I know you're a heavy MB nutswinger now, but there's a really good reason why that 100k+ car is sold for 30 within only a few years.
Not that the caddy is holding value, but at least you can fix the caddy problems with cheap easy to find parts, which was my point

Mercedes never, economically, makes sense. Money aside, sure they're fantastic.

*edit: also
http://modesto.craigslist.org/cto/5900055325.html

*edit: also

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...60dd8a4f6f.jpg

As the old men talk, I believe a MK7 Golf R would be high on my list of things to drive. Get one with a long warranty if needed.

I'd rock one of those. With the longest warranty known to mankind because vw builds "5 year cars" just like MB :D

It's like the RS for us old men

It's true and I am an old man at heart, but something is truly hilarious watching a FWD hatch on slicks only run into the 12s, when the MK7 GTi on a set of slicks and a tune will get into the 11s.

The only part of that car that looks good is the rear which they blatantly ripped off

way to go kia, lol

I greatly enjoy watching these small companies take jabs at the giants. Reminds me of old fight movies.

Agreed. While I don't mind driving the wife's Fusion for family trips, it's not something I would daily.

Golf R is a good contender, short on power though -- as a MB driver, im not sold on owning a VW. :P

that kia looks great. Looks like a jaguar.

I'd rock an R with a tune. I'd rock it real hard.
But then the warranty claims would likely be voided.

Catch 22

I test drove a BRZ and a couple of 2017 camaros yesterday. The BRZ was surprisingly good. Great chassis, perfect size, decent steering, but it's really let down by the engine. It would probably be a blast with 250 whp, and it looks like there are CARB approved supercharger kits, but I'm not sure that I want to go down that rabbit hole. Still, a used BRZ/FRS and a supercharger kit plus supporting mods is very affordable.

I also drove a 2LT RS and a 2SS camaro. The RS had surprisingly good power and sound for a V6. I can absolutely see why some say that the V6 RS with dual mode exhaust is the best deal. The 2SS was stupid fast and sounded great, but overall both cars felt kind of insulated and uninvolving (granted the test drive loop was pretty boring). Add to that the gigantic size and terrible visibility, and I don't think it's the car for me. Plus, a 1SS w/ 1LE package is ~$45k, which is more than I'd like to spend. It's a shame because I think both powertrains are among the very best on the market.

For me it would hands down be a suby. However I also live in a mountain town and ski 70+ days a season, often driving in terrible conditions.

From what I've seen, the supercharger kits have been out for a while so you can accurately gauge reliability etc. If you're just going to street drive it and use the miata for shenanigans (autox etc) it would be a pretty awesome balance.

Or were you planning on getting rid of the miata?

Here's an interesting option...

2017 Chevy Volt.

Very light, nimble, all the automotive journalists loved the last one. Has lots of great commuting features like lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control (can do stop and go traffic for you) and if you can keep it under 60 miles you don't use any gas.
Oh, and 297 ft-lbs of torque.

From what I gather (having owned a BRZ for a couple of years now), keep it under 300whp, with a good tune and oil cooler, and don't beat it like a rented mule constantly and you'll be OK.

If I could cure my car-hopping disease and decide on one do-it-all car, I think a BRZ with the Jackson Racing rotrex kit and their combo radiator/oil cooler would be amazing. I previously owned a 2015 BRZ for 6 weeks. The stock engine is so joyless around town, but I do like how it revs. The rotrex would fill in that cavern in the lower-end torque curve, yet let it actually pull hard on the top end!

For a DD FRS/BRZ I would be all over one of these kits for a little more go juice.

SCION FRS/SUBARU BRZ - New site

i put a 10x12' rug in the back of my MB, trying to figure out how I'd do that in a FRS...

Roof rack and ratchet straps. Utility trailer. Rent $20 truck from home depot.

The obvious solution here is an LT2 swaped brz with a roof rack for Scott's rug :dealwithit:


I'm trying real hard to determine if serious or trolling

Serious about the electric super. Its a 5kw brushless electric motor connected to a centripital (centrifugal? Whatever, you know what I mean) compressor. 1.3PR max, up to 400cfm or so at 1.2PR. Not a ton, but cool.

If my miata was street only and I only needed bost for short bits and then could let the 24v battery pack recharge (they hold enough for 60-90sec of contonuous boost) I would be playing with one.

just no

Well I think they are cool.

The electric superchargers are completely stupid. That's why they have such a limited market.

You're carrying around all that extra weight and inlet restriction all the time, for 2-3psi worth of boost, and a really mediocre power bump for a limited time, from time to time. Maybe in the future they will keep revising/improving that setup to make it cool, but so far I just don't see it.

Lmao, completely serious... I just test drove one yesterday with the premiere package... beautiful car... on the inside at least.

Turns out, those claims about quick/fast, nimble, fun, well... no. The lady asks me "it's pretty fast isn't it?" meanwhile, I just got out of my Evo. "No, no it's not.".

Still a great commuter car though IMO.

Duno how much of a restriction they are, but considering it would be running at anything past 80% throttle, I don't see it as an issue. It is 5psi in the midrange. For a street driven commuter, where you are only going to get to use it here and there anyway, I think it is a wonderful solution for a cheap, easy, reversable torque bump. And extra weight is what, 20lbs-30lb?

It needs to power up at least partially just to spin just to not cause a restriction under normal vacuum driving. And then it needs to recover after getting drained, taxing the car's electrical system.

I dunno, I just don't see the appeal here. I'm open to being proven wrong tho.

