it honor it through plug and charge? Why does it sometimes work and sometimes not? Why are some of the chargers simply inoperable? It seems like it shouldn't be that hard.

That's a bit of bummer. Ford had been touting their charging network partnership this time last year.

[stessier]

1) Awesome on your charging speed!
2) JFC that is a great summary of why the non-Tesla scene has so far to go. I really wish all networks and vehicles were required to support plug-and-charge.

You aren't wrong. I don't plan on a ton of out of town trips with the Mach-E, so I'll mostly be charging at home. The one place that the Tesla experience is head and shoulders above the others is charging, though. If I have a subscription, why won't it honor it through plug and charge? Why does it sometimes work and sometimes not? Why are some of the chargers simply inoperable? It seems like it shouldn't be that hard.

Are you saying you've already experienced those issues charging or just that's what you've heard?

I haven't signed up for the subscription yet because we get 250 kW worth of charging free and I want to use those on the trip we are taking starting 6/25. Like you said, I've heard that the plug-and-charge doesn't know you have an EA subscription and will charge at the higher price. But the plug-and-charge, itself, is supposed to be vastly improved from launch and works much more reliably according to the Youtubers I follow. It's worth noting that Tesla is not immune from these issues - check out the vids I posted in the BEV thread about the 5 car race to Vegas where even Tesla had trouble with plug-and-charge and charges being out of order.

My bigger complaint is things that your car comes with that are only included for a few years. Like the navigation is only for 3 years. Access to the charging network is only 2 years. Access to the Ford App and all the connected car features (including PAAK) is only 3 years. It doesn't say what happens after that, but they leave themselves the ability to start charging for all of it and I hate it.

[stessier]

Oh, and my wife named it her Chariot of Fire. It amuses me, which is all you can ask from a car name.

[coopasonic]

Oh, and my wife named it her Chariot of Fire. It amuses me, which is all you can ask from a car name.

Sounds like it might have been a better name for the Bolt. *homer backing into the hedge*

[stessier]

Oh, and my wife named it her Chariot of Fire. It amuses me, which is all you can ask from a car name.

Sounds like it might have been a better name for the Bolt. *homer backing into the hedge*

[naednek]

The Ford tracker is now saying it's in Final Preparation and the dealer should be reaching out soon...but I stand by my GIF.

Why aren't you at the dealer asking them: 'Ready now? How about now? Now?'

I was (well via text)!!! Slow pokes were probably busy with another customer. The car is on the truck and will be delivered by 6pm and he'll send me some pictures. Will be able to take it home Saturday!!!

You misspelled '6:05 PM tonight'.

In all seriousness, Saturday? Mine came off the truck last night and I could have picked it up at 10am if I didn't have pesky work responsibilities.

Just checked my work calendar. Glad it wasn't me keeping you away lol

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

[naednek]

They also swear that I'll be getting the price protection, but will only mail me a check after they get it in about 45 days. So right now I've financed about $2k more than I should have. Again - annoying.

That's some bullcrap. Our dealer pulled out the original sales slip from before the price increase and that's what we paid. I didn't even have to mention price protection.

I had adaptive cruise on my previous Mustang and it worked like a charm. From my limited experience with the Mach-E it seems to be equally as good. I don't fully trust Bluecruise yet, but other than some slight lane wandering it seemed to work just fine.

To test your blues cruise try it on hwy 50 with all that construction

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk