Hey.
2 days ago I test drove '00 CSVT when my friend was signing paperwork in a dealership. It had 22K miles on the odometer, black on blue. Well let me tell you that the car looked pretty beat up, paint chips all over the body, rust on all 4 brake rotors...
It looked like it had been abused pretty badly, well anyways I took it out for a spin because I'm in the market for CSVT and that was my first time I got to drive a CSVT. Wanted to see the difference between SVT and my '98 Duratec 5-speed. Unfortunately there was something seriously wrong with that car. In an N gear I could rev up the motor as much as I wanted to, but when I tried to launch hard, every time @ WOT the engine started to choke and the car slowed down a lot. It occured exactly @ 4K rpms every time in 1st, 2nd or 3rd. I just upshifted and let off the throttle, the engine caught back up and I could rev it up over 4K. But more gently, not as hard. The gears were very easy to shift, maybe too easy, but it never popped off a gear. DOn't think it was the tranny, or the engine. My guess is the clutch maybe. Also I went to an open road in a country /I live in Tx./ and I did 120mph, but the car would not rev over 5K and would not go pass 120mph no matter what. The SVT ran out of breath, but the car was supposed to top out @143mph and thats even more on the speedo.
The speedo was showing 120 and I had it floored for like a 30sec on a straight road
Don't know what was the problem, but I wasn't interesting on buying this particular car anyways, just wanted to see the difference. Unfortunately when I was expecting the extra 30hp to kick in, the car "died". But it was very nimble, definately better than the SE + the sticky 16" tires were way better than mine.
