anyone else's auto throttle input for manuals giving out?

[eldnov]

i'm sure that all of you are aware of the system the mustang has where it gives automatic throttle input when moving from a start in a manual.

i pretty much rely on this completely because it gives me enough throttle to move from a start pretty quickly, until about a few months ago and the problem is only getting worse. when i first owned the car it didn't really seem like much of an issue, i just get to the bite point and let the car roll because the auto throttle input will give it more than enough power to go, but after a while of owning it whenever the car would get warm the system would just give out and i would be required to put my own throttle input in to get it going.

yes, i know that you can get a manual car moving without throttle input, but if i don't the car sounds and acts like its going to stall because the auto throttle input just straight up doesn't work after a couple of stop and go's. i'm not sure why this issue has occured because i'm not a complete idiot with the clutch, and you know you would hope after owning the car for a year that you would be able to drive a manual.

is there any way to disable this? even if i'm super early on the bite point and i can faintly hear and see the rpms go up a tiny bit the car wants to jolt like it's a runaway diesel. any more throttle application and it worsens. i'm not a complete idiot with the clutch, i've never done anything stupid like burning up the clutch, i drive my car pretty normally and i'd be really surprised if i have a bad clutch at 12k miles from how i or my dad drives.

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[Skye]

Automatic throttle input I'm not familiar with. But there are three things that could help with what you're describing.

Manual Mustangs do have Hill Start Assist on by default. When on an incline and at idle, the vehicle will brake and hold itself until the driver attempts to move. On my first few drives, I actually thought something was wrong with the brakes. The feature was unnatural and throwing me off. I disabled it.

Many people complain about the Mustang's clutch assist spring. I found mine to be on/off, like a light switch. Either the clutch was 100% engaged or disengaged. There was no in-between. No linear motion to it. I swapped to the Steeda clutch assist spring very early on. The clutch action in my car now acts like a traditional unit.

https://www.steeda.com/steeda-555-7...GD8FCsBzzggYdrX3uORX-IxzwHO_kAMH-zQ89JjzNCuWu

https://www.google.com/search?q=ste...HfiwGVoQrQIoAnoECCwQAw&biw=1460&bih=740&dpr=2

Something I later found helped even further was seat position. At a point, I felt like I was close, but not quite there with arms, legs, distances and all that. One day I experimented with the height of the seat. And found some additional smoothness to the clutch action. The adjustment in height changed the movement of my leg just so.

Hope that helps.

 

[Cz_Ziemniak]

Automatic throttle input I'm not familiar with. But there are three things that could help with what you're describing.

Most modern manual cars have this now. All it does is feed throttle input to prevent low speed stalling. Even the S197 had it.

Its just to make the car easier to drive, its just a little tiny bit of throttle.

 

[jawsr101]

mine revs up but not enough to really make a lot of difference. maybe 100-200 RPMs.

 

[Aki]

Dealer service department can reset the learned behavior of the ECU, which might help. Clutch fluid could have air in it. Different shoes or seating position can also contribute. The behavior across different S550 GTs was really consistent, and the S650 DH seems a bit gentler with it, prompting me to press the pedal sooner myself. Doesn't feel like an issue though.

 

[Dxm]

On any modern car, if you slowly disengage the clutch, you can start going without stalling. My old mustang from 2007 had the same thing. I'm not sure if it rev's it up, or just happens naturally. And it's not a good idea to rely on this behavior. You need to give it gas as you're lifting your foot off the clutch, a continuous motion.

If you are fishing for the bite point, you are doing it wrong, and it's not sustainable. I was driving like that when I first started and it was painful and impractical. If you are new to manual transmissions, take your car to an empty parking lot, and practice starting without stalling for an hour. Find a road with a hill, and do the same as well... without hill assist. Again, one motion: gas and clutch pedal--as you're slowly revving the car, the clutch pedal is released right after in one continuous motion without over-revving. After a while it becomes second nature.

 

[Scryden]

Most modern manual cars have this now. All it does is feed throttle input to prevent low speed stalling. Even the S197 had it.

Its just to make the car easier to drive, its just a little tiny bit of throttle.

