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Saw this post from donk. on the Craigslist Good Buys thread the other day and thought it was a great idea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by donk.
The delslow may not be JDMdreams cup of tea, or many others, but me n Traum seem to have the same epic memories of the car.
Spoiler!
If anyone remembers my blue delslow, and wants to burn more time looking at a screen, I had a thread on it a decade ago. I LOVED that car, and heavily regretted selling it. https://honda-tech.com/forums/honda-...3117857/page2/
Transtop issues, subwoofer rear storage compartments, damages, wheels, CONVERTIBLE ROOF RACK, ugh so good
Then I sold the car, who made (or someone made for him rather) this video: https://youtu.be/Umibec3tQn8?si=k8KJT4VB59CW0joJ
Me and my buddies talked heavy shit about the new owner for years about that video LOL
And eventually it was sold again, and someone rolled the car and wrote it off (I'm sure someone on here has a link)
I feel like this forum is missing a past time "car review" thread.
Every pro review you ever read of a car is some contrived piece, driven while it's brand new, after just a couple hours driving it up and down the street. Hardly tells you what it's really like to own, and what makes it special. And they're conflicted in speaking the truth anyway for fear of having press car privileges removed (i.e. what happened to Chris Harris). And they write what you want to see, to get the views.
I figure we've collectively owned a ton of cars over the years, done stuff to them, and not only have we had them long-term and driven them in all kinds of conditions, we can make comparisons against other stuff we've had which'll give relative context.
Feel free to optionally re-post stuff you'd already written somewhere else.
Bought it in 2010 and owned it till 2019 where i sold it for a steal at $60,000. During those 9 years, ive only put on 44,000kms. Also probably cost me ~40-50,000 dollars of dealership maintenance. Biggest bill was for 22k in one go.
That car was an exercise in burning money. It burned a shit ton of fuel, it burned rear tires like its eating bon bon's and it had an unhealthy obsession with fire. It really wants to be one of those self immolating italian exotics but due to all the heavy handed maintenance I did on it, the worst it ever got was the seat heaters caught on fire. My passenger seat was replaced when it erupted into flames. Thank goodness tiny spy balloon wasn't on it.
Performance: Slower than most people thought. 0-60 in like 4.7ish seconds. BUT MY GOD THE SOUND. It likes to tramline quite a bit but on a backroad or sea to sky to whistler, it settles in with full confidence. Didnt really race with it as its was a GT car. Longest distances ive ever done was taking it down to seattle where i got pulled in immediately for suspected drug dealing. The steering was godly. Hydraulic, perfectly weighted and super communicative. Brakes were strong, quite fade resistant. Chassis was sublime. its basically a modified QP5 which Ferrari made absolutely sure lived up to its standards.
Interior: A bit bland, but the smell. That italian leather smell never went away. If you ever get a chance, go sniff a Maserati. Something different about the way italians do leather. We just bought a Italian sectional recently and they have that similar smell.
Yes buttons got sticky, whatever, all ferrari products had that at the time. No bluetooth, navigation sucks, infotainment sucks, no backup cameras only lousy sensors. Backseats are surprisingly roomy for a coupe
Exterior: gorgeous to me. The earlier GT's were the ones to get i think as the lines were perfectly scalped. The later ones had a bit too many vents and cutouts. Ruined the GT classy look. Its designed by pinninfarnia and built at a time under ferrari ownership. They (As in Luca Montezemolo aka Enzo 2.0) wanted Maserati to be the gentlemen's ferrari. I think they nailed it with the Quattroporte gen 5 and the GT. All the newer maserati's are some bastardized products. I had their concept drawings on my wallpaper for a while. When it was finally released i spec'd it just like the concept
Reliability: LAWL. Well it never left me stranded. In all honesty it was a great car. it had a lot of character. The check engine light likes to stay on for 5 minutes after you start the car (they all did that) just to troll you. For those 5 minutes you stare at it, praying to jebus that it doesnt stay lit so you dont have to pay 10-20k worth of bullshit.
Value: UTTER JOKE. paid 180k new out the door. 9 years later, 44,000kms on it, got back 60k. The new owner is one lucky motherfucker.
