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2012 Mustang: 12k mile update

6cylVWguy — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 13:46:56 GMT

Originally Posted by 6cylVWguy

I thought I'd update those who care about my 2012 Mustang GT--especially since the online reputation for the current mustangs isn't all that stellar. I know most of the attention has moved away from the Mustang, but I know there are several on this forum who have some level of interest in the most current version.

Almost a year ago I posted the following about the initial purchase of the mustang: http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthrea...-V8-to-my-diet

Here's a pic of the car with 6 miles on it and before I even drove it:

A quick rundown for those who aren't interested in the details:
Likes:
-Power
-Brakes
-Sound
-Styling
-Overall grip
-Reasonably comfortable seats

Dislikes:
-Bumpy ride
-Rear end not terribly stable when driven with any passion over bumps
-Plastic steering wheel
-Steering lacks feel

So what's it been like to live with the car for 12k miles and almost a year?
Features:
Quick review: Base model, 3.55 rear end, brembo package, security package, 6-spd manual

Interior
Well, the design is what it is. Some think it looks super cheap and others don't mind it. I'm of the opinion that while the mustang isn't a model of interior design, it's quite functional and pleasant enough to look at on a daily basis. I would love to replace the chrome trim bits with the polished aluminum from the Boss, but that's my biggest complaint. The more I've driven it, the most I realize how big the interior is, but yet, I don;t think the space is used all that well. It's almost impossible to get normal sized adults in the back--though I have had 3 adult male passengers in the car at one time. I feel bad for the two in the back seat.

There are some overtly cheap detail features in this car, but again, it's nothing new. There's no trim around the portion of the dashboard that surrounds the steering column, plus there was less effort on Ford's part to hide the bottom of the dashboard, inside the footwells. Meh, no big deal. Unlike my mkV GTI at a similar mileage, the mustang has no squeaks or rattles. It doesn't look like it's built to the highest standards, but it's actually built quite well and is quite sturdy.

The seats are fairly comfortable, but not all that sporty. I wished I could have gotten the recaros that are available on the '13s.

Powertrain
I don't know if there's much to say about the motor that hasn't already been said. The car is fast. Passing 4-5 cars at a clip on the highway is a pretty effortless process, unlike most of the other cars I've owned, where passing one, maybe two cars, is about the best I could do. This has definitely been a car where I've gunned it, looked down, and see the speedo a touch over 100 mph. But again, that's mostly due to my frame of reference, having owned cars that typically never had much over 200 hp.

The character of the engine is not one of a typical pony car. The driver really needs to be in the right gear, in the right rpm. You can easily be caught in the wrong gear on this car. So the engine is fairly peaky for a V8, but once the tack sweeps past 3500 rpms, the car really comes alive--and the car loves redline. When launched properly from a stop, it accelerates as you would expect a 400+ hp car accelerate. The car definitely has some violence to it when banging through the gears.

Drivetrain
This section is dedicated to the elephant in the room: the MT82 transmission. I think this transmission has gotten a bad rap online. I haven't done a damn thing to the transmission or shifter hardware since I've had the car. I still think the car has great shifter feel, but the gates are pretty close, so you can move the shifter between two gates and get "locked out". The few times I've been "locked out", if I move the shifter a couple of mm's to the left or right, the shifter will suddenly slip into gear. You can't ape this car into gear. But once you're familiar with how the shifter operates, you can easily complete some pretty quick shifts.

Brakes
I have no problem with the brakes on my car. The pedal isn't as firm as it is on my corrado with SS lines, but it much firmer than the brakes on my mkV GTI. And the pedal has some nice feel to it--not mushy and not touchy either. I wouldn't buy a mustang GT without the brembo package.

Chassis
So this is the section about suspension and steering. The easy part of talk about is the steering---it simply has no feel. However, when the steering is put in sport mode, it's got excellent firmness without any slop whatsoever. But the overall steering feel, well, yeah, a BMW it's not!

The suspension is a bit of a mixed bag. The car works amazingly well with the stock pirelli P Zero summer tires that come with the brembo package. The car is so much tighter with these tires vs the performance/sport winter tires I was running during the winter. The front end has decent bite in most, but not all situations. I can get some pretty significant understeer on this car during certain turns. Though that's easily remedied with some throttle. I was just surprised the car wasn't as neutral as I had initially thought. But yes, the car has some serious grip and fairly progressive break away.

