New Mustang v6 (no mods) suffers driveshaft failure, talk about cost cutting!

**Telionis** · 12-20-2011, 02:41 AM

Everyone's been praising the new 305 bhp V6 Mustang, which will get you a 14.0 @ 104 mph for about $23k. Ford has been marketing them as a legitimate racing machine, even offering serious brake and suspension upgrades as one of the options, as well as the option of GT-spec gears and a factory GT-spec LSD. One such car, which cost about $26k, beat the 2011 WRX STi and the R-spec Genesis Coupe around VIR in a magazine test (C&D maybe). The thing is nearly identical to last years GT in performance, but can be had for less than a base model Camry.

Yet all is not well in the land of the sub-25k sports-car, the car clearly has some well hidden flaws. This guy removed the speed-limiter (set to 115) to see how fast he could go on the desert roads. The car was stock aside from that. Once he got to about 130 mph you could hear the driveshaft start to bow, and then totally failed at around 135 mph.

Mirrored video (original was removed):

Original Description:

Originally Posted by jonkolo13

I had an opportunity to drive my Mustang on a closed road at high speeds and this is what happened. Apparently the standard tires are not the only reason for the car being limited to such a sub performance speed of 113MPH. (Even slower then Ford's Fiesta and Focus models = 118MPH) My stock driveshaft failed at about 135MPH, so if these cars are run flat out in the real world without the ridiculous speed governor to keep them together, the drivetrain is not actually designed to handle the power of the engine. Major damage caused by the broken shaft included a hole in the metal floorpan, major exhaust system and muffler damage, broken transmission shifter, broken parking brake, broken interior plastic trim parts, etc. My 1997 Mustang Cobra could run 152MPH for unlimited time periods and this new car only held together for about 15 seconds under full throttle!!! Give me a break!!! The drivetrain is a REALLY BAD place to cut costs for a net profit $, especially on a 305HP Mustang! I really hope that Ford makes a change to the V6 drivetrain for 2013. After all, many of these cars are driven regularly on the German Autobahn and a failure like this could be very dangerous! Solution = Ditch the governor and install a decent driveshaft! Even a 23K Honda Civic can go 137MPH without breaking!!! Come on!!! This is my 5'th Mustang and my 1'st major failure. This is totally unacceptable for a performance car!

Cheap bastards! As someone on reddit said, I wonder if they plan to sell these cars to the Germans, I doubt many autobahn cruisers are willing to settle for 115 mph.

**onebadmollafolla** · 12-20-2011, 03:01 AM

That sound at the end was horrifying. Looks like it was built Ford tough.

**GTOJOE** · 12-20-2011, 06:17 AM

wow that's a scary sound to hear when doing 135mph. Some smart person will create driveshafts capable of much higher speeds and will make a killing.

**IPD** · 12-20-2011, 08:30 AM

MAJOR fail. i have even MORE legit reasons to hate on rustangs now.

**DrGonzo** · 12-20-2011, 09:04 AM

Not the first time this has happened. The 05 Mustang has the same issues with Drive shaft failure at only 110mph cause they only peened the u-joints bearing caps in place. Later years they actually used retaining clips.

**AdamVR4** · 12-20-2011, 09:52 AM

Has anyone else reported similar problems?

**bluefox1081** · 12-20-2011, 09:59 AM

Damn...that's gonna be an expensive fix.

**IPD** · 12-20-2011, 10:49 AM

Originally Posted by DrGonzo

Not the first time this has happened. The 05 Mustang has the same issues with Drive shaft failure at only 110mph cause they only peened the u-joints bearing caps in place. Later years they actually used retaining clips.

your car looks like domo

**aaronatstate** · 12-20-2011, 11:00 AM

Just to play devils advocate, you think Ford put the 115mph speed limiter in there for a reason? Maybe they knew the driveshaft couldn't handle higher speeds? Just sayin is all.