Roush crashed my saleen.....:(

[dekidex]

Well i was waiting at an intersection fo the light to turn green and when it did i took off and there came this guy from my right side,crossed my way and i slamed into him.
I hit his fender with my front end,he was driving a 1990 MAZDA MPV a Junk!
Well guess what.....his car has some minimal damage and my car is gone!

I'm talking the whole front end the side panels the doors are out of alignment because the the panels pushed them in.....i mean that bumper saleen produces is made out of freakin rubber.....the aluminum block that's underneath the bumper,that is suposed to protect you from an impact is hanging from the front of the car......

I mean considering the damage on that MPV which is nothing my car looked like a train hit it!

I was embarassed standing on the street and people pointing at my car and then the MPV and laughing.....


But my main concern is that the brakes suck!!!! i steped on the brakes so hard before the impact and they did not grip as i expected from them to do in a case of an emergency.....! i mean i was driving only like 25 mph at the most but still it hapend.....

I drive a Boxster and a Mercedes Coupe and let me tell you something these brakes are freakin awesome!but the saleen brakes suck!!!

So to finish my story,the damage on the car is about 6000$$$ and it will take about 20-25 working days to fix the car,i made it clear to them that i need original saleen parts and need to have my production numbers on the bumper,i asked them to put on a mach1 grill unstead of the original mustang grill that came on the car......

Does anyone have their brakes upgraded on the saleen,and i hope i'm not the only one who thinks that the brakes are the weaker part on the Saleens.....(unless you go with the brembo upgrade of course)

Thanx Guys.....
Drive Safe

 

[HazeGray]

First of all, sorry to hear about your accident. I hope you get it fixed and back on the road soon.

YES!!! The standard Saleen brakes are very poor! Actually, I think they are stock GT brakes if I'm not mistaken.

I was driving south on Route 13 along the East coast from New York to Virginia when I got into an accident with my Saleen. It was a bright clear day out and I was going 65. Traffic was stopped on the highway, but couldn't see the brake lights of the cars ahead of me. I braked real hard and pulled off to the shoulder to avoid hitting the truck in front of me, the lady behind me did the same but couldn't stop her Mazda Protege fast enough and slammed into me at about 10-15 mph. Surprisingly, did nothing to her car and barely anything to my car...threw my car forward about 10 feet and just shut the motor down (fuel cutoff). The paint had severe spider cracking in the area of the impact and it was scuffed, the screens were bent, and that was about it. A good excuse for me to upgrade to the center exhaust as her insurance paid for it. The whole time I was nearly standing on the brakes, it felt like nothing was happening. However, ABS worked...tires didn't lock and no loss of control as I swerved around the truck while braking.

Don't settle for anything other than genuine Saleen parts (not sure if there are fake parts out there), but don't be surprised if it takes longer than expected if Saleen has some parts on backorder. The lady didn't know what kind of car she hit and was shocked at the estimate. "Sa-what?"

I'm upgrading my brakes to ANYTHING soon.

 

[motorCITY]

dekidex -- I don't have a Saleen, but man just wanted to say I'm sorry to hear about your car. That just really sux!

Hopefully everything gets fixed w/no major glitches along the way, and you find a good brake alternative. Plus, sounds like your physically ok, which is a good thing.

Good Luck.

 

[marcus95]

Sorry to hear about your car. Just be patient and don't settle for anything but genuine Ford and Saleen parts.
The brakes on your car are unfortunately stock Mustang GT front brakes I'm sure. You would know if you had the 13" brake upgrade on your car because it is an option "new" and if you purchased your car used it should have been an "extra" selling point. There are not too many upgrades from Saleen on a new car. Some items like wheel and tire, brake and gear upgrades come standard on a supercharged model if it was ordered that way.
The next most important upgrade on any car is brakes after any motor mods.
The Saleen/Brembo brake upgrade should be on every Saleen but is not. The Brembo's come with 13" slotted rotors. Those brakes feel and work insane compared to the "stock" brakes. I have the Saleen/Alcon brakes on my 95 and they have to be the best and most expensive brakes I have ever owned but I can come into a corner or freeway offramp hot and always keep my line. You don't know what real brakes feel like until you own some. Definately worth the money.

I think it's hilarious when I see Escalades and Tahoe's with 22 in wheels and the stock brakes in there. That's a lot more rolling mass to stop with the stock brakes. Only a matter of time until one of those guys is eating someone's tailights.

 

[saleenster]

Sorry to hear about your car. Just be patient and don't settle for anything but genuine Ford and Saleen parts.
The brakes on your car are unfortunately stock Mustang GT front brakes I'm sure. You would know if you had the 13" brake upgrade on your car because it is an option "new" and if you purchased your car used it should have been an "extra" selling point. There are not too many upgrades from Saleen on a new car. Some items like wheel and tire, brake and gear upgrades come standard on a supercharged model if it was ordered that way.
The next most important upgrade on any car is brakes after any motor mods.
The Saleen/Brembo brake upgrade should be on every Saleen but is not. The Brembo's come with 13" slotted rotors. Those brakes feel and work insane compared to the "stock" brakes. I have the Saleen/Alcon brakes on my 95 and they have to be the best and most expensive brakes I have ever owned but I can come into a corner or freeway offramp hot and always keep my line. You don't know what real brakes feel like until you own some. Definately worth the money.