But what about the ride? Well, to start off, it's believed that the Brembo package cars have a slightly stiffer suspension and they also have lower profile tires than the standard mustang. The car has decent body control versus other stock mustangs I've driven, but the downside is that it's far too springy over high frequency bumps and undulations in the road. I mean, there were times were it seemed like I was driving in a car with cut springs. So the calibrations on the stock car are pretty far from optimal. If you're just cruising over bumps, the car may become bouncy, but the rear end is still fairly planted. But as soon as you accelerate with any urgency over imperfections in the road, that rear end loves to start skipping around. On smooth roads, the car is very stable into triple digits and the stiff steering in sport mode improves high speed steering control. I still think there is more Ford could have done with the brembo cars. And one day, I'll see if what I just wrote is actually true. And then there's the wicked wheel hop.

Now on to the fun stuff

Problems
The car has been very good, but it hasn't been perfect. I noticed an intermittent squeak coming from somewhere under car after about 6 months of ownership. I could only hear it between 25-30 mph, and if I went above that, the noise would disappear until i let the car cool down and began to drive it again. The Ford folks diagnosed the problem as some type of faulty dust cover in the rear end. While they were there, they noticed my car had the rear-end vent problem that was addressed by a TSB. So I got both of those issues taken care of at once.

The other issue I had with the car was that one end of the passenger side airbag cover was starting to lift up on one side. I noticed this about a month after I picked up the car, but I figured I'd deal with it at the first oil change. This was more of a problem than I thought. The service writer was contemplating not replacing the cover because she felt that if she replaced it, it would just do it again, so why replace it. I was about to lose my isht on her as I have a bit of PTSD from my previous dealings with the chrysler dealer up the road. In the end, she agreed to order me the part. And about 2 months into having the new airbag cover, it's still staying in place. Imagine that!

One item that I almost forgot was that I needed to get the front rotors resurfaced at about 9k miles. The dealer took care of this under warranty.

Current Mods
To be honest, I haven't done many of much substance. But I've moved along faster than I have in the past. This car is plenty fast for me at the current time, so I'm not in any hurry to tinker under the hood. And to be honest, if the time comes when I'm seriously thinking about a blower, I think it might just be better to buy a c6 Z06. But that's years off. So my list of "mods" are the following:
-Laminex clear headlight film and lightly tinted fog light film
-Blacked out front pony from a '10 mustang
-Steeda shifter ball
-GT500 mufflers
-CDC front chin spoiler

I have to be honest, I'm pretty happy with what I've done and don't plan on doing all that much more...or not...

Future Mods
Aside from getting a Boss, GT premium, or GT500 steering wheel, all of my additional effort will go towards improving the suspension to more acceptable levels. Definitely a set of dampers and springs and likely an adjustable panhard bar. If wheel hop is still a problem, I may look into getting relocation brackets. I don't generally like the approach of many owners in which they replace every factory item at one time. I prefer the approach of replacing a few things at once, seeing how that changes things and then changing additional items if I'm still not happy. Or if something new crops up.

Here are some fairly recent shots for your viewing pleasure:

I think I addressed most of the major ownership elements, but if there's something else that you'd like to know, just ask.

Tales from the Dark Side: But does it work?

6cylVWguy — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 18:51:05 GMT

As of this writing, I've had the mustang for a few thousand miles and the car is still pretty stock. So that begs the question, is the car actually fun to drive or is it strictly a numbers car? This installment will review what it's like for a German car fan to own something so strongly American.

My natural automotive proclivity is towards a balanced driving experience over something that either cuts corners in the corners or is merely a straight line superstar. That's one thing I really appreciated about my mkV GTI. That car has a chassis that perfectly balanced with the output of the engine. It was a fun car for that reason--however, I always got the feeling that if one item was modified, all of the other supporting parts needed to addressed by a similar magnitude. Unlike say, a low level 5 series, where the chassis had much higher limits that the engine would let you explore. I hated my experience driving such a car because the balance was horrible.

