3.6 litre Tuscans

[saulk]

Is there a great deal of performance difference between the 3.6 and 4.0 cars?
Is there any difference in reliability between the two?

[Big Al.]

None that I could find under general road driving conditions IMHO.

[saulk]

Thanks Al.

[Big Al.]

In fact I have the best of both worlds my V5 say's it's a 4.0 but the cars ID plate and the engine hieroglyphs tells me it's a 3.6!

So on paper there is no difference.

[pete]

Anecdotally at least, the 3.6 seems to be more reliable than the early 4.0. A combination of having some of the design improvements, along with less stress on the engine I believe. My 2003 engine has done almost 34k with no signs of internal wear, for example.

I shall now run and hide from the army of 3.6 owners whose engines have prematurely expired...

[Fimbo]

there was a recent thread which attempted to conduct a poll of PH's whose speed 6 had passed the 30k mark without rebuild - prob on the sp6 forum. I can't remember the results but there were a few failed 3.6 engines. Mine's a 3.6 and has done 27k without issue. It was the only 3.6 I ended up test driving, the others were 4L and I can honestly say I didn't notice any difference in performance. I guess there must be some performance difference but you'll probably only experience this on a track and, frankly, there are a lot of other factors more determinative of performance than the engine, such as brakes, suspension, tyres, fuel and of course, the driver!

[Mustang Baz]

Ultimately, you pays your money, you takes your chances...

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Sometimes no matter how much research you do, how many you test drive, and how much you think it has been well kept and looked after, bad parts will ultimately fail. Mine was, I think, the first 3.6's to fail which Racing Green had seen and I tried everything to avoid that eventuality. Not sure if it had been a 4.0 would have made any difference.

[anonymous-user]

I had a 2003 "Mk 1" 4.0 and I now have a 2005 3.6 Mk2. I had both cars from new so both have been run in / warmed up by me. If anything the 3.6 seems quicker to me but I would not swear to it either way and my guess is that unless you are Lewis Hamilton or possibly Ph's Daftlad you wouldn't notice any difference. The key is to get one with a good engine, be it 4.0 or 3.6.