New Ford GT

[Xplantdad]

Both Les and Colin know their cars...they're joking around with each other. Search either of their names on the internet and you'll see what I mean. They are both VERY competent race car drivers...

[JoeG]

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Both Les and Colin know their cars...they're joking around with each other. Search either of their names on the internet and you'll see what I mean.

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Your right Bruce in fact Les invited Colin to go Quail Hunting.... ..

[Xplantdad]

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Both Les and Colin know their cars...they're joking around with each other. Search either of their names on the internet and you'll see what I mean.

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Your right Bruce in fact Les invited Colin to go Quail Hunting.... ..

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Awesome Joe!

[csx289]

I had replied to Les' last post on Friday, attached a picture, and it bounced because my file was too big. So I hit the back button, and it wiped out my post. Hence my silence over the last day or so...these damn computers piss me off sometimes

Les brings up good points on the Ford GT debate, and everybody is entitled to their opinion. Although can I PLEASE let Les and Gloria loose in a dark alley for just a little while???

Bottom line is that I feel the GT is a cool car, well thought out, well built, if not poorly executed in the marketplace like many domestic cars. I do think Ford has learned to step up QUICKLY and try to fix any problems that pop up, and yes, there are problems like with any new car. The newer the car and the more technology, the more potential for problems.

Now, as a GT owner and an honest guy, I do have to give a report on my day with my GT today. I decided it was nice enough here to take mine out for the second time - it had had 39 miles on it this morning. It was cold here today, mid-30's, but sunny and has been dry for days so the roads aren't bad. I heeded the advice of the Ford GT Forum guys and torqued all the bolts, lug nuts, etc. I could get to. All were fine. So I drove the car to my buddy's place, he is a Ferrari guru/mechanic/restorer/life-long friend and gear head, figured he'd like to take a run in the GT with me, as his place is out in the boonies near some good roads. We were out driving around (slightly over the speed limit at times ) and when we switched seats and it was my turn again, I glanced in the rear view to do a cop scan and noticed spray of some sort coming off of the supercharger belt and slinging on the window. I immediately thought of the post I read at www.fordgtforum.com about coolant hoses blowing off and felt like an idiot for not checking those this morning. At my buddy's place, I tightened the offending hose clamp on the water bypass hose at the t-stat and checked all the others. A couple of turns on a clamp and it was fixed, but, still, a PITA and not very reassuring on a brand new car IMHO.

All the time I was thinking "why am I doing this again?" Don't get me wrong, the car is great, it handles great as far as I can tell so far, it looks cool, does everything right. Except why can I have 40 year old cars that don't leak anything and have a brand new supercar that springs a leak at 75 miles on the odo?

Time will tell if the car gets better, worse, or if this was hopefully a fluke and the rest of the guys building the car weren't as hung over as the hose clamp dude. LOL

I have spoken to Les, and he is aware that I am not going to Mopars at the Strip, so we can't go play that week. Actually, I have a pretty tough race schedule as it is this year in vintage Trans Am / Group 6, plus it looks like more MuscleCar TV segments for me, plus actually working for a living and this writing gig...oh, and I am told I am expected to be home at least a few times a year. You know, to clean the gutters and do chores. LOL. However, I think Les should buy Charley's 65 GT350 clone vintage race car so he can come and race with me where we really have some fun! For example, the SAAC nationals in July at VIR should be good with the Cobra/GT350 vintage race...or?? I am looking at 3 races in May, one in June, three again in July, etc., plenty of time to get your moneys worth out of a race car.

Or I can always rent out the 69 Trans Am race car, she is almost ready, engine just got dyno'ed on Thursday...306 CID small block, 546 HP @ 7200 RPM... engine is built to live at 8k rpm if needed. Should be fun!

As far as idiots crashing Ford GT's and all that, every new supercar that comes out has a large percentage of dumb a##es that thinks because they can afford it they can drive it. Look at the recent news with all the crashed Enzos, and ask Les about all the Carrera GT wrecks and deaths. This is not something exclusive to the Ford GT, as much as some would like others to believe. 'Nuff Said?

Colin

[Belair62]

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I think Les should buy Charley's 65 GT350 clone vintage race car so he can come and race with me where we really have some fun!

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One question...if he buys it and goes racing with you...will he relegated to the top or bottom of the pile ??

[csx289]

Bob, if he was at the top, how would you know?