Would i do it again? HELL YES. My only mistake was getting it dealer serviced. I thought it would help maintain its value (kinda) but the difference between mine perfectly dealer maintained maserati and one that was shaddy tree'd was 20k, or basically the same price as my worst dealership raping. If you were to buy one, just take it to a good independent. Then you get all the benefits and none of the downsides. The overall drive train (4.7 engine / ZF tranny) are pretty stout, never had any issues with that. The interior bits and pieces are typical italian.
DO IT, BUY ONE AND LET ME COME BORROW IT. I tried to replicate my GT with the ratrolla (similar formula) but its not even close. it lacks that.... fire
We didn't need a car but wife's company had a company car policy which paid for the lease/finance of a car that's 5 years new so we went and picked up a Mini Cooper.
We did a 4 year lease on a well optioned Cooper after test driving the regular and a S, which cost her company roughly $400 a month. The out the door price was $30k after discounts and taxes. Our buyout after 4 years was $14k. This car was released to market in 2014 and the body style is still on sale today. I think the only options we didn't have was leather seats, backup camera, premium audio, and alcantara headliner.
The goods:
As a first new car for the two of us, iDrive was easy to use and provided a ton of features that my MS3 did not have. The trunk was small, but once we folded down the rear seats we could fit our snowboards inside the back when we went snowboarding. We could fit full size adults behind me in a pinch but it wasn't the most comfortable. The seat heaters were amazing, and compared to a lot of other cars which didn't get hot enough, and didn't get hot quick enough, this was great.
We loved the red with white top look and the car handled well enough. The 3 cylinder snarled without being obnoxious and it was quick enough for what it is. When I added the Dinan tuner it really flew. We liked the little design touches such as the toggle switches and the large sunroof.
The neutral:
This falls more inline with observations that aren't really good or bad.
The key was dumb. The actual functionality of the key is about 50% the size of the actual key, but the Mini's key has a huge round plastic bumper around it to fit into the brand's aesthetics.
The handling was tuned quite aggressively. Being a FWD BMW product, the suspension tuning was neutral edging towards oversteer if aggressive with trail braking. The car's dynamics was designed so that DSC was used a lot to keep the car in check and if it did not have that system and some one who isn't as experienced with performance driving was pushing the car, it will bite. Multiple times under evasive or aggressive maneuvers on the road, I felt the DSC system kicking up and pulling the car straight as the backend wanted to come around. This dynamism meant I had the handling prowess to keep up with a 991 GT3 through some twisties and I got a big thumbs up from the 991 driver.
The dual clutch transmission wasn't as fast as I thought it would be, and had some of the low speed problems most other dual clutch systems have.
The bad:
Warranty claims... holy shit.......... The car was at the dealer at least twice a year in the 3.5 years we had it and I drove almost every model in Mini's range as loaners because of that. I was on first name basis with the service manager and he dealt with me personally because the car was in so damn much.
- Climate control system drain was backed up, flushed and updated with new parts
- Upper engine mount failed and replaced
- Lower engine mount failed and replaced
- Boost sensor failed and replaced
- Climate control system drain was backed up, flushed and updated with new parts #2
- Rear brake calipers seized
- Front brake calipers seized
- Rear hatch seal replaced by TSB
- Wiper cowl replaced with updated part
- Headlight trim failed and replaced
Those are the things that I remembered and I think there were a few more things I don't. Though I guess the car never left me stranded. The worst of it was when the boost sensor failed and it was running open wastegate and built no boost. Car had to down shift on the highway to maintain 110km/h when going up a slight incline when it would have effortlessly done that normally.
Other complaints.
The "Sensatec" fake leather sucks. It's soft and in normal circumstances it's fine. On a hot day though it was sweaty and did not breathe, much worse than real leather.
Resell value was terrible.
The funnies:
I drove the car a lot since I sold the MS3 shortly after we took delivery of the Mini. It being red and white, pink license frames, and cat stickers meant lots of guys wanting to check me out expecting a girl. I would look over and smirk because there's an ugly Chinese dude looking back at them most of the time
We still liked the car a lot, and wife misses it tons. Traded it in at 3.5 years for a X3 because we had a kid coming and the car seat didn't fit in the Mini. I tried. If it fit I think we might have kept it. It also gave me a "loyalty discount" when I ordered my M3, which was nice.
