Cars We Drive! - Page 170

GTRs are so ugly

It's fat and huge, but I actually like how it looks.

 

 +1

 

Great performer but so damn ugly!

It's all of those reasons that I am probably gonna go for the Porsche instead of the M3 or anything more practical- don't have kids, don't carry anything besides groceries or bags, need the smallest car I can feasibly get... the great thing about Japan is that you can get ANYTHING delivered for a really fair price (free to $5-10 for most things, larger furniture might be $50), so cargo is not a problem, nor do you have to put junk miles on your car if you don't want to. Won't even drive when going to dinner really, because I like to drink with my food and there's so many taxis and conveniences in place to keep you from drinking and driving. No U-haul, instead you can hire a truck and a driver-owner who comes and flatbeds your stuff for a 50 spot. All kinds of motor conveniences for people who don't have cars. So in essence, a car here is very much for vanity and getting out of the city.

Because of that, I guess I already had most of my monthly transportation budget built in already, as taxis and stuff do add up quite a bit. Having a car and not having a car are sometimes comparable in cost in reality, depending on where you need to go. By my calculations there might be months where having the car might be cheaper. I can certainly count on being able to get out of the city once I have a car, which is something that can cost a hundred or couple hundred bucks at a time on a bullet train - so getting the proverbial lead out will be fun and hopefully worth it.

In Japan you actually have to get classed separately to drive a manual transmission car - I can drive a stickshift and have done so for 15 years, but I don't think I'll end up bothering to get the MT class license, getting my US license switched over will already be a hassle. Besides that, kind of hard to have an MT here anyway, traffic can be next level brutal and parking can require you to defy physics most of the time. For those times I'd rather just kick it into full-AT and let the car creep into parking spaces - they gotta go on lifts, rotissieries, on turnstiles, all kinds of weird parking enabling machines. It's fucked up. No space.

To be honest, I don't really want to test drive all of these other cars... because it will only confuse me and put more contenders back into the ring. I'm sure if I drove the M3 or C63 my heart would have second thoughts about all of these of awesome cars, and I'm trying to really keep this a tight number game based on some calculative models I've run them through with all of those extraneous factors regarding registration hidden costs and values - the Porsche wins the numbers game because of the value + slight edge in packaging and cachet. Many M3's here too, but the 911 is still certainly regarded as being a notch above as a runabout city car.

I am trying to do some other things in 2012, so I am also putting the Cayman on there in second place in case they do a redesign and it comes out looking alright. I could get it and the numbers would add up similarly to the 911, just at half the cost... and then if I want the 911 I could swap cars in the future via the dealer. Something I'm thinking about. I just don't really want a Cayman.

GTR's are gorgeous, I love Japanese imports.

 

 

is what I'm driving currently. nothing fancy, but i just turned 20 so i'm perfectly fine with it xD

^^^Lots of issues to consider for the Japanese car market, and I've learned a lot from your post. I'm obviously biased, but you can't go wrong with a 911- sounds like a good choice given your needs there.

Porsche builds some fantastic sports cars.  I'm not sure I like the looks of the new 991 as much as the 997, but I look forward to seeing it in person.  I wish Porsche would stop making the 911s larger.  To me the 993 and previous cars had perfect proportions. So far I like the looks of the soon to be released Boxster a lot and I look forward to seeing what the specs are for the engine and what reviewers think of it.

 

 

 

 

 

Went and checked out the 991 in person a few weeks ago at the auto show... it's quite nice actually. It's obviously much fatter and bloated looking compared to a tight little normal bodied 993 C2 or 964, but it's still a 911. I even like the back end, the taillight treatment is nicer looking than the 997, IMO. I just don't like all the badges on the back now, they look ridiculous. I think one even has to pay for those now (I saw something on the options list that looked like 'badge' and '$300'), not sure, but even if they're free - I'd take them off.

would you ever consider an f10 m5?

Nah, never. GT-R is huge, the M5 is huge. I'm a small guy, 5'8/130lbs, I just need a small car. I don't envision hauling people around, just me and my dog going places probably. I sat in the F10 at the dealer (wagon actually), but could barely see over the steering wheel and beltline, which is pretty sad. Never had a visibility problem in my old 5 series. Plus, the design is not very good. Most new car designs are not doing it for me.

