A question or two.

[Luminous]

What is the difference between a deluxe and a premium model?

Does an SST mean an auto trans? Or are there auto trans without SST? Or am I totally confused and does SST mean a manual transmission?

Thanks.

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[3XBirdOwner]

SST stands for Select Shift Transmission. This allows you to manually selct your gears and shifting for your automatic transmission. TBirds 2002-2005 were not available with a manual transmission.

 

[Luminous]

SST stands for Select Shift Transmission. This allows you to manually selct your gears and shifting for your automatic transmission. TBirds 2002-2005 were not available with a manual transmission.

Okay now I am really confused. Doesn't every auto trans car have a shifter where you can "manually" pick the gears if you want? I mean as far as I remember any car I have been in has at least a 1 2 3 D option right? So how can you tell if a T-Bird has SST or not?

 

[ocar]

SST goes beyond the 1 2 3 D. It will hold the selected gear. In a common auto transmission, selecting 3 will still shift between 1, 2 and 3, for example.

This comes from racing cars that shift with real gears and an electrohydraulic clutch with just the touch of a button in milliseconds. SST emulates that, while is still far from being the same... Its marketing.

You can tell it has SST because you'll see the usual D position and also a + and - position where you can move the shifer up or down to shift "manually".

 

[Luminous]

SST goes beyond the 1 2 3 D. It will hold the selected gear. In a common auto transmission, selecting 3 will still shift between 1, 2 and 3, for example.

This comes from racing cars that shift with real gears and an electrohydraulic clutch with just the touch of a button in milliseconds. SST emulates that, while is still far from being the same... Its marketing.

You can tell it has SST because you'll see the usual D position and also a + and - position where you can move the shifer up or down to shift "manually".

Thank you for the clarification...I would surmise that I just have a regular shifter. It has a 1 2 3 D4 and D5 N R P. I don't have the +/- position that you describe. I will have to find someone that has one so I can see it.

BTW - funny thing happened I bought my car on Sunday, on Tuesday my neighbor saw it and on Wednesday she got one of her own lol.

 

[Quickdraw]

Hi Christine,

As for your other question - the difference between Deluxe and Premium. The Deluxe has always had only painted wheels while the Premium has chrome or machined wheels. There were other differences over the 2002-2005 years to seperate them. In 2002 for example you could buy a Deluxe with the hardtop, for 2004 & 2005 the top was only available on the premium. Also in 2002 the premium had traction control standard where the deluxe did not. For 2005 if a premium buyer didn't also buy the hardtop, off the top of my head I can't think of any differences between the P&D except the painted wheels.

 

[Gearhead99]

Premium has heated seats.

 

[00mustng]

......unless it's an export model.......

 

[kevin3442]

There are also some options available for the '05 Premiums that are not available for the Deluxe; including the 16-spoke micro-machined aluminum wheels, partial (red or blue) and full (red) interior color accent packages, and the light sand appearance package.

That's all I can think of.

Cheers,

Kevin