That’s crazy with that Gran Turismo. Always loved those cars though imo fantastic styling and a really cool looking roadster type shape with the big front end/hood, love the AMG GT so I guess I have a style
That maintenance though is insane… like obviously if you’re buying a 200k car you’ve got money to absorb some heavy maintenance (or should anyways) but at that price point, for that car, you’d think you’d be able to drive it a fair bit/often and not have to have the maintenance of cars that are 2x3x5 times the cost
__________________
Dank memes cant melt steel beams
Some backstory: So back in 2002 I was in langara for first year college (cheaper than going straight to university), this Asian guy showed up with in a white sc430 with this smoking hot blonde girlfriend. He parked in front of me and he seemed like the happiest guy on earth.
I was driving my dads Sentra XE (manual door locks, manual windows, no air con) and i was a big, fat, single nerd who played way too much starcraft. After seeing that dude roll up, I wanted to be that guy. Basically this is the car that lit a fire underneath my ass to improve my life and cemented Lexus in my mind as an aspirational brand.
I finally bought one in 2016 for $9,800. It was an 2002 EX USA car, probably had like 3-4 owners but a clean carfax. Everything worked, and continued to work during my entire ownership (written off in 2019)
Performance: 3UZ-FE, an evolution of the historic 1UZ-FE that was in the LS. Velvety smooth v8, the only engine rated for aircraft usage due to its ultra low vibrations. 288hp, 317ft/lbs is quite adequate for daily use. Lexus put a very very restrictive exhaust system so it sounds completely muted even at redline. Steering was very heavy, but very numb. Suspension feels like its broken. Not sure why they would tune this car with such a harsh ride given its nature but i guess thats the "sports" part of the Sports Coupe (SC). It can take corners, but you feel the weight and the body rolls quite a bit.
Interior: GORGEOUS. Real thick Spanish leather. Honestly the best and thickest leather ive ever experienced in any car. This was right after the japanese economic bubble burst so it was designed/built during the tail end of the glory days where money was no object and they were able to spend something stupid like 1 billion dollars on the first LS.
The wood is thick, and they had likes yacht like features where you press a button and it covers up all the infotainment with this 2inch walnut veneer.
Take a look at most of these 2002 SC430's that are on sale. The interior really held up well for an almost 25 year old car.
Exterior: hahahah..... 68style said he couldnt tell which end is the front end. Other people said it looks like an upside down bathtub or a melted potato. WELL YOURE ALL IDIOTS. Its not a melted potato, its EPIC looking. its a very very distinctive shape. nothing before or after ever looked like this. Long overhangs, super low green house makes it look like a custom tuner car. I really like it! i like it more with the top up because it looks more organic.
Reliability: probably the most reliable lexus to ever lexussusuus. After my silver one was written off, i found a white one and bought it for my father in law. His was just as bulletproof as my old one. Everything works, try saying that about a 20+ year old german car.
Value: Brand new this was 80k back in 2002. Or basically over 120k today with inflation. To get one for around 10-20k is an absolute steal if you want a taste of old school toyota.
Some backstory: So back in 2002 I was in langara for first year college (cheaper than going straight to university),
[...]
showed up with in a white sc430 with this smoking hot blonde girlfriend. He parked in front of me and he seemed like the happiest guy on earth.
[...]
After seeing that dude roll up, I wanted to be that guy.
I'm dying. I can't even get past the first paragraph jfc LOL.
I like how you build us up "oh no, he went to college what will the aunties say!!", followed by release "he did it to save money! yasss what a fucking g!!". Fucking hans zimmer masterful, bravo.
This was my first buy of a European car from zee Germans. The E36 was a private sale between me and my god mother back in 1998. She and her husband, my god father, and their kids, were heading back to Hong Kong.
Low mileage: 7000km. -bought the E36 for $5000.
Performance: This 325i had a five speed automatic transmission. No surprise that this Bavarian sedan was slow off the line for a heavy car. 189 hp, inline six engine. Acceleration was pretty good for passing other cars thanks to the good torque from the engine.
Exterior design: I loved this car! A white exterior made this 325i great looking. -went on many dates in this E36. -got admiring glances from pretty Asian girls (called the LGs at that time haha). Unfortunately, there were no smoking hot blondes in any stories related this E36 like the cars that Badhobz mentioned in his posts haha.
Interior design: I would say that Beemers had some quirks in the placement of common switches and buttons at that time. For example, all the window switches are on the center console on both sides of the shifter. As for the quality of the leather seats, they were pretty good. Smooth like butter. They did not have the leather smell like the leather interior in Maseratis though haha.
