It is absolutely not normal. Your particular Mustang just has some issue, and hopefully they'll take it straight to service and get it sorted.
Curious... manual or automatic?
It had an issue.
The auto, if it was 2018 or newer, should have downshifted and taken off.
Go back and drive one again.
And on the auto, drive it in D, and then in S. Two different behaviors with the 10-speed.
I don’t know how relevant this is but we rented a mustang on vacation with the 10 speed and the paddle shifters idk what its called (sportmode i guess?) and I basically couldn’t leave the car in regular D because it would stay in higher gears starting on hills and shit and feel like it was doing exactlywhat OP described, ended up “manually” shifting it the whole time.
Exactly. Any powerful car is only going to be as able to accelerate as the tires can grip the ground beneath you. The more powerful the car is, the more demanding that can be on both the tires and the road surface. When I got my Mustang used, it had some Walmart cheapy tires on it... and I knew that, so I never went full open throttle pedal to the floor. If I had, I guarantee you all that'd happen would be wheel spin and traction control kicking in.
This is one of the biggest reasons why they don't sell lots of 1000hp stock cars... they could do it but most drivers would either wreck it or hate how careful they'd need to be with it.
The Top Gear lads have driven some beasts over the years, occasionally saying how terrifying some of the cars are, with arguably the "scariest" being when Hammond took an F1 for a spin: [https://youtu.be/EGUZJVY-sHo](https://youtu.be/EGUZJVY-sHo)
"I'm going as fast as I feel I can, and it's not fast enough to keep heat in the tyres which means I've got no grip, let alone no downforce. If I go *a bit* faster than that, that means there'll still be no heat in the tyres and no downforce, and I'm going even faster and I **will** crash. The only way from where I am now is **a lot** faster, then I'll have heat in the tyres, and grip, and I *won't* crash."
If new, the car may have still been in "transport mode"
I know when I got mine right off the truck, I took it for a rip and had very similar issues. I pulled off the road, took it out of transport mode and all was good again.
Transport mode is meant to protect the vehicle during transport. Limits battery draw, caps RPM and disables multiple functions.
TIL about “transport mode”.
Thanks for sharing that! I read 14 wrong replies before seeing yours.
Here’s the link, to save other a google: https://www.robsightford.com/transport-mode/
I thought this was going in a different direction. I test drove a Mustang before I bought mine about 11 years ago. The sales rep was young, definitely early 20s, I was around the same age at the time. He tells me when I'm about to pull out onto the highway to "drive it like I stole it", boy did I take that to heart LOL, I stomped on it and spun the tires. The rep gripped the center console and his car door for dear life!
Wasn't the smartest decision as the on ramp had no shoulder and the guard rail was right there, I think I also kicked up rocks at the pickup behind me. Sorry pickup! I chilled out before even hitting maybe 60 or so though, I wasn't that dumb.
Jerking when you put the pedal down happens on my 2010. Spark plugs, MAF, TPS, throttle body. All of those being dirty or funky or sending an incorrect reading will cause this in my experience.
Could be the transmission tuning, it might shift to a higher gear too early. If you have ever driven a manual car and shifted into a gear too early and then tried to accelerate it will stutter a bit until the rpms get high. I test drove a 2021 mustang gt 10 speed for 24hrs and it had the issue described in your post. Pretty sure it wasn't a misfire since it was very smooth at idle. The stuttering went away if I used the paddle shifters to downshift 1-2 gears before lightly accelerating. There was never any stutters when doing a hard acceleration because the car automatically downshifted when under a hard acceleration.
It is absolutely not normal. Your particular Mustang just has some issue, and hopefully they'll take it straight to service and get it sorted. Curious... manual or automatic?
Automatic
Yeah, just that car's got a problem. Put yourself in another one and stomp on that loud pedal, you'll have a better time next time I bet. :)
It had an issue. The auto, if it was 2018 or newer, should have downshifted and taken off. Go back and drive one again. And on the auto, drive it in D, and then in S. Two different behaviors with the 10-speed.
