I am very happy to be joining this forum as a new owner of a 2005, GT, white, blue stripe. This forum has been very helpful in my search for the right car and very informative and fun about many aspects of the car now that I own it. Many thanks to all for that.
Let me offer a small contribution about a weird little effect of which I may be the only victim to date. I mention it because it might save another new owner a bit of grief in the future.
When I first started driving my car, I was unhappy to watch the gas gauge move as if the car were drinking gas like crazy. I never saw a gas gauge move so fast! It gave me the feeling that I had made a mistake buying the car and, doing what I could reduce the bleeding, I found myself driving in higher gears than I would have if the price of gas were lower or if the car, seemingly, weren’t drinking so fast. Then I started measuring gas consumption and mpg at the pump and was very pleased and relieved to learn that it wasn’t bad at all, something north of 15 mpg, mostly on country roads. And then I figured out what was going on.
We’ve got a gas tank that’s much smaller than others, which is why the needle moves so fast. (All right, you all know this but maybe the next newbie won’t). Using the Ferrari 360 Spyder for comparison, you would need to increase the GT’s 17.5 gallon capacity by 43% to get up to the Ferrari’s 25.1 gallon capacity! The 360’s gas mileage is worse than the GT but gas gauge doesn’t visibly drop every time you look at it because of the greater capacity of its tank.
Compared to some exotics, the GT has a low revving engine but like any car responsive car, it needs to be driven with the revs up somewhat for road adhesion. It depends upon your driving style but now that I’m not so worried about gas mileage I find that for me the car seems happiest at 2500-3500 rpm. – usually second gear on two-lane roads, 3d on parkways and 4th over 75-80mph. I couldn’t be happier with the car now.
Glad to be joining you all.
Let me offer a small contribution about a weird little effect of which I may be the only victim to date. I mention it because it might save another new owner a bit of grief in the future.
When I first started driving my car, I was unhappy to watch the gas gauge move as if the car were drinking gas like crazy. I never saw a gas gauge move so fast! It gave me the feeling that I had made a mistake buying the car and, doing what I could reduce the bleeding, I found myself driving in higher gears than I would have if the price of gas were lower or if the car, seemingly, weren’t drinking so fast. Then I started measuring gas consumption and mpg at the pump and was very pleased and relieved to learn that it wasn’t bad at all, something north of 15 mpg, mostly on country roads. And then I figured out what was going on.
We’ve got a gas tank that’s much smaller than others, which is why the needle moves so fast. (All right, you all know this but maybe the next newbie won’t). Using the Ferrari 360 Spyder for comparison, you would need to increase the GT’s 17.5 gallon capacity by 43% to get up to the Ferrari’s 25.1 gallon capacity! The 360’s gas mileage is worse than the GT but gas gauge doesn’t visibly drop every time you look at it because of the greater capacity of its tank.
Compared to some exotics, the GT has a low revving engine but like any car responsive car, it needs to be driven with the revs up somewhat for road adhesion. It depends upon your driving style but now that I’m not so worried about gas mileage I find that for me the car seems happiest at 2500-3500 rpm. – usually second gear on two-lane roads, 3d on parkways and 4th over 75-80mph. I couldn’t be happier with the car now.
Glad to be joining you all.