I have to say this was pretty new to me too. I've always driven older manuals from the 90's and 00's era. This is my first modern manual vehicle (2026 GT manual). I've only owned it for 3 days now and as much as I can understand the assistance to not let the car stall, there are certain circumstances this is entirely undesirable. For example, I got a 2 car garage attached to my home. There is a RAM pickup truck parked inside it, which is wider than a regular vehicle. My Mustang fits beside it, but only barely. It requires very careful and slowly parking. So what I normally did with my older manuals is just find the bite point in the clutch and let it slowly roll forward. This car REALLY wants to go once you get the clutch at the bite point. So I find myself doing a lot of: bite point -> clutch / brake -> bite point -> clutch / brake, because I don't want to ram the car into my wall or my pickup truck.

Is this a feature that can be disabled? I know how to not stall a manual car so I don't really need this type of assistance.

 

[eldnov]

I have to say this was pretty new to me too. I've always driven older manuals from the 90's and 00's era. This is my first modern manual vehicle (2026 GT manual). I've only owned it for 3 days now and as much as I can understand the assistance to not let the car stall, there are certain circumstances this is entirely undesirable. For example, I got a 2 car garage attached to my home. There is a RAM pickup truck parked inside it, which is wider than a regular vehicle. My Mustang fits beside it, but only barely. It requires very careful and slowly parking. So what I normally did with my older manuals is just find the bite point in the clutch and let it slowly roll forward. This car REALLY wants to go once you get the clutch at the bite point. So I find myself doing a lot of: bite point -> clutch / brake -> bite point -> clutch / brake, because I don't want to ram the car into my wall or my pickup truck.

Is this a feature that can be disabled? I know how to not stall a manual car so I don't really need this type of assistance.

when i was first learning driving manual in this car i got to the bite point and it shot up to 10mph pretty quickly, and my driveway is on a hill so it was a rough learning curve. i've had to do the same thing too while rolling off of lights where i've had to go in and out of the clutch rather and in driveways/parking lots. afaik i don't think it can be disabled but there's google for a reason i guess

 

[eldnov]

On any modern car, if you slowly disengage the clutch, you can start going without stalling. My old mustang from 2007 had the same thing. I'm not sure if it rev's it up, or just happens naturally. And it's not a good idea to rely on this behavior. You need to give it gas as you're lifting your foot off the clutch, a continuous motion.

If you are fishing for the bite point, you are doing it wrong, and it's not sustainable. I was driving like that when I first started and it was painful and impractical. If you are new to manual transmissions, take your car to an empty parking lot, and practice starting without stalling for an hour. Find a road with a hill, and do the same as well... without hill assist. Again, one motion: gas and clutch pedal--as you're slowly revving the car, the clutch pedal is released right after in one continuous motion without over-revving. After a while it becomes second nature.

yeah for a while now i've given it my own throttle input to get it going, only when i first started learning a manual i learned without using the gas so i can get a feel for the clutch pedal.

i have a pretty good understanding of where the bite point is, it's not like i don't know my car, that's not really my issue. i do have an issue of accidentally going pretty high up on the bite point and the anti-stall sometimes having to save me but again the issue isn't my clutch control, i practice balancing my clutch on hills if i'm on a hill and i feel like it.

 

[eldnov]

Automatic throttle input I'm not familiar with. But there are three things that could help with what you're describing.

Manual Mustangs do have Hill Start Assist on by default. When on an incline and at idle, the vehicle will brake and hold itself until the driver attempts to move. On my first few drives, I actually thought something was wrong with the brakes. The feature was unnatural and throwing me off. I disabled it.

Many people complain about the Mustang's clutch assist spring. I found mine to be on/off, like a light switch. Either the clutch was 100% engaged or disengaged. There was no in-between. No linear motion to it. I swapped to the Steeda clutch assist spring very early on. The clutch action in my car now acts like a traditional unit.

https://www.steeda.com/steeda-555-7...GD8FCsBzzggYdrX3uORX-IxzwHO_kAMH-zQ89JjzNCuWu

https://www.google.com/search?q=ste...HfiwGVoQrQIoAnoECCwQAw&biw=1460&bih=740&dpr=2

Something I later found helped even further was seat position. At a point, I felt like I was close, but not quite there with arms, legs, distances and all that. One day I experimented with the height of the seat. And found some additional smoothness to the clutch action. The adjustment in height changed the movement of my leg just so.