[Les Quam]

Gloria ,
Before you sell your kidney you should know that I observed with my own two eyes a Saleen GT badged as a Ford GT being disassembled at my local Ford dealer service area as they replaced all the control arms and the rear main seal. As for your assertion that "most at home mechanics" could work on the Saleen/Ford GT I observed with my own two eyes as the service manager at the Ford dealer a former Nascar racer and mechanic struggled with these two projects. As a matter of fact he discussed with me the complete and total lack of support from Ford on the problems and how he had asked for a factory rep to assist him or even a manual and received no help at all from Ford. Even for a former Nascar mechanic these were complex projects and each and every repair was completed at a Ford dealership not some high tech facilty as the Ford marketing guru's would have you believe.

I then observed again with my own two eyes as the owner of the Ford dealership who also owned the Saleen/Ford GT waited a couple of weeks to see how bad the rear main seal actually leaked because it required so much disassembly of the car and the lack of Ford tech support made him not want to replace the rear main seal unless their was no other choice. They finally had to replace it because of the amount of oil leakage.

I watched again with my own two eyes as the tow truck came to my neighbors house and picked up his Saleen/Ford GT to deliver it to the dealership where it sat for over a month until all the recalls could be resolved. This notion that Saleen/Ford GTs were picked up by enclosed carriers is just marketing nonsense. Perhaps some were picked up that way I don't know I didn't see them all get picked up but every owner I spoke to had a Flat bed come for the car or drove it into the dealership after waiting for a Ford pick up that never came.


I currently own a 2003 SVT cobra anniv. editon last time I looked it was supercharged and in stock configuration it's as big a dog as the Saleen built GT with a Ford badge on it. But AT LEAST THE FORD SVT TEAM BUILT THE CAR!!! I also own six Shelby's ,two Boss 429s, three Boss 302s, two 1969 428 CJ shaker convertibles, and two 1966 Mustang fastbacks. My daily driver is a Ford F350 dually crew cab , my wife's daily driver is an excursion.I have owned and driven a Ford on a daily basis since 1975. I have no problem at all with Fords I tend to collect them and was anxiously looking forward to buying a Ford GT. That was when I thought Ford would actually build the car instead of sub it out to Steve Saleen? Perhaps you can spoon feed me and explain why Ford didn't have enough confidence in their SVT team to have them build the car or engine?????? Perhaps you can discuss it with me at the next Ford sponsored national owners party. Ooops thats right thats Dodge who rewards their customer loyalty with million dollar national Viper owner events not Ford?

When I went for my first ride in the Saleen/Ford GT with my neighbor I was so disappointed with the performance of the car I went the next day to San Diego to Pioneer Porsche and bought a Porsche Carrera GT because the car delivered as promised all 605 actual HP without modifications that would void the warranty. I was so unhappy with the Saleen badged Ford GT I actually went out and spent 240K more to own a 605 HP Porsche.

I am a Ford blue oval guy right down to the tattoo on my buttocks but this Saleen/Ford GT was rushed into production for the Ford 100 year anniversary. It is built by Saleen with a Roush engine later installed at a Ford plant to pacify the Ford unions. Those are undisputed facts.

The car is more a marketing and hype kit car then a race proven track tested car like the Z06 Vette, Viper and Ferrari. When I wanted to learn about the Ford GT I went to dealers and owners not to a chat room where people may or may not actually own the car and the few owners who are on the forums are desperately trying to support the car because Ford ruined the distribution of the Ford GT and allowed dealers to grossly mark up the car to obscene levels.

It may interest you to know that Dodge did not allow dealers to screw customers like Ford did with these absurd markups and sent vouchers to prior Viper owners first who then brought the Voucher to any dodge dealer of their choice and paid no more than MSRP for the first 1996 GTS coupes and the 2003 SRT Vipers. In other words Dodge prevented the dealers from charging over MSRP and went straight to previous new Viper owners and rewarded them with first rights on the next generation Vipers to avoid massive dealer markup over MSRP as a reward them for their prior purchase of a Viper. Dodge different!

As someone who either personally purchased or referred my friends and was responsible for buying 48 Fords from my local dealer since the year 2000 it would have been a nice gesture if Ford had given us SVT owners a shot at the Saleen/Ford GT before dealers tried to mark them up.

I couldn't be any happier that most Ford dealers are buried in their 2005 Saleen/Ford GTs after greedily asking so much over MSRP for so long and now that the bottom has dropped out and the INFORMED public knows that Ford doesn't build the car or engine and has a host of quality and production problems.

Gloria my dear if your going to flame me on one of these forums in regard to the Ford GT you need to bring your "A" game because trying to defend this Saleen/Roush/Ford Frankensteins monster kit car is a losing proposition and I can supply all the documentation to support my statements.