Oh yeah, the other factor to consider - they sell both RHD and LHD drive cars here in Japan; most sports cars or high end import cars are LHD (even British makes like Bentley, RR, Aston) - it's an old fashioned prestige thing from back in the 60's or earlier when German cars weren't made in RHD and they just imported them as such. The lower end models sold here are RHD; so for example all the 325i's, C classes, E classes, are RHD, but you can get the M3 in LHD. I.... have only ever driven LHD cars (as has my wife, in Japan - Porsche turbos and some F-cars) so we just want to get a LHD car. I will probably require a wink mirror and a couple stick-on fisheye mirrors for the sides but in that scenario, I don't want to be cocooned in one of these new-age cars with the beltline that comes up to your nose and 90% of blind spot on the wrong side of the car for turning into traffic

I began hating this Infiniti M, but damn does she move. I just can't get past the exterior of the damn thing.

I'm the same height as you and have the same dilemma as you, it's just myself and the dog and from to time to time a passenger or two, my problem is that I have a furniture import company, so I have carry lounge chair etc. when I go to meetings.

My plan is to "split lease" the car, it's special type of leasing we have, where the company pays for all the company driving and you pay for the rest and the company can reclaim the vat etc,. which brings the cost down and helps make cars more affordable.

I have cooked it down to either say fuck it and get some thing with a "smaller" boot f.ex. a new CLS or a 135 etc. but this solution requires me renting a van when I need to carry something.

The other option is a 4x4 or a estate, which does everything I need, but it's big when it comes to parking in town and when it's just me and the dog it seems a waste, I'm currently looking at F11 530/35(x)d, E-class touring (if I can afford it a amg) or a 4x4 like the X5, Cayenne, RRS, they all cost aprox. the same with a 3L diesel.

I really like sitting in the F11 it's a very comfortable place to sit and as my mother calls it a cocoon, the e-class is warming on me though I have never liked the headlights on that model, butthe fact that it has a 690L boot, which is 140L bigger than the 5 series and 100L bigger than the X5 helps alot.

The only car I'm looking at that has a bigger boot is the RRS, but that has a reliability issues from what I have heard.

The 135 has 350L boot, which is bigger than a golf, but with it being a coupe it has a small opening, which makes it less useful.

Dilemma nr. 45 petrol/diesel is fairly expensive 1.80$ a litre and so is parking 5$ an hour in down town Copenhagen, high hp cars are also really expensive to insure, but being self employed and split-leasing it, helps (it costed 6k a year to insure a A3 1.8t at 20).

People tend to not give a **** about cars and other peoples property, I have seen people park bicycles leaning on Bentley and scratching cars to get their bikes past, cars with roof tiles in the windscreen etc. etc.

I almost got a arrested a couple years back for "threatening" a guy (I told him if he leave again without giving me his insurance info, I would kick his ass), who hit my car with an umbrella, as he had decided me crawling over a speed bump was hazardous driving, first he tried to run of and then his wife got so scared, she called the cops and told them that I had a knife , he ended up being forced to pay for the damages and I was told to drive nicely next time WTF.

I also had my car pushed sideways while parked, as some "didn't see it", as he pulled out of a parking spot, luckily someone called the police.

The bike riding asshats also hates 4x4's so they love to key them (even RX400h etc.)

So I'm pretty confused right now.

I do envy the fact that one can buy a lot of these cars really cheaply in America, not even have to consider a real parking budget unless they're in a very urban setting (and for only the days, if that, mostly) and that gas is cheap, insurance is cheap, etc - but in my years of driving- I've had 4 BMW's in America, an Audi, a VW, a bunch of Japanese cars - getting European cars serviced where I lived in America was a nightmare. It was to the point that if I ever live in America again, I'd probably give into better common sense and get something rated most reliable and breathe on my dice a couple times and live with not being cool.