But I also enjoy a nicely designed interior--DESIGN! Which to me is separated from materials used to illustrate the design. I have a higher threshold for poor materials if the overall design is attractive. But yeah, my thoughts on balance also carry over to the interior as well. The car needs to be at least pleasant on the eyes. That's not to say that it needs to be as clean looking at a modern Audi, but there has to be evidence of at least some effort to present a clean look. This, IMO, is a major failing of the current Mini cars--the interior of course is very thoughtfully designed to mimic various interior elements of the original Minis, but IMO, they failed quite miserably. A hodge podge of switches and dials that looks to be trying too hard, IMO. And that center mounted speedo! Yikes, I can't stand that. If you're being kind, I suppose you could say my tastes are traditional. I like a car to look like a car. I can appreciate clever solutions to the clutter issue, as well though. The initial versions of BMWs iDrive for instance was far too complex in execution to appreciate, but I have to say that I really like the concept. And at this time, so have many other manufacturers.

So how does the mustang stack up? It's certainly not perfect, let me get that out of the way right up front. It's got this, how should I say it, charming aloofness about how it goes about it's business. It's in stark contrast with all things German which have a very well defined purpose in life. Or maybe I should say that the car has a fair amount of engineered imperfection, which defined the car overall and gives it a different feel from a german vehicle--and yet, I can see the charm to it all. It's a different approach to the car thing. Of course, I'm sure some of that engineered imperfection was brought about by some high ranking "bean counter" that most American companies just haven't been able to shake. But Ford was clever about things. I really like the overall look of the Mustang interior. It's not the best looking interior out there, but it's pleasant and attractive, IMO. I like the organization of the buttons far more than how Honda organizes the buttons in say the Accord. But could ford do better? I think so. But it works and doesn't look terrible doing it. I'm not a hard plastic hater, personally. I remember the mkII/III cars and early passats. Those had lots of hard plastic, but still looked good. I think the current mustang is similar---but there's far more soft plastic in the current mustang than in older VWs. And then there's the blatant cost cutting, which isn't all that obvious, until you start looking for it. Why the rough edges on the dash that surrounds the steering column? Even a low end base Jetta would likely have some type of trim to hide the rough cuts. And then there's the exposed insulation underneath the dash that you can't see unless you're looking. The seats are pleasant to look at and actually fairly comfortable--but they lack any substantial bolstering. So I think the interior is pretty decent looking and of reasonable quality. It won't win any awards, but I can tell that someone was making an effort. And I was lucky enough to order a car right at the point where Ford was adding adjustable headrests to the mustang, which is a feature I like in my cars. Honestly, I was impressed when I discovered this feature.

So I got the dash stroking portion of the review over, but what about the more dynamic qualities of the car. Let me start in a place that might normally be considered an unusual place to review: the transmission and shifter. This is the most controversial part of the car. Magazines and some owners rave about this. However, a lot of people on the internet at least detest the Getrag MT82 transmission used in the current mustangs. I've never had even a hint of transmission problems with the transmission in this car. And I still think the transmission is wonderfully smooth. Is it always perfect? Absolutely not. It can get notchy on occasion and I've even experienced some very difficulty engaging a gear every once in a while. But I've experienced this at one time or another in every manual tranmssion car I've ever owned. And having driven VWs most of my life, the mustang shifter is wonderfully communicative by comparison. Gone is the typical vagueness that I'm used to in many German cars, in fact. I do think there is something to the idea that human error is to blame for a proportion of complaints. Unlike a VW, the throws are tight and short. It's easy to miss a gear or go in between gears on this transmission. People often refute user error stating that they've driven manuals for years and have driven trucks and jeeps with difficult transmissions for years without problems. But those cars have a different problem--they're sloppy making it difficult to find gears. The MT82 in the mustang is the exact opposite of that.

In contrast to the transmission, we come to the chassis. The video above really makes the car to seem almost faultless. But really, the car is a bit of a mixed bag in this department, to be honest. The ride isn't bad, though it definitely gets choppy over bad roads. It's also pretty bouncy over certain types of road surfaces, especially roads where the paving material is cement. The tires really make a big difference on this car, IMO. They have a good amount of grip around turns and are fairly predictable when it comes to the tires breaking loose. But the car really is pretty big and I've had a hard time getting comfortable throwing it around back roads. But I've found that the car is pretty neutral, but is very easy to induce a little oversteer with the throttle. However, I find the steering to be numb. You can increase the stiffness of the steering, but the feel remains absent. There is some pitch and roll, but I think it's pretty mild compared with many VWs I've owned in the past. I think the bottom line is that while the car handles pretty well, it's no Porsche Boxster. Oh and then there's the wheel hop--yes this car, with a solid rear axle, does have wheel hop.