About the only thing Ford is doing well these days is marketing. The 2007 Shelby for example has nothing to do with Shelby other than his name is on the car. Yet Ford's marketing department would have us all think Shelby is modifying these Mustangs like the 65,66,67 models. It's nothing more than an SVT cobra with a Shelby badge affixed to it for crying out loud. More Ford BS hype. But at least they built this car in house. And I am still waiting everyday by my mail box for my voucher being a previous SVT Cobra owner. Ooops got the wrong company again sorry. LOL

I enjoyed your post though.

[csx289]

Uh-Oh...not quiet any more around here, is it??? LOL

SO, can I stir the pot again? This is kinda fun. Les, tell us about those Carrera GT wrecks, like the one that started the class action suit against Porsche for selling defective cars with safety equipment that doesn't work? Just illustrating that nobody is perfect. And I think the Carrera GT was $440k or so vs. the 2005 Ford GT MSRP of $140k, and I think both Porsche dealers and Ford dealers were both trying to rip buyers off with ridiculous premiums on BOTH cars but now BOTH cars are experiencing a buyer's market? As near as I can figure, that is. I think the Carrera GT was also the subject of a fair amount of backlash from the press regarding the fact that it is really not that easy to drive, and recall even you telling me CGT stories about guys not being able to drive them and how they can't clear a curb cut to get into gas stations, etc. I think the Ford/Saleen/Whatever GT is actually a more user-friendly car...it has a regular clutch and is not as "hyper" as a CGT in general. Apples and oranges, IMHO.

On the other hand, my Ford GT (just reading the side of the car, can't you hear my lips moving?) must be safe because when I had a question about what the torque values were for the wheels I had to go through about 22 pages of info on the stereo system and then about 16 pages on how to secure a child seat in my Ford GT, before getting to a little blurb in the back of the owners manual about the wheel torques. Hey, does Ford know their buyers or what? All we care about is strapping our kids into the car and cranking tunes, man! LOL

Ok, fire suit on, ready for testing.

Colin

[njsteve]

Hey, Colin, as you were regaling us with the story of your cold weather drive it reminded me of some of the early Viper TSBs. There was one for the same problem: A supplier glitch at the factory resulted in oversized heater hose clamps. Dodge used the spring type ones and they were known to -you guessed it, blow off under high pressure.

In the early days I would go each week to my local dealer and peruse the technical service bulletins online, and there were tons of them. My dealer was great, whenever there was a warranty issue, they would supply me the parts and let me do the work in my own garage if I wanted to. Or have me just hold onto the parts in the event we needed to do the job later. They would also let me keep the old parts if the factory never called for their return -such as when there was a TSB on the the toupette (the factory soft top) and they let me keep three of the old ones, including the remnants of one that ejected at 80 mph. I also had several sets of the alloy side pipe covers after they issued a TSB on those. And as for parts availability, Dodge had a mandatory overnight system for any Viper replacement part. If you ordered it and it was anywhere in the parts pipeline, you had it within a day. Amazing.

Dodge was very attentive to their Viper Owners and yes I used that voucher to buy a 96 GTS coupe. Dodge had a list of all of the then current, state-by-state DMV registrations for each currently registered Viper. You had to still own the car to be eligible for a voucher. They sent a application letter to each of those names. You had to respond on a certain date to get the actual voucher. The way it worked was that the voucher was non-transferable and only useable by you. It was a very well thought out system: The car had to be ordered under your name. And if the car arrived and you did not purchase it (such as if the dealer was just paying you to be a straw purchaser for his allocation) the car would be retrieved by Dodge and reallocated to a person on the waiting list. It was essentially an allocation ticket: if the dealer didn't sell you the car at a reasonable price, you simply took your ticket and went to another dealer that would and that first dealer was SOL and lost the allocation. I think I paid $1000 over factory FACTORY INVOICE for Project Pit Viper (which was still $4000 under MSRP) and the reason I gave him the $1000 was he was required to purchase the special rack of tools from Dodge to be eligible to have one of their technicians certifed to be a Viper Tech. (And I knew I was going to be using most of the tools anyway) As for the GTS in '96 I think I paid $500 over invoice for that car with the voucher ticket (from the same little small town dealer in Florida).

Those Viper Invitationals were a hoot. My wife and I spent our first wedding anniversary at the first Viper Owners Invitational (you try telling your wife you're taking her to Detroit for your anniversary and see what she says!) -she actually loved it! and Dodge gave us (my wife) an award for attending.

[Xplantdad]

Very interesting information...keep it coming!