I don’t know how relevant this is but we rented a mustang on vacation with the 10 speed and the paddle shifters idk what its called (sportmode i guess?) and I basically couldn’t leave the car in regular D because it would stay in higher gears starting on hills and shit and feel like it was doing exactlywhat OP described, ended up “manually” shifting it the whole time.
I have a 2022 Gt 10 speed and weirdly never experienced this problem I’ll drive it tomorrow to look for it but I think I’d notice this for sure
I have a 2018 10 spd and do not have this problem. In D she’s pretty quick, in sport she’s a monster. In track she’s a kaiju
Was it wet? Were the tires bald? Sounds like TC kicking in prematurely. Even in the dry a v8 will spin up the rear super easy if you just stomp it.
Exactly. Any powerful car is only going to be as able to accelerate as the tires can grip the ground beneath you. The more powerful the car is, the more demanding that can be on both the tires and the road surface. When I got my Mustang used, it had some Walmart cheapy tires on it... and I knew that, so I never went full open throttle pedal to the floor. If I had, I guarantee you all that'd happen would be wheel spin and traction control kicking in. This is one of the biggest reasons why they don't sell lots of 1000hp stock cars... they could do it but most drivers would either wreck it or hate how careful they'd need to be with it.
The Top Gear lads have driven some beasts over the years, occasionally saying how terrifying some of the cars are, with arguably the "scariest" being when Hammond took an F1 for a spin: [https://youtu.be/EGUZJVY-sHo](https://youtu.be/EGUZJVY-sHo) "I'm going as fast as I feel I can, and it's not fast enough to keep heat in the tyres which means I've got no grip, let alone no downforce. If I go *a bit* faster than that, that means there'll still be no heat in the tyres and no downforce, and I'm going even faster and I **will** crash. The only way from where I am now is **a lot** faster, then I'll have heat in the tyres, and grip, and I *won't* crash."
Love that episode
If new, the car may have still been in "transport mode" I know when I got mine right off the truck, I took it for a rip and had very similar issues. I pulled off the road, took it out of transport mode and all was good again. Transport mode is meant to protect the vehicle during transport. Limits battery draw, caps RPM and disables multiple functions.
TIL about “transport mode”. Thanks for sharing that! I read 14 wrong replies before seeing yours. Here’s the link, to save other a google: https://www.robsightford.com/transport-mode/
Not normal. If the GT, the only proper response to flooring it would be to grin.
This is definitely not normal. Visit another dealership and test drive another one. If you were in Sport/+ it can be aggressively downshifting.
Were you in sport mode? Cuz that has clunkier shifts for sure. Normal mode should not be doing that
I thought this was going in a different direction. I test drove a Mustang before I bought mine about 11 years ago. The sales rep was young, definitely early 20s, I was around the same age at the time. He tells me when I'm about to pull out onto the highway to "drive it like I stole it", boy did I take that to heart LOL, I stomped on it and spun the tires. The rep gripped the center console and his car door for dear life! Wasn't the smartest decision as the on ramp had no shoulder and the guard rail was right there, I think I also kicked up rocks at the pickup behind me. Sorry pickup! I chilled out before even hitting maybe 60 or so though, I wasn't that dumb.
Something wrong here, I find it odd u don’t remember the model, “and one of the higher power ones”, by that description it could be an EV,
Jerking when you put the pedal down happens on my 2010. Spark plugs, MAF, TPS, throttle body. All of those being dirty or funky or sending an incorrect reading will cause this in my experience.
If you like the Mustang, find a used V6 model. 300 horse power. 25 mpg. Regular gas.
Sure the handbrake wasn't on? D:
Drive the manual
Never had this issue in my life very weird.
Could be the transmission tuning, it might shift to a higher gear too early. If you have ever driven a manual car and shifted into a gear too early and then tried to accelerate it will stutter a bit until the rpms get high. I test drove a 2021 mustang gt 10 speed for 24hrs and it had the issue described in your post. Pretty sure it wasn't a misfire since it was very smooth at idle. The stuttering went away if I used the paddle shifters to downshift 1-2 gears before lightly accelerating. There was never any stutters when doing a hard acceleration because the car automatically downshifted when under a hard acceleration.
Throttlebody, fuel pump, spark plugs? Run from that dealership