MeanMussy said:
Come on, that attitude is just ignorant. It's a question of optimization - power and efficiency. If all it was about was hanging the front wheels, we'd all be driving a carbed 408W. I don't understand why people without the capacity to attack an engineering challenge such as high horsepower coupled with good mileage always feel compelled to attack this question.
If one were asking this question at the attempt for optimization, one would then have to compare vehicles on a level playing field. As such, the cars would have to be exactly the same. I would wager that few if any cars on this site are EXACTLY the same. Alternatively, for a stock vehicle, one could compare with the estimated mileage numbers from the orignal sticker. But even then your comparing a new vehicle to a worn one with many miles. In either case your attempt at a comparison is unfounded due to the varying circumstances. Thus, you are left with no standard for what optimum operation entails. You then have no authority as to what the optimum mileage is for your vehicle specifically, because their is no fair comparison to others. This is why this question is pointless. But, in the interest of your quest for optimization, let's take this a step further.
While we may not know exactly what the optimum mileage for your vehicle may be, we could however find a general area by which we would expect your 5.0 to perfrom OPTIMALLY. For the sake of argument let's say this number is 15mpg. Now say your car is operating at only 13mpg (I feel that for a given setup, losing or gaining two miles per gallon would be significant. Most likely a very noticible difference in performance and overall driveability). Using this figure, over the course of a year, driving 12,000 miles, this would necessitate 923.07 gallons of gas. Taking California's high per gallon rate of $2.49 for 91, that would leave you at a cost of $2298.46 for the year. Alternatively, if your car was running OPTIMALLY, at 15 mpg, over the course of 12,000 miles you would consume 800 gallons of gas. At $2.49 that would run a tab of $1992. From this we can conclude that the OPTIMIZATION of your vehicle would net a saving of $306.46 over the course of a year. Or about 84 cents a day.
I understand your train of thought and if it makes you happy to pursue the thought of optimization then so be it. I am in no position to judge you for that, nor would I encourage you to stop. But being that this is a forum, and it is all about opinions, I have mine. That opinion is even if I did know the mileage my car should get optimally, which is clearly impossible, 84 cents a day is not going to make the slightest bit of difference in my life. Slightly wasteful, maybe, BUT PLEASE DO NOT CALL ME IGNORANT.
The only way this statement could be viewed as ignorant is if a person bought their Mustang because it netted the best mileage of any vehicle they could buy. I not only find that hard to believe, I know this to be false. This being the case, I would say I'm safe in assuming that it was not the chief concern of any member on this site. Thus..."that's not what we bought a Mustang for." I think this statment can be described as "Accurate" far before ignorant.