There were foreign car specialist garages, but the reality of them was that they were mostly old VW Beetle nerds who'd invested the $200 to buy a few of the old pre-OBD and OBD1/2 override reset plugs so they could change a few filters and the oil, a new alternator, turn off the CEL's with the plug, and then charge you $1200. Back then, it was pretty weird to roll up into a 'German car' specialist's lot and have the shiniest, nicest car amongst a bunch of dead Bugs. In Japan, the fact that they have supernerd-level specialist shops for every car, for example strictly air-cooled 911's, or strictly Mercedes G-wagens, etc - it will feel good, like a dog finding the long last pack. I have a small Porsche specialist with a lift a block down the street actually, next a ramen shop. Feels comforting, somehow. Wouldn't need an indie shop til I ever go off warranty, but it's cool that the cars are not ignored like they are in America, rather they are embraced as hobbies.

If you can do double parking at home for free/low cost, why not get a nice car + cheap cargo car? It's hard for me to know if that will lower your rates as it does in other countries, but it does in America, probably most places with reasonable risk assessment (though I realize Europe treats risk assessment on vehicles differently....)

I have the mentality that I want a small but nice car, and then a 'truck' if possible - I don't know what I'll be doing tomorrow, but I tend to end up doing arts and craft-y things and have a lot of junk, I make messes in order to finish my projects - I don't think I'd be able to survive with just a 911 forever. It'd be like wearing one really nice suit and shoes. Sometimes you need to wear jeans; I need that more often than renting would be convenient. It's me and her, and the dog, so they become his and her cars, eventually I think - she of course takes the nicer car....

I had an uncle (now divorced out of my family, lol) who was truly Seinfeld-esque in many facets, and he had a small 911 collection (and his brother had a similar collection of FR Porsches - 928's, 944's, etc) - and so I was able to sample my first (albeit short) seat time in a Porsche when I was pretty young and it never really wore off. He only drove one of them daily though, a basic '87 3.2 Targa - and then he always owned newer black BMW's to really drive and put miles on (effectively his wife's car) - from that alone, I did get an appreciation for a few things; apart from the real financial constraints, he always railed on how I needed to learn to drive properly before you take on a car like that - and so I did, I went to some BMWCCA schools in my old 325iS, and bought a bunch of performance driving books that were mostly from the 1980's. haha. At the time, and this was in the '90's - I'd ask him what he thought of such and such cars, and to him, the E36 M3 was scary fast at the time, when it'd just come out in the US. Crazy how times change, and the new 911 S has 400hp. I'd bet that guy is still probably driving the '87 Targa, maybe looking for a 993 to replace it, rather than any of the new ones.

I've been reading about this new 981 Boxster and Cayman that are supposed to come out, they look kind of half intriguing too. Still don't really want either of them, but a) the pocketbook would be really happy and b) they're still as much car as I need, and c) I guess I can opt of either and get a 911 variant later if I wanted. I saw some pipe-dream level photoshops on the internet of people adding 918 Spyder elements to the new Boxster, and they looked really good, but I doubt it will actually come out that way. One of my neighbors has the Boxster Spyder - seeing it enough times has made the car grow on me a tiny bit.
Buying the first year isn't the best choice for reliability, but it's better in Japan when registration and residual values are counted in - full model changes are worth $20K difference, minor changes are worth $10K in the used price, and being first year won't really factor in negatively. So waiting a few months when on the cusp of a model release is worth it.... and buying an M3 right now would not be very good financially....

Isn't the 991 lighter than the 997 due to extensive use of aluminum and magnesium? (Good luck if you need a body repair!) I like the front end, but the rear looks derivative of Aston-Martins. The rear badging is also getting out of control --- like anyone wouldn't know that's a Porsche! The biggest issue to my mind is the electric power steering. Porsche steering feel is one of the best out there, but reports from early reviews say that some of that may have been lost in the 991.

Insurance is calculated from age, years of car ownership, postal code, brand of car and hp, all small high hp cars like golf gti and 4x4 are treated as speciality cars and come with a premium and all cars with a value over 100k$ has to be fitted with a gps tracker.

At this point I only need a van for meetings the retailers, when they can't come to me, so having a van is a bit excessive, although I plan to have one at some point, for deliveries etc.

Most of the buildings in around here are pre 1950's and they don't have a parking garage, so it's street parking, unless you live near a multistory or live in a newly developed building or buy a house.