Hope that helps.

i've had hill assist off since i've owned the car. it ends up holding the brakes too long and you're required to blip the throttle so that it moves off and i noticed when i first owned the car it would shoot off as well, which was pretty unexpected. i'll look into a clutch assist spring but i don't really understand what it does and what it changes, the only thing i've noticed is that i can't really feel the bite point anymore, but back then i was able to really easily and maybe that would fix that.


as time passed by i slowly moved my seat position back so my knees don't hit the steering wheel base while driving, and that's probably contributed to my loss of feeling in the bite point but i've always had the seat at the lowest since i think that's the most natural position for me.

 

[Dxm]

You need more practicing. Yes there is a "bite point", but you should never search for it. It should be one continuous motion. Again:
1. add gas
2. as you started adding gas start releasing the clutch.


So it's one continuous motion, where the left foot lags behind the right foot.

There should be no single point where the car lurches forward. It picks up the speed smoothly. That's what you should be going for. Remember: clutch should be behind the gas pedal.


Here's how I learned to do it properly. An exercise:

1. I revved up my car to 1,500 RPMs with clutch depressed
2. started releasing the clutch, while watching the RPMs staying steady, by making whatever adjustments are needed with the gas pedal.

And you get going. That's the exercise you need to do. It's annoying, it's frustrating at first.


As I got better, I can do the same starting out with the lowest RPM that the idling engine allows.

It just takes many hours of practice. Appropriate shoes, like Chucks or vans for me and getting to know your car. Some people also place their feet weird that is another source of discomfort.

 

[614DarkHorse]

Dealer service department can reset the learned behavior of the ECU, which might help. Clutch fluid could have air in it. Different shoes or seating position can also contribute. The behavior across different S550 GTs was really consistent, and the S650 DH seems a bit gentler with it, prompting me to press the pedal sooner myself. Doesn't feel like an issue though.

I Have read that you can do this with FORscan resetting the adaptive tables. Do you know if this is true because i want to do that on my car

 

[Aki]

I Have read that you can do this with FORscan resetting the adaptive tables. Do you know if this is true because i want to do that on my car

I have yet to try myself, but planning on disabling the fake electronic vroom vroom noises in a week or two when I get the chance, will take a peek if anything jumps out.
With my S550 I complained about a ridiculous amount of rev hang and they reset the learned values which took care of it.

 

[Alex381]

Automatic throttle input I'm not familiar with. But there are three things that could help with what you're describing.

Manual Mustangs do have Hill Start Assist on by default. When on an incline and at idle, the vehicle will brake and hold itself until the driver attempts to move. On my first few drives, I actually thought something was wrong with the brakes. The feature was unnatural and throwing me off. I disabled it.

Many people complain about the Mustang's clutch assist spring. I found mine to be on/off, like a light switch. Either the clutch was 100% engaged or disengaged. There was no in-between. No linear motion to it. I swapped to the Steeda clutch assist spring very early on. The clutch action in my car now acts like a traditional unit.

https://www.steeda.com/steeda-555-7...GD8FCsBzzggYdrX3uORX-IxzwHO_kAMH-zQ89JjzNCuWu

https://www.google.com/search?q=ste...HfiwGVoQrQIoAnoECCwQAw&biw=1460&bih=740&dpr=2

Something I later found helped even further was seat position. At a point, I felt like I was close, but not quite there with arms, legs, distances and all that. One day I experimented with the height of the seat. And found some additional smoothness to the clutch action. The adjustment in height changed the movement of my leg just so.

Hope that helps.

I would put money on this being the cause. I have a 6 speed 2024 and the car doesn’t release the autohold brake well. Bill start assist hasn’t been a huge problem, but the auto hold that engages the brakes every time you stop makes the “auto throttle” really struggle. The fix is to either give the car some extra gas as you let off the clutch, or just turn off auto hold.

 

[LouG]

I'm showing my age here, but if manufacturers think their customers can't drive a manual without all this nonsense, should they be selling them? A properly calibrated throttle response and a clutch pedal with feel, job done.

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