Help in buying a Mustang GT

[geekman]

Hi everyone, I'm new here and I'm hoping you can help me out.

I'm English, but currently living in Mexico, and I'm looking to get myself a Mustang GT 4.6 Auto. I've been to see quite a few already, and as you can probably imagine, the standard is terrible. Write off levels of crash damage, huge oil leaks, interior falling apart, odometer readings changed, you name it...

I've pretty much given up on finding a nice example, so instead I'm going down the route of buying one and spending money on it to get it up to standard.

The only one I've seen so far which I felt like I could work with had the following issue:

When braking to a stop at the lights, the car would lurch as the auto box changed down the gears. It felt sluggish when accelerating from a stop, and when moving, I'd put my foot flat to the floor and have to wait a good 2 seconds for it to kick down. Once it had kicked down, the power was great and the engine felt perfect.

Another thing I noticed was that on cruise control, the revs "pulsed" - it felt as if the car was constantly having to accelerate and decelerate to compensate for something. I didn't get the chance to set it at high speed - I set it at about 38MPH so I'm not sure if that contributed to the issue. Anyway, I'm thinking that might be related to the issue above.

I plugged it into a code reader and it came up clear. The owner told me it had been "chipped" using an OBD device but didn't seem to know a lot about it.

To me, this felt like a transmission issue. The engine oil had been changed but he wasn't sure if the transmission oil ever had been and the car was on just under 100k miles. Is this a transmission issue, and if so, is an oil change likely to sort it? If not, how much roughly would I have to budget to get the transmission rebuilt?

Thanks in advance!

 

[eighty6gt]

No guarantee the oil change would fix it, a trans rebuilt by some guy would be in the thousands - see if an aftermarket place will ship you a trans out of the US, or if you can get a reman unit locally.

IF that's even the problem. Very interesting that there are no codes.

I would find a car that has had the ECU unmolested, and get a tuner and a tune from Lito on here. Then at least you're starting with something. Unless you can get this car back to stock @ ford! Would cost a little bit.

 

[Pentalab]

What year is the GT ? The 5r55s auto tranny needs it's ATF swapped out way b4 100K miles! I put a JDM engineering catch can on my 5r55s, other wise it will puke ATF all over the road. That's how it loses ATF. There is NO conventional auto tranny dipstick either. And without that, you have no clue how much is in there. Ford uses this goofy setup from down below. I installed an aftermarket auto tranny pan, holds an extra 4 qts, and comes with a locking type dipstick, which ends up on the firewall on the pass side, next to the battery. Opening is big enough, with stick removed to easily add ATF, if required. Made by performance automatic..also comes with a drian plug on the bottom of the pan. You can also buy aftermarket oem like pans with a dipstick.

If it's low on ATF as I suspect, it won't shift correctly. BTW, the ATF level drops..as the ATF heats up to it's normal 170 F. I replaced my ATF with RP max ATF..which is synthetic.

On my 2010 auto, the cruise control won't even function till I'm at least up to 40 mph. Normally it's used at 50+ mph. At 38 mph, it's borderline.

You might want to buy the car in the usa. I suspect you may well be into a lot of issues with a mexican stang. Everything from brakes, to eng to auto tranny, to hack repair jobs, bizzaro soft ware loads etc, etc. Then what do you do when u have to fix all of it ? Are Ford dealers down there even competent ?

 

[ox white]

It felt sluggish when accelerating from a stop, and when moving, I'd put my foot flat to the floor and have to wait a good 2 seconds for it to kick down. Once it had kicked down, the power was great and the engine felt perfect.

Sounds like a typical untuned 3V. Untuned manuals are dogs too. As far as being "chipped", no. That's a Fox and SN95 thing. In order to modify the tune on an S197, the PCM has to be reflashed. As someone else mentioned, try to get a US car. You're not far from the border.

 

[geekman]

Thanks for the info. I’d love to get a US car but I need something very soon and I suspect the insurance / registration would be very difficult as I’m on a temporary work visa, and the house we’ve bought has not yet been completed on. Everyone I’ve spoken to has said it’d be very difficult for me, although I can’t verify this as my own research hasn’t given me many clear facts. I guess there’s not that many people in my position?

