Fair warning, this is gonna be pretty long and detailed.
So I was looking at inventories at the local Ford Dealers online for new SHOs and I see that one I have visited a few times now has 3. Two 402A's and one 401A 12S (performance package). I was thinking what a perfect opportunity to feel the difference between them first hand. The salesman I've been talking with will pretty much let me drive anything so he gets the keys right away once I mention them. Then he says hes got someone coming in 40min or so to finish a sale, so he says "I have to finish the paperwork and won't be able to go with you". I try not to make a huge evil grin
immediately after hearing this. I just say in a disappointing manner "oh, ok".
I drove the 402A one first, black on black with the 19's. Now this is the first time I've driven the new SHO on the road (outside of the perfectly paved test track) so I was really interested to see how it would ride and handle on real life imperfect roads. Right next to the dealership is a road that goes in a large U with nothing but businesses on it and it's past 6:30pm, so it's empty
. I open her up and Holy $h!t this thing is fast!!! It's still doesn't feel like you are accelerating quickly because there's no **** in the downshift or turbolag. It's just a smooth woosh up to speed. I then had to go onto the brakes hard (since this was a 30mph road after all) and from 60ish down to 25 or so the brakes felt great and stopped much faster than any car I've been in before. I don't know what all of those journalists were complaining about there.
I then take it on a road that is pretty much broken concrete and was under construction at the time too in order to feel how well it can take typical Detroit roads. It road silky smooth, but still with plenty of communication from the road. When I got off of that road I went to accelerate from the light, and gave it a bit of throttle. I then realized I had to be really careful because I looked down and saw I was doing 60+ mph (in a 40mph zone)
. It felt like I was doing 35 at 60 it was so smooth and quiet compared to what I'm used to. I took it onto the expressway too and it felt like it wasn't even trying at 70, as well as being very stable and quiet. It also seemed to handle quiet well quiet well around town, but I only really pushed it on the expressway entrance ramp.
The only complaints I had was there was a slight bit of torque steer when giving it heavy throttle on the curved entrance ramp to the expressway. It didn't torque steer at all off of the line at lights, but for some reason it give me a snag on the wheel when throttling it around that turn, which was a little unsettling. Another thing is the blind spots are immense in this thing. You just can't see anything out back. Luckily it has pretty good sized mirrors and optional radar & cameras to help out with that.
I then go back and pick up the 401A 12S, in silver with all black seats. I then proceed to go on the same loop as before. I open it up on the empty business road and it is still fast, but doesn't feel faster than the non-PP. I mean I know it is faster, but it didn't
feel any different, even out of the hole
. One thing to note is I could hear the turbos in this one, even though it was barely a whisper, but you couldn't hear them at all in the 402A SHO. I also had the windows up and the stereo off, so it was already dead quiet in the car. Pulling up to a red light after giving it some pedal, I even heard a small chirp from the BOV which caught me off guard since it had been so quiet before hand. I don't know if this was just me or if Ford actually designed more (or any) turbo sound on 12S PP equipped SHO's.
I then take it down the rough road and I immediately could feel the difference in suspension. It was much harder and the car got bounced around a lot more over uneven concrete. It still rode pretty well and is completely livable, I just could def feel a large difference between the two.
Taking it onto the expressway I eased into the throttle, so as to avoid any surprise torque steer this time around and it gripped much better onto the entrance ramp, while feeling more confident too. when I got onto the expressway however, it turns out there were some waves in the road I hadn't felt before without the stiffer suspension. The car road with the waves so much that I almost got bit dizzy and I've never had motion sickness ever in my life before. For the most part it rode fine, but over certain undulations, it bounces the car around quite a bit.
While getting off of the expressway on the exit ramp (with no one behind me of course) I did a panic stop from 65mph. It felt great up to a point, then the pedal had a little vibration and I could hear the ABS kick in, but the pedal was pretty much numb. Typically the harder you push the brake pedal, the more feel you get and this was the opposite. It stopped fast, but it kinda felt weird because I didn't feel like I was using the 100% of the brakes since there was not much resistance or vibration in the pedal. I also really didn't feel much of a difference when compared to the non-PP SHO. Again, I know it stops faster from test numbers, but I just didn't feel it.
On my way back pulling up to red lights, slowing down from 50 or so, I tried out the paddle shifters to see how much engine braking I could utilize without the brakes' help. After putting it in manual mode, I had to hit the paddle multiple times because the time from telling it to shift to when it actually shifts was pretty slow to me. When I finally got it to down shift into 3rd down to 2nd and then to 1st (after getting below 20mph or so since it locks you out of 1st otherwise), the engine braking and downshifts felt fantastic. It was very smooth during downshifts, and slipping a bit while it revmatched so there was no jerking. It also locks the torque converter more often (almost all of the time) when in manual mode. The engine braking worked so well that I didn't need to use the brakes until less than 10mph. If the shifts occurred when I told them to, it would be a perfect automatic, but it still wouldn't compare to DIY cog swapper
.
I stopped in an empty parking lot on the way back to play around with some of the toys. Its got all of the electronics you'll ever need IMO and spent more time trying to figure out the AdvanceTrac. With the PP, you're supposed to get a sport mode, but all I could do was either turn it off or on and it never said anything like "sport" or "track" mode. So I assume when it's on, it is just in sport mode full time
. With the AdvanceTrac off, I tried a 2-2.5K rpm launch to see if the wheels would break loose and I heard no chirps from the wheels and experienced no torque steer. Just a surge of power.
Right before taking it back, I went back down the empty U business road again to see how much the car would grip and it did very well compared to the non-PP SHO mostly thanks to the Eagle F1 Supercar tires on it. I pushed it pretty hard into the turns and I didn't hear a peep from the tires nor feel any understeer. I also had the Stability Control still active, so maybe that had something to do with it, but I never noticed any interference.
Overall they were both fantastic cars and I would be glad to drive either one daily. In the end though I think I would actually, and I can't believe I'm saying this, opt for the non-performance package SHO. I found the 402A equipped SHO to handle, accelerate and brake better than my expectations and giving up the ride comfort and certain options, like adaptive cruise control, doesn't seem worth it to me. Plus if I did buy it, I would be driving it in the winter and would have to replace the Eagle F1's with new wheels which would cost at least another grand right there. I would probably get new wheels and tires anyways to save unsprung weight, so the $995 cost for the 12S package would be a bit of a waste to me since that's mostly paying for the tires. If I was worried about gaining .2-.3 tenths of a second in the quarter, it would be, but as a DD it's plenty fast enough to get yourself into trouble on the street as it is.
One last thing is the improved fuel economy with the 2.77 axle over the 3.16. I don't know the difference and their EPA ratings are the same but I know you will lose highway fuel economy with a lower final drive ratio, that's just the laws of mechanics right there.
Then I sat down with the salesman to talk prices (just for $h!ts and giggles for me) and even with my A-plan on a 401A with the multi-contour seats, over 5 years @ 5.9% APR, it would be almost $750/month!! I then realized it will be a
long time until I can afford one of these suckers. I told the salesman that maybe next time I come in I'll give the Fusion Sport AWD a try since it's over $10k cheaper fully loaded than the 401A SHO and comes with a lot of the same features as the SHO while still being pretty quick with 263hp and 3800lbs (450lbs less than the SHO). But that was just to con another test drive out of him later as he's also let me take out a 2010 Mustang GT manual with track pak
. In the end I think I'll be sticking with used for some time or at least until my student loans are paid off
.
