Probably to do with overall handling stability and so on - they feel rock solid on the road but then your spine feels like it is being dragged across rocks too.
Yeah, more than likely. As I said, it's simply too far to go to see a car anyway, especially as my gf is in the final stages of pregnancy, I'd hate to miss the birth because I'm off seeing a car 3.5 hours away. Still think it looks badass Bigger always = better. More seriously though, I don't see a 3.0l lump being too big for that car, but we'll see what it's like on test drive. Maybe I should advise him to test drive a 2.3 or 2.5 as well, to compare the difference. My brother is a very good driver though, so he shouldn't find the extra power difficult to control, and considering the insurance isn't that much more for the larger engine size, and he won't be doing many miles, it seems silly not to go for the 3.0l.
Yeah, fair enough. Get the computer flashed and you'll get nearly 50mpg on a steady motorway run too. I get 45mpg in my 630i which is the same engine but 1/3 more in mass, when on the motorway and cruising at 60-65.
Ah, apologies, the chap I'm talking about definitely had a 4-pot, I'd forgotten they were 2L rather than a big 4.
Makes more sense, less weight over the front axle "might" increase the response of the steering rack and make it less nose heavy, but this is a BMW after all and they're pretty good at keeping a 50/50 distribution. Curious would love to drive both on a tight figure of eight track, or go-kart track just to feel the difference between a 4 pot and 6 pot. I suspect the 4 pot would be nimbler as TCS is less likely to try and reign in the engine on corner exits. Note to the OP, buying a 4 pot BMW petrol is like taking your money and burning it. Re-sale value makes those cars worthless unless it's a modern diesel.
I find racing seats the most comfy. Nice and firm and hold you in posture. I spent 21 hours in one once and didn't even get a numb ass.
Am I the only sane one for suggesting an older rev Renault sport megane 225? this one looks pretty good, service history is great
Fairly good choice tbh for the money. My only problem with the OP is the budget, £7K is a lot of cash into a second hand car. At that price it'll still be loosing value ham over fist unlike that Megane which has kinda plateaued for a while, and I suspect it'll never drop much below £3K until it has 200K on the clock, lol! Putting money into a modern petrol is kinda of lost money anyway, so personally I wouldn't spend more than £2K on a non-oil burner. Find something utterly nuts that does less than 30mpg and has a book speed of 150mph+
I'm 21 and running a '99 MX5. It's peanuts to insure and for £7k you could take the FI route and have some change left over. (I spent £2200 on a car with 30k on the clock, FSH and some extra goodies). I'm hopefully grabbing a Scooby/Integra/S14 for a second car next year to replace my aging Fiesta so you could probably say I'm biased towards JDM cars...
easy choice for me, something along these lines: http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/honda/s2000/honda-s2000-16v-gt-54/1437201
Wow loads of responses, thanks guys. Although I am still having a job narrowing it down! Nah, I simply couldn't drive around in that mate! Hits all the economy buttons but I really hate the front of it Thanks I will bear that in mind. I have been in my friend's 2004 Cooper S and the ride is really harsh - not sure if the 07+ turbo version is worse? I will pretty much only really use it for work which is mainly a motorway - a mixture of A and B roads but mainly A. It is a very straight run. Very nice car. I really like the Civics inside too, the dash is epic. How can the insurance be worse than a 350Z? I thought they were really up there? Type R seems to be group 17, I'm even liking the look of a non Type R! Was that spoiler standard or a mod? To be honest, I have only owned 2 cars ever - a 96 Rover 214Si and my 2006 Fabia vRS. The only other cars I have driven are a 2002 Astra Diesel and my current car I 'borrowed' from my Dad - a 2009 Ford Fiesta 1.4 Titanium. My vRS was easily the nicest of the lot to drive but I don't think I could pin down what I would exactly like to drive! I liked the turbo in the diesels but it is just something else that can be pricey to fix if it blows - that's why I'm going with a petrol (DPFs are also a pain). Yeah let me know how it goes. Been in one of these, they are very quick. However, it being French does put me off and I don't want to be asking for trouble after the issues I have had. Although I know problems can occur with any make of car. What do you mean by 4 pot? Not heard that term before. Yes they are nice but the insurance will still be quite a bit for me and it's running the thing Have been recommended one of these 3 times.
I was speaking to another Beat owner who said the problem he had with the S2000 was that it was too fast (apparently he used to find himself merging onto the motorway at 90mph). Personally, I'd love one, although there are other things higher on my list.