In addition, the doors unlock when you pull on the door latch. No power door lock buttons on the door panels that's for sure haahaa.
The interior lighting for the speedometer and trip computer was a light orange colour. -reminded me a bit of the orange interior lighting in the older Audis.
Reliability: No major issues with the E36. Engine worked well. As many people know, zee German cars have some electrical issues with their power windows and interior lights. The only electrical issues with my E36 were the reading lights burning out after years of use during my university days.
For example, I did some last minute cramming for some mid term exams by reading textbooks under the reading lights in that E36 back in the day hahah.
Maintenance: BMW can stand for Break My Window. This car was more like Break My Wallet. First, the 325i guzzles premium gas. Fortunately, my Dad found an independent dealer who specialized in fixing German cars at competitive prices. -saved me from getting gauged by the dealerships haha.
Sale of the E36: The E36 was driven from 1998 to 2013. Mileage was at about 195 000 km at the time of sale.
-sold the E36 to one of the local Beemer dealerships in 2013.
What was the final price of the sale? 2000 bucks.
I think that I got a good deal from the sale of the E36 given that there were serious issues with the car. To this day, I cannot believe that I was able to sell the car.
What was the issue with the E36 at the time of sale? Gas fume leaks from the fuel tank. You could literally smell some gas fumes going into the interior.
-still do not understand how that manager for pre owned vehicles at the dealership did not smell gas inside the car when he turned the ignition.
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Go Canucks go!
Last edited by pastarocket; 09-12-2023 at 12:24 PM.
No, but she did DETTOL my dick just in case (for you non Cantonese people, hongers swear by this dettol stuff, kinda like Pinoys and their Vic’s Vapor rub)
Last one i swear. As you can see below i do have an odd collection of wack-ass cars that i like.
2010 Nissan Cube SL
I dont know what the fuck i was smoking the day i leased this.
I had the maz at home, i thought HEY I NEED A FUN DAILY. What is utterly retarded and hilariously different? why not a JDM as fuck looking Cube!? I was one of the first people who bought it and it GOT A LOT OF ATTENTION. like a RIDICULOUS amount of attention mostly from crazy girls who stop me in the middle of the road to take pictures
I guess its really really cute, but its also hella functional. It had a side-opening rear door, fold-down backseats, and a huge interior.
Performance: give me a fucking break. 1.8L 4 banger with a CVT. It drove like piss, it wobbled around and droned like crazy. The interior was pretty low rent and it the coarse engine transferred vibrations and sounds into the rattly ass cabin. Brakes were shit, handling was shit, and basically everything was shit.
Interior: it had this piece of dash "fiber" that looked like shag carpet. Nissan specifically gave out a warning telling people not to put anything on that mat as things might go flying. I always threw my phone on that mat and it ALWAYS WENT FLYING.
Basically the inside was like a playskool toy. Plastic shit everything. I tried to class it up by adding JDM curtains to both sides and pleather seat covers. It looked a bit better but they didnt really hold up to extended wear. The HVAC controls looks like a woman's birth control pill wheel
Exterior: CUTE. Like if i squished my chihuahua's faces together into a cutey wootey pie face and then smoked opium, id come up with something like this. It was love at first sight. The first gen JDM cube was hilarious looking, and this was a good follow up to that. The only exterior thing i added was HID's to blind all the motherfuckers who stared at this rolling block of idiocy.
Reliability: Never had an issue. But i only had it for 3 years (36 month lease). I hear horror stories about nissan CVT's but i never experienced any of that myself.
Value: pretty cheap, less than 30k for the loaded SL. Leased it for less than 300 bucks a month and ran on 87. I drove it to edmonton for a road trip and it sipped fuel.
I wish I could contribute to this thread, but I still own the cars I like the most and have had the most fun and memories with.
All my previous cars were beaters (Which in hindsight was a good thing because it gave me lots of experience in working on cars), not having much money before getting set in my career:
1984 Audi 5000 Wagon: While the Mustang was technically my first car, this was my first "daily" car. I had to get a car for a coop job when I was 19 and a "family friend" offered this one up for a "good deal". It was trash. I had it for about 3-4 months before it shit out its transmission near Porteau cove on the way to Whistler. I don't even have any pictures of this car when I owned it because I'd rather forget it.