I think it's hilarious when I see Escalades and Tahoe's with 22 in wheels and the stock brakes in there. That's a lot more rolling mass to stop with the stock brakes. Only a matter of time until one of those guys is eating someone's tailights.

Very well said. Sorry to hear about your crash...I have seen the types of wreaks you are describing when I used to work in law enforcement. Corvettes will make a small impact crash look like a train had hit it...stock GT are just average brakes..if you had the Saleen upgrade, you'd be in the 'world class' section for stopping. If your brakes are had, see if you can convince your insurance company to have them replaced with the 4 piston caliber set up from Saleen.

 

[dekidex]

hello guys....

Hey guys,thanx a lot for all the kind words.

Unfortunately this had to hapen,i love my saleen it is one of the coolest cars i've owned.
I do know about the bad saleen service that someone has mentioned before and i hope i do not have to wait for any parts.

I will definately upgrade the brakes when i get the cars back,at first maybe just some biger rotors and better pads but then the calipers too.

Fortunately i have my boxster that i can drive arround other wise i would be screwed with out a car here in LA.

Can anyone tell me how much a good brake upgrade will cost me?

Thanx once again guys for all the suport!

Dean
Los Angeles

 

[marcus95]

Dean

Call Joe at Chicane sport tuning in Torrance. He always has a great deal on brake packages for our cars. He will install and you can trust him to do a good job.
It would be best to do a Saleen/Brembo brake upgrade but there are other excellent choices also.
Good luck.

 

[Head Paneer]

I noticed a substantial improvement in braking after installing the four piston Brembos on my car. If you don’t have to have the Saleen name on your calipers, Baer has some nice 13” and I think 14” kits as well. There is also Willwood.

Good luck getting the car back on the road soon.

 

[Acheron315]

The Saleen/Brembos are great...I installed them after the fact on my Saleen because I was unhappy with the dinky stock brakes. I also upgraded the rears to Cobra specifications with slotted rotors...now the car stops like crazy. The added stopping potential of the Brembos when my car was on victoracers for autocrossing was so much that the front end scraped the ground...literally! I now have since upgraded to stiffer springs all around.

The Saleen/Brembo brake package is excellent, and the cobra rear upgrade is pretty cheap and easy if you do it yourself and just modify your existing caliper brackets. Most difficult part is pulling the axles. With the fronts, all you have to do is unbolt 4 bolts total and change the lines, simple as it gets.

 

[00s281sc368]

Check this link below! I had the "stock GT" brakes for a while then upgraded to 13" brakes kit from that place, I'm very happy. Half price from Brembo brakes and they look awsome! They have the saleen marking on red calipers or any color/marking that you want!
http://www.discbrakesrus.com/make/ford/mustanggtff.htm

 

[marcus95]

Hey 00s281sc368.

That looks like they have insane deals there. Do you think Saleen knows they are making knock off's with Saleen's logo on them? They look like you can mix and match a really good combo. Which combo did you go with?

 

[Head Paneer]

A Saleen logo on a two piston Cobra/Bullitt caliper?

Unless Saleen is offering the same caliper (doubt it), I think it highly unlikely that they would allow another company to sell a part with Saleen’s logo.

 

[marcus95]

I am almost positive that Saleen does not offer that caliper. I'm sure they don't know anything about it. Looks like a good set up though!

 

[00s281sc368]

Hey 00s281sc368.

That looks like they have insane deals there. Do you think Saleen knows they are making knock off's with Saleen's logo on them? They look like you can mix and match a really good combo. Which combo did you go with?

I went for the Saleen 13" front and 11" rear for 1000 bucks!. The rear looks a little small but it's ok. I went for red calipers with black saleen marking, and silver powder coated drilled/slotted rotors! They look awsome

 

[S351R"Animal"]

The Alcons on my 96 are great! I have owned some 94-6 GT's that had stock brakes that were scary!. I had an accident due to lack of stopping power in my 95 GT. Once you drive a car with good brakes you will never want to drive anythign else. I have slammed on the brakes once in the Saleen. I have harnesses in the car and left marks from where the harnesses were!

 

[dekidex]

Update

Well so far i found out that my car will be in the shop for about 20 working days.
That's not a big deal cause i have another car i can drive,but what made very upset is to find out how the insurances handle all this.
Unless your saleen is actually noted in their files as a saleen and not only by the VIN number(because then it shows a GT)you will have issues with the insurance co's.

Basically the parts were the same price as the ones on the GT's,i'm talin about the bumper and some internall parts,like bushings etc...but if i would have damaged any part of the suspension or the engine or anything that has to do with saleen,my insurance would have made me pay for all that!!!!

I allmost ended up paying 300$+ for the fitment of the front bumper!because it takes about 3 hours to fit the bumper on the car,and they wanted to charge me for this because they look at the parts on the car as being after market parts on a GT Mustang.

So i need to call my agent and let them know that i have a special version of a mustang and see how they gonna handle all this.....

Be carefull don't think that your lucku because your paying a insurance rate for a GT on your saleen,you should definately talk to your insurance and make them understand what kind of a car you own,so that you do not have problems like i had,god forbid you get into an accident.....

Did anyone else experince soemthing like this with their ins. co?