Saving the best for last: the powertrain. I really can't anything bad about the 5.0 "coyote" motor. It's a real screamer, though if you're looking for low end torque, you need to look elsewhere. This car loves to rev, but doesn't feel all that fast until the tach sweeps pas 3500 rpms. This car is definitely the fastest vehicle I've ever owned. I will say that in some circumstances the chassis can overwhelm the chassis, depending on the tires. I have found that when I had my winter performance tires, the rear end would swing in own direction through the first gear, and like a pendulum, swings back the other way through second gear following the swift application of throttle from a stop. Things don't get that much better when underway. During some aggressive straight line acceleration, the traction control becomes very intrusive (which is odd, because the stability control is excellent when activated), to the point that it feels like I just deployed a parachute from the back of a top fuel dragster. This is another instance where decent tires make a big difference. There is still some squirrely behavior with the gripper and thicker summer tires, but it's far more controllable. I don't think I would feel all that comfortable driving a mustang GT with the stock 235 series 18 inch wheels. The 255 series Pirelli P-Zero tires on 19 inch wheels are excellent. But yeah, this car gets to very illegal speeds especially quickly. And when launched from a stop, the car gets to illegal speeds in a very rapid pace. I also haven't noticed any issues with harshness, vibration, or unwanted noise. I will say though that the stock mufflers are WAY too quiet. But yeah, 400+hp rocks. Cylinder #8 problem? Not in my car!

I have yet to take the car to a road course, I don't have the best sense for how all the dynamic factors all come together. Hopefully in a future installment, I'll be able to address my thoughts on how the car performs for me on a track.

Next up: the 10k mile review.

What Happens When a VW Owner and Fan Goes to The Dark Side, Pt II

6cylVWguy — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 02:10:45 GMT

So after about 3-4 days of looking and thinking, I decided that the mustang GT was my car. I started going to all the Ford dealers I could find in my area to try and purchase a base model car with the BBK. Well, there were none in my area. All the BBK cars I had access to were premium package cars that were just more than I wanted to spend. I mean, in a 3 state radius, there wasn't a car available that fit my requirements. So I ordered the car directly from the factory.

I never ordered a car before, so to be honest, I was kind of intrigued by the whole thing. I could finally get the mustang exactly how I envisioned it. And at a good price as well! SOLD! So the process of picking out the options and then waiting began. I ordered a silver car (not all that exciting, but the car is a daily and after owning a black crossfire, dark colors were OUT!), the BBK, the 3.55 rear end (I thought this would be a good compromise between the stock rear end and the 3.73 rear end), and the security package (back up sensors, wheel locks, and an audible alarm). I wanted the gray, but supposedly Ford simply stopped offering the color--maybe it was because of the tsunami in Japan? Who knows, but Ford started offering the gray later in the 2012 production run.

So the long 6-8 week began. In the meantime, I started going to the Mustang forums to learn more about the vehicle I would soon be driving. I realized 2 things: Ford has customer care (FCC) reps on the enthusiast forums to help owners with their cars and people were seriously going full-retard about the MT82 transmission. So I got in contact with FCC in order to track my car. After a battle with the dealer, I FINALLY got my order number, which allowed FCC to track my car. I also started to wonder, just a little, if I made the right decision with this car because of the transmission mess. The more I read about the issue, the more I realized that the issue was being blown up far more than it should have been. Some people did have some issues, but like anything else, when you start to scrutinize something, you notice every little thing. And that, IMO, is exactly what happened. A couple of big mouths riled people up and every shifting imperfection was suddenly considered a transmission failure. I never owned a car that shifter perfectly 100% of the time. So I started to give less credence to anti-MT82 people as time went on. Through all of this, the FCC people were awesome! They gave me updates where the car was whenever I wanted it. My car was born on August 4th, 2011. And it was late enough in the cycle to have many of the updates to the MT82 that were made throughout 2011. I had no concerns or worries when I realized this.