1987 Celica GTS (5spd):
This is the car where I learned to drive stick. It was pretty beat when I bought it. Again, needed a car for the job I had, but didn't have a lot of money. It went through a quart of oil a week, had lots of problems. Owned it for a year or so before it spun a rod bearing and I sent it to the wreckers. In the short time I had it, I put quite a few miles on it.
1985 Civic Sedan (5spd):
Affectionately named "Old Boggy" by my wife, due to the Carburetor and manual choke (although once warmed up it ran like a top). It replaced the Celica and got me faithfully and reliably from Richmond to BCIT every day, until it didn't, and one morning on my way to one of my finals the water pump locked up, took out the timing belt and pistons kissed the valves.
I actually fixed that, and the car ran pretty good for the next 2 or so years. When I first moved to the island it drove me up and down the Malahat every day for about 8 months. Even put some 15" ATS wheels that my uncle had sitting in his basement from an old VW Rabbit he used to own on the car, and it didn't look half bad.
I had a little bit of fond memories for this car, if it wasn't for the massive rust killing the back wheel wells I might have tried to keep it around.
Dis-Honorable Mention, 1989 Ford Mustang LX Coupe 4-cylinder (5spd) :
This was my wife's first car, her brother actually just straight up gave it to her because he could never quite catch the hang of driving stick. So I took her down to Mitchell Island and taught her over an afternoon (the secret to teaching your wife how to drive is to use someone else's car). By the end of the afternoon, she had no problem driving up 20th in New West. Other than that, this car was absolute trash. It was horrible, and unengaging to drive and completely impractical compared to the Civic. Once I bought the Speed 3 we sold this car and she drove the civic around.
I’m getting tired of hearing myself as I’m sure you guys are as well. So I’ll make it short… ish
With the cube gone, and now down to a grey ratrolla LE (288 a month, zero down 36 months) and the garage queen maderati, I thought why don’t I get a real sports car. Ya know the one that everyone seems to like, that fucking VW Beetle flat 6 piece of shit. I read the reviews, saw that the 997 was a bit too pricey (a whopping 80k at the time for a c2s) and thought I’d save a buck or two and buy a 996.
I decided the regular base 911 wasn’t spicy enough because of course I can handle it. I drive an ego inflating Italian exotic. What’s the worst this hitlermobile can do to me ? So I opted for the carrera s. I kinda thought the targa looked cool or the vert but ultimately decided to get a pure-er experience with a stick shift 996 cs.
Caveat: I’ve never tracked anything, I barely drove stick and learned on my buddies Mazda mx-6. I bought it from the Porsche dealer for 40k with 40,000kms on it and full service record.
Proceeded to drive it home and almost died twice as it was raining and the fucker liked to step out mid corners. Traction was on, but tires were original so I guess half worn. I honestly thought that thing was broken. I carefully drove it home and then the following day took it back to the dealer. The sales guy promptly showed me how to properly drive a 911 and then said this was normal. I was like why is the front so light ? Why is it when I breath on the throttle the ass comes around ? He’s like you just need to learn how to drive it properly.
Nope. This ham fisted chinamen never figured it out. I tried to adjust but ultimately was too scared to do anything. Took it to Squamish and had some Pooh and pee come out involuntarily.
Sold it less then a year afterwards for 35k.
To this day: fuck 911s. It’s the cars fault. Definitely not my shitty driving skill. 1000%
2002 toyota celica gts (panasonic edition) AUTO
too lazy to write a full review but still want to play... plus it was my first car back in 2002, i cant remember shit about it lol
4pc body kit painted and installed for $2000, wheels and tires for $1000... take me back!!
the good: handling, styling and toyota reliability
the bad: power, there was none... like it was dangerously slow
No way the GTS was dangerously slow ! That thing was a rocket ship compare to my joe dirt Nissan Sentra. Our clapped out civics DXs would have bowed down to that 2zz godly 180hp
2002 toyota celica gts (panasonic edition) AUTO
too lazy to write a full review but still want to play... plus it was my first car back in 2002, i cant remember shit about it lol
4pc body kit painted and installed for $2000, wheels and tires for $1000... take me back!!
the good: handling, styling and toyota reliability
the bad: power, there was none... like it was dangerously slow
2000 acura integra typeR.... enough said
I know different weight and completely diff type of trans