6th May 2009, 13:05
There would be quite a few people involved in a class action lawsuit against Ford if the mileage was as poor as you claim, myself included. If 28 MPG is the best you can do with a Fusion on the highway, your driving style and methods seriously need to be reevaluated.
My 1988 Mercury Grand Marquis Wagon, weighing in at nearly 2 tons curb weight, was easily capable of over 20 MPG highway. 23 or 24 at times to be exact. It is not that unfathomable that a much lighter Mustang of the same year with the same engine is capable of over 25 MPG highway.
My 1983 Buick Le Sabre that I owned in college had a 5.0 liter 307 cubic inch 4-barrel carburated V8. Still good for up to 23 MPG highway, even at over 300,000 miles.
My father's 1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88 has a 350 V8 4-barrel, and the old Turbo 350 3 speed automatic. 187,000 miles. Still capable of over 20 MPG at times. Not all the time, but not hard to do.
My 1998 GMC Sierra 4 x 4 extended cab with a 350 fuel injected V8 gets up to 18 MPG highway.
And you continue to claim that a modern V8 Mustang gets 15 MPG highway? Car and driver flat out states that they pound on their cars (slaloms, 0-60, hard braking) to achieve that type of mileage. So that argument of yours was never valid.
6th May 2009, 13:20
A 4 cylinder Mustang will simply allow Ford to lower the sticker price. The only 4-cylinder I've heard about returning to the Mustang is a turbo version of the ecoboost.
As with all 4 cylinders, even with a turbo, It will lack the torque of a v-block and will require faster gears, thus negating any substantial fuel savings. As with previous 4-cylinder Mustangs, a base 4 cylinder Mustang will be cheap and unrefined with a sloppier suspension, like today's V6 Mustang.
GM, namely Buick, had the Turbo thing right with the Grand National and Regal T Type. It was one of the only Turbocharged engines from its era to be fast, powerful, reliable and reasonably fuel efficient. I would take a 1987 Buick 3.8 V6 Turbo over a modern Mustang V6 any day.
6th May 2009, 13:31
The only inaccurate and unfounded comments here are yours, every last one of them. You go get that 4-cylinder, get in line. If you can't drive fuel efficiently, go get yourself a Prius or Insight. Stay in the right lane and leave the roads open for those of us who know how to drive and get 24 MPG in V8 Mustangs at 75 MPH without even trying.
28th May 2009, 01:04
I'm still waiting to see the huge class action lawsuit brought against Ford over Mustangs getting 5-10 MPG below advertised Fuel economy. Where are the other hundreds of thousands if not millions of people suing Ford because of the 5.0 and 4.6 V8 only getting 15 MPG highway? All the Crown Victoria, Mustang, Grand Marquis, and Town Car owners out there since 1979? If the V8 Mustang or even Crown Victoria was that terrible on fuel, no one would buy them, or the other cars I mentioned, and Ford would have long been put out of business. Yet they continue sell, easily meeting if not exceeding their 15 City/ 23 MPG highway figures.
My car is a 2008 GT with a manual transmission and 3.55 rears. Unless it is a extremely windy day or I'm driving like a maniac, my car has no trouble getting well over 23 MPG highway on long trips, at constant speeds over 70 MPH. If you can't drive efficiently like the thousands upon thousands of us getting well over 20 MPG on the highway with a V8 Mustang, the problem is not your engine.
6th May 2009, 11:50
Who said anything about racing all the time... or getting 27 mpg all the time. I stated that on trips on the highway at 70-75 mph, I averaged in the upper 20's with two different Mustangs. Yes, I was getting it both ways because it was one of the faster cars at every stop light too. I didn't waste time figuring my mileage if I was driving harder as OBVIOUSLY it would be much less than my highway figures.
I don't think anyone is claiming great gas mileage when you mash the gas and row the gears like there is no tomorrow, but these cars are extremely efficient, given their power and performance, when you need them to be. If you spent your time racing or even driving around in 3rd or 4th gear when you could use 5th, you probably wasted a lot of gas.
I have ridden with countless drivers that don't know when to upshift, running the car at much higher rpm's than necessary even in regular driving. The Mustang will go around a 90 degree corner and recover nicely in 4th gear if you slow down to less than 20 mph with the torque the 5.0 has. Constantly downshifting is really costly on gas as the tendency to punch it to get up to speed is there instead of letting it return to cruising speed a little slower and more efficiently in the higher gear.