But what I was worried about was that my car was about to come in to the dealer any day (literally, it was on a transport train) and I had an airbag light on the crossfire that wouldn't go away (and I told the Ford people I would take care of it prior to handing it over) and during one of the times I was going to get it fixed for said problem, someone with a flatbed backed into the car when I wasn't even at the dealership, causing $8800 worth of damage. That's right, I wasn't physically in or even near the car when this happened. Did I mention that my car was en route? I was a bundle of nerves for about 2 weeks. The car did get repaired (not nearly as well as I would have liked), but it was in fine shape for the avg person and I did manage to get the airbag light off when I turned the car in--hopefully it remained off.

So the big day came and went. I picked up the car from the Ford dealer with 6 miles on it and promptly put on another 50 miles that first day. I remember thinking how much different the mustang is to drive compared to what I was used to. It was big--it was fast--it sounded awesome---and it had an excellent shifter. It was very easy to like the car at the start. This was the first legitimately fast car I've ever owned and it was a great feeling.

Here are some pics from the first day:

During that first week of ownership, I was reminded of a conversation I had about 7 years prior in which I was at a VW-Porsche dealer getting some work done to my Jetta (of course, right!). I started chatting with a saleman who was telling me about his experiences driving a 911. He told me he felt the car was just too fast for the street. I thought that was an interesting perspective, but simply didn't believe that could be true. Well, I have to admit, that during that first week with the mustang, there were a couple of times where I thought that maybe the car was a bit too fast for me. Even after pushing down the throttle 3/4 of the way to the floor, I was able to pass items in the distance at a rate that was frankly foreign to me. I thought I would have a problem processing how fast the world around me was going by. I always thought my corrado was pretty quick as it was lighter than stock and had an aftermarket blower--it was and is great fun to drive. But the mustang is in a different league entirely. It moved out quick and made noises that I only dreamed about---I thought it sounded a bit like a Nascar as I moved through the rev range. I quickly became smitten with my purchase. But will that feeling last? That's what I'll be exploring. In the next installment, I'll talk a bit about what the car is like to drive compared with the vehicles I'm used to driving, in addition to a 10k mile update on the overall ownership experience. Stay tuned!

What Happens When a VW Owner and Fan Goes to The Dark Side, Pt I

6cylVWguy — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 02:10:15 GMT

I often hear the term "dark side" when someone who is an enthusiastic owner of a car or brand suddenly changes teams and buys something from another brand. In the VW world, I have often heard this term used in reference to someone who buys something Asian. I think for most rational VW people, Asian cars are an object of respect, but not something to desire, in other words, not something that one can develop an emotional relationship with. And domestic cars? Meh, those are ok, but for the most part, simply not even worth considering, unless you have the coin for a Corvette or CTS-V. But otherwise it would be almost laughable for a VW guy to consider a domestic, at least until very recently.

So this is the first of what will hopefully be a few installments of my own experience with the darkside. I've slowly been flirting with the darkside for some time actually. For about the first 15 years of my driving experience, I drove nothing but VW products---Jettas, lots of Jettas actually, a Fox, a corrado (which I still have, I might add!), and a GTI, which was the first car I bought new. But when I started to make a little money, I started to want to delve outside of the VW world I was so familiar with. My first non-VW was a Chrysler Crossfire.

Here was my car:

It was pretty cool, IMO, even though I realize a lot of "enthusiasts" think it looks like a dog taking a number 2. Thanks Clarkson! It was a decent car though, with Mercedes bones and a Chrysler badge. That Chrysler badge was a foreshadowing of what lay ahead. After a total of 3 years of ownership, I made the decision to not just flirt with the dark side, but to go all in this time. After a series of unfortunate mishaps with the crossfire, which were not the fault of my own nor 100% the fault of the car, I went out and bought a 2012 Ford Mustang GT.

Here it is when I first picked it up at the dealer:

So this blog entry and those following it are focused on my experience with the Mustang. This particular post is more of an introduction to the car and my decisions behind the purchase. Future installements will discuss what it's like to live with the car at various landmark mileages as well as after various modifications. Can a VW guy at heart really be happy with a very American car, like the Mustang? We're going to find out.