I decided not to go for the one with the gearbox issue based on your above replies. I saw 3 today, one had an empty coolant tank and a non working heater so I crossed that off the list immediately, the second one I saw was broken in literally every possible way, and the final one was good apart from codes P0011 and P0021 and non working cruise control. Looking online, this seems fairly serious so I guess I’ll have to keep looking.

I saw a very nice Audi A6 in great condition, but after years of owning similar cars I’m not sure I’m ready to go back to something just like what I was driving in Europe.

 

[46addict]

Are you looking at 2005-10 Mustangs? Just wanted to clarify which generation of 4.6 we're talking about.
If someone says a 2005+ Mustang was chipped then they probably mean it was re-programmed. If a shadetree tuner tuned the car, that would explain the erratic shifting behavior. And the 5r55s automatics don't last long if not cared for.

 

[Red Baron]

Just some food for thought based on what I read about the car you are looking at. I bought a 2006 GT Premium from a local car dealer in 2013. He bought the car at an auction since it looked pretty nice and had a lot of options.

The car had 147,500 highway miles and we speculated that the car was owned by a sales rep or someone who did a lot of highway driving. Since the leather interior was in very good condition and didn't show any noticeable wear, we suspected that the car was owned by either a woman or a small man.

When I test drove the car it had horrible hesitation. It was like a delayed reaction as you stepped on the gas to get the car moving and then it would put you back in the seat. The culprit was a very dirty throttle intake. It was caked with black carbon but once it was cleaned the car had instantaneous power.

Not knowing what kind of maintenance the car had received other than oil changes, I had my repair shop do a BG Automatic Transmission exchange, a BG radiator flush and BG Brake and Power Steering flushes.

The car needed new tie rods, a new serpentine belt, a BG Fuel Injection Service and a tune up. I later added 8 new MSD Coil Packs as two of the originals died. At least at this point I had a base line of maintenance for the car. I also replaced the half worn Pirelli tires for 4 new Goodyear Eagle RSA All Season tires which still look brand new.

The engine and transmission performance has increased dramatically! The car now has 165,000 miles and looks and drives like new. One of my friends from the Mustang Club of Maryland drove my car quite a bit 2 years ago as I was recovering from surgery to repair a torn quad muscle in my right leg. She has a 2005 GT Premium with about 60,000 miles. She told me that my car feels much tighter than hers.

The dealer had a hard time selling this car because people were afraid of the mileage. However, as a retired Sales and Marketing Professional, I used to put 25,000 or so on my vehicles every year so I wasn't afraid of the mileage. By the time I sold my 2002 V6 Mustang this car had dropped in price from $12 K to $9 K! I sold my 2002 Mustang for $7,500 so this car only cost me $1,500! In addition, the dealer replaced the stock 18" tires with 19" Mustang GT wheels that came from a 2010 Mustang GT.

There is a possibility that some of the issues I had with this car may pertain to the Mustang you're considering. Good luck whichever way you go!

 

[geekman]

@46addict - Yes, I'm looking at 2005-2010 ones. Wouldn't at all surprise me if the tune was the cause of the bad shifting, but you'd think the owner would have told the tuner to reverse it as he preferred it stock. It was very tricky to drive in that state.

@Red Baron That's very interesting, and gives me a little more hope than I had before. As it happens, I drove another one a couple of days ago with a terrible throttle delay - I would slowly press the pedal further and further down and be greeted with nothing, nothing, nothing, then suddenly loads of power. I also noticed when I turned the AC on and left the car idling the revs would pulse up and down, to the point the car almost stalled. I'm fairly sure this was caused by a dirty throttle intake / MAF. Other than that, the car drove well and the gearbox shifted smoothly, albeit the shifter was misaligned. Every car I've seen so far has had a cracked / misaligned / non lighting up shifter so I'll just get a whole new one regardless of what car I buy. I've made a few offers so far which I consider fair considering the poor condition of the cars (been offering around $1k less than asking price) but all so far have been rejected. I'm just going to keep looking and making offers - I do at least have a car to drive around in so it's not urgent.

Thanks for all your help so far, and merry Christmas!