4 pot = 4 cylinders 6 pot = 6 cylinders you pull a cylinder head off an engine and they look like little pots, hence the term. As regards to turbo's going wrong, they only go pop when oil changes aren't done on a regular basis, I mean really regular like every 12K on fully synthetic oil. The service manual might say longer intervals but oil is dirt cheap compared to new turbo's and head work/piston replacement when they go wrong. Put into perspective, my saab 900 has had oil changes every 6K miles by Saab before I owned it, over the winter it blew the head gasket due to knackered anti-freeze and a dead temperature sensor. Anyway pulled the turbo for inspection during the tear down, and had almost zero float on the turbine. Thought I was going nuts as its done 180K, so got a friend of a friend who knew a guy that does turbo rebuilds to have a look. Result he was stunned and insisted it must have had a new turbo at some point. Only thing is I've got all the receipts and FSH. So my turbo is either magic and has self healing bearings, or regular oil changes work. Diesels crap a mother load of crap into the oil that is then sort of filtered and feed into the turbo with the consistence of molasses mixed with sand, it eats bearings for breakfast, lunch and dinner and yet service intervals are pretty poor by the book.
All good advice Burnout - long-life servicing is a load of balls. I checked the oil on my co-worker's Golf (10-plate 2.0TDi, on lease of course), even though it was serviced barely six months ago the oil was absolutely black with crap! 20k+ intervals my ass. Back to the original question, a mostly A-road commute leaves you open to quite a few options. The S2000 is a great car, but for A-road work it'll be a bit tiring - it's (relatively) low torqued nature means you have to work it hard, not just slap it in 4th and cruise if the traffic is a bit stuttery. Insurance means it's a bit tricky to know which cars are practical, but I'll lay out a couple of, perhaps slightly alternative, suggestions: Jaguar X308 XJR: My Dad had one, and safe to say it's one of the most bewitching cars I've ever experienced. Quiet, comfortable, understated... Until you mash the throttle when a supercharged V8 blasts you off to the horizon, the handling is great too (i.e. it's good without being crashy and hard like a lot of modern "sports" cars) thanks to active dampers etc. ESP keeps you pointing the right way if you get over-zealous with the powaaaah. If you can afford to insure it, try one. Buy at around half budget and keep a fund in case of breakage, but they are very reliable if looked after. E36 M3: They don't have a great image from too many chavs buying/repping them, but they're at the age where good examples are becoming more valuable and sought-after now. Absolutely phenomenal engine, top-notch handling and daring looks for the time. Mechanically and electrically quite simple, a looked-after one isn't a particularly expensive business to run. Again, buy under budget and keep some funds aside for a rainy day (just in case). Vauxhall VXR220: If you can stand to have a Vauxhall on your drive, have a look at these. Specialist insurance makes them very reasonable, and the mechanicals are relatively simple and trouble-free. Needless to say, being based on the Elise platform, they're fantastically good handlers.
Yep. Older, less sophisticated diesels might last for a long time, but there's no reason a turbocharged petrol engine couldn't live longer again. Think about it; the fuel burns cleaner, leaves less deposits in the oil, and the lower compression ratio means the parts can be lighter and under less stress for most of a high mileage life (i.e. low boost conditions, cruising gently). The reason you don't see many petrols with big miles is because of the extra cost to get them there. Case in point, Lexus LS430 with 387,000 miles:
There aren't that many turbo charged petrol cars out there that aren't high performance (200hp+) compared to the amount of turd slinging Turbo diesels. Again I rest my case based on oil changes. Average (enthusiastic) young driver finally buys their first performance car like a Subaru or Evo, throws the cheapest oil he can find in it every 30K miles and wonders why it goes pop. Not to mention it running on fumes all the time so its a matter of fuel pump burning up or the turbo going pop, either way they die quick by the nature of the driver. I also don't think Diesel turbo's outlast Petrol turbo's by a factor of 2-3, just sounds like crap to me.
Regarding Turbos on petrols and diesels, you will find that diesels are running quite high boost for performance these days compared to many petrols which sit around 1bar, unless a modern high power small capacity petrol engine where you get higher some high boost limits, running about 1.6-1.8bar in mine on overboost, my manual specifies 6k oil changes or a change after every trackday. I'm changing it all the time and it doesn't take many miles for it to look like crap. I doubt there is much in any of it now in reliability terms, the complexity of modern engines once turbo charged petrol/diesel probably means one is as likely to go pop as another if improperly maintained. As for OPs question a MX5 is not a bad choice, cheap to run, maintain and fun.
Coming from a household of diesels, this is totally normal, and all 5 (I think?) of the diesel cars we had across my teenage years did this. Do an oil change in a diesel and drive 2 miles and the oil will be black straight away. Still agree with oil changes, that's why us motorbike riders sometimes change oil every 2k, but certainly every 4k.
I've burnt through about 6l of oil in my Beat (after only 3000km) when does it count as a full oil change?