So let's go back a bit and discuss the genesis of my decision: why a mustang? As mentioned earlier the primary impetus for this were problems I was having with my Crossfire. But the desire goes back much further than that. I've always been somewhat of a closet Mustang fan. If I was ever going to do American muscle, I knew fairly early on that I would go with a mustang. I always thought that the dimensions of the mustang were smaller than those other pony cars, the closest to a European sports car. The camaro/firebird always looked terrible to me--except the original cars, which actually had a very european sports car look to them. But the 90's cars blew up into these these huge machines that simply lost the grace and yes, elegance, of the original cars. And Chrysler, well, they were pretty much out of the game until recently.

However, despite the attractive packaging of the mustang, I always thought that these cars were literally one-trick ponies. They could go nicely in a straight line, but couldn't hold a candle to even a lowly Golf--not a GTI, a regular Golf---when it comes to turns. So I pretty much always dismissed them. Starting with the 2005 Mustang, I started to realize that the quality of the cars improved significantly and the 3v 4.6L V8 was fantastic fun, but the handling was still mush. Neeeeeext! But then Ford started to get serious with their pony car in 2011. They gave it a killer engine and really worked on getting the chassis to handle well--in stock format. Magazines started to rain praise on the 2011+ mustangs and I have to admit, I was taking notice. Almost over night, I started to become a vocal fan of the car, based on what I was reading. I was quite impressed that a stock mustang GT with the optional brembo brake kit (BBK) could keep up with the far more expensive and far more polished e90 M3 on a racetrack when driven by a professional driver--even if there were rumors that the LSD rear end of the mustang was trashed after the event. The potential was there--the car really seemed like a fairly well rounded vehicle---the kind of vehicle I always prided myself in purchasing or wanting to purchase.

So enter the Crossfire debacle and I was starting to reach the end of my rope with that car. Luckily I was in a position to be able to buy something different at the time. So on a whim, I went out to drive a new 5.0 mustang GT one day when I just so happened to get out of work early. I had been trolling the Ford lots to check out the mustang on previous occasions but never really went so far as to drive one. But this time, it was different, I may legitimately buy something and it was looking like the mustang was on the top of a internal list. So I ended up driving a mustang GT that day. It was a BBK car, manual transmission, and pretty well loaded. I took the car out for about 7 miles that day and the first thing that impressed me was the shifter. It was tight, communicative, and had short throws--it was quite fun to just row through the gears. And then I opened it up a little and realized another part of the car I liked. I did a single 3rd gear pull to 5k rpms on the highway. Yeah, it was fast and it sounded fantastic. I was sold. I probably would have bought something that day if I could have gotten a deal worked out with that dealer. But it gave me some time to think things over and look at other cars. Yeah right! Other cars, that's funny!

I have ALWAYS had a soft spot for the Z's and liked the 350z and current 370z. If anything was going to get me out of the mustang it was the Z. I went to about 3 dealers and none of them would let a base+sport package Z go for less than $3k more than what I could get a mustang for with the options I wanted. I didn't even drive the car because I couldn't get the money situation remotely figured out. Some might be asking about whether I looked at the Camaro and Challenger. No, I didn't even consider them to be honest. I like the look of the current camaro, but I HATE the interior design and seating position. That was was out before it could even be considered. The challenger? Definitely the most aggressive looking modern pony car, but it's a poor value. I liked both the interior and exterior, but for a similar price to the mustang, I'd be in a Challenger R/T that simply couldn't hold a candle to performance of the Mustang, or even the Camaro. If I just wanted a cruiser with a throaty V8 roar, the Challenger would have been my car.

Some might also be wondering if or why I didn't consider something european--maybe an Audi, BMW, or used Porsche of some sort? Especially if I'm the big VW fan that I'm proclaiming. Well the simple answer is value. They all represented a poor value compared with the mustang. Audi offers nothing nearly as compelling, new or used, as the mustang. A TT would be the closest vehicle, but the TT-S (the only Audi I would have considered) was too much $$$$ new or used, and I don't want a DSG transmission. What about a 135 or used 335? I am a big fan of the BMW brand to be honest. But I just don't think I could ever see myself owning a BMW and frankly, they're just too much money, new or used. Again, the current mustang is simply a better value. Porsche, maybe? A used Boxster S did actually cross my mind. I LOVE how the boxster drives, and despite being a convertible, I'm a huge fan. But I simply didn't want to drive any Porsche as a daily or out of warranty (or with an aftermarket one)--I'm sure some will say I'm crazy, but that's ok. This is my story!