How much are they? I didn't see prices listed. It better be under 1k

I don't remeber how much the regular kits are, developers kits are $1200ish (depends on exchange rate cause they are a canadian company)

90s of boost is a long time to be at or near WOT, and it is just two 18ah batteries for the dump pack. So not any worse than charging your regular battery. They say about 8sec of charging for 1sec of boost (wish they would give charging and useage currents).

Also, for normal vavcume driving, I don't see why some restriction is an issue? Your throttle plate is a bigger restriction than it is going to be.

Sorry to come into this late, but people post all the time how the Golf R is "down on power", but with a tune... the DSG's are high 11 second cars it seems.

That said, I had a '15 MK7 GTI (manual) and ditched it after 7 months, thankfully I got out clean. My GTI had epic electrical, mechanical gremlins they never could fix. The fit and finish of my GTI was pure ass as well. I bought the car on a whim during dieselgate because I got it cheap. At least the R is made in the EU still, or it was when I got my GTI. I had a JB1 on my MK7, and while not aggressive as a tune, I could have it removed in 5 minutes with no tools should I have to visit a dealer. Which was, unfortunately, a common occurrence. In hindsight, I think I would have bought an R and I'd likely still have it.

VW/Audi Is very.. very... good at catching people with tunes.

Now I DD a Nissan LEAF I lease for $129/month because I get free charging at work, and I've pretty much given up on the whole "fun DD" shit. I actually have come to really enjoy daily driving an EV. I have done fucking nothing to this car except rotate the tires. Nissan is paying me to drive it basically at this price.

+1, C63 is a very fun daily. Used ones go fairly cheap like most AMG's out of warranty. Also you can buy an extended warranty if you prefer to pay upfront for peace of mind, plenty of folks do that since a lot of stupid things can break that are expensive.

Overall mine has been pretty reliable. I blew a speaker that I need to get fixed, and the ECU died on it one day and took out four coil packs with it. Other than that it's been pretty good. Car is a '14 so a touch over 3 years old, and 28K miles so far.

lol no offense, but ecu going out at 28k? that's just pathetic, and the reason why MB is essentially worthless outside the warranty

It's interesting to see how people who own expensive vehicles like that will tolerate failures like that. Tesla's are the same, they fail spectacularly at times but the owners always justify it somehow. I'm not saying that to be abrasive, but its just been my observation. More power to the folks who have the money and time to deal with things like that.

Meanwhile, the average 92 Honda Accord is on the road still with never a wrench turned on it.

It is stupid, I agree.

Actually they had the timing covers off to change the cam phaser thingies (oh yeah, those have failed too, common problem on this engine) and when they put it back together, they left a ground wire off or loose. Supposedly when the ECU died and the coils died, they found a loose ground wire and said that's probably why the ECU and coils died in the first place.

Still broke, and it sucks. But the car is fun as hell and I love it. Despite the problems this car has, the C63 is the most reliable AMG Mercedes has ever made... The E and S class can be insane to repair out of warranty. My C class is a much simpler car with a lot less to break compared to those.

AMGs break, if you want honda reliability don't ever touch one. When the mercedes is running well it is so much fun to drive. That's how I justify the annoyances/expense of owning it. I've owned a camry that was just fuel/oil changes reliable. Loved it too but it was not fun to drive, just reliable. The C63 will do rolling burnouts to 50mph, and trap 12's in the 1/4 mile bone stock.

Yeah I often eyeball AMG's because they are just so incredibly sexy, elegant, perfect blend of looks/sportiness/refinement/comfort, on paper one of the top candidates.

I get that, I'm just pondering to myseld how MSRP does not always have a linear relationship to reliability. I've been guilty of owning a couple cars like your C63, so I know how you feel about it :)

I'm not a fan of Corvettes, but for the money, they are pretty dead reliable and perform fairly well. I have to give GM some credit for that, its a sports car you could DD without much reservation.

It's because the folks that design the camry/accord are hired and payed to design and build a solid reliable car. The folks doing the AMG's are trying to build a fun to drive, performance oriented car and reliability is not their top priority where at Honda, Reliability IS there top priority. If mercedes made a new version of this car called the C63-Actually-Reliable, for say 25K extra they could actually make the car a lot more reliable but how many folks would pay they extra money up front to not have to pay it later?

I heard people say that at mb/vw/bmw they literally spec out the materials/parts to last the warranty span on the car, and that's it.

As in, x part wasn't even designed to last more than 5 years/50k miles, or whatever their warranty spans are.

Look at old Mercedes', they run forever basically. They know how to design/build reliable cars.

Well I'd like to back away from the argument a little bit, because 99% of the people I know who own cars like Audi S*, AMG * lease them for 24-36 months. The cars will, with some exceptions, get through that lease period with minimum routine or major maintenance. So for the original owner/lessee, the cars are rock solid AND have pretty phenomenal performance & luxury. Plus, for many people who buy/lease cars like this, it keeps them in the hottest shit every 2-3 years ... which is the whole point for some people.

So what I'm getting at is, the secondary market on these cars is pretty irrelevant anyway. The fact I'm even talking about how reliable one of those car is vs. a Honda/Toyota shows that I am but a poor prole :)

edit: what 18psi said.

I got mine off lease, and it was pretty well maintained. It was hard to even tell it was used but for a rock chip and some tire wear.

I picked mine up with 30k on the clock and im just at 53k now. I brought it in under warranty to fix a broken horn (well used ;P), and a second time just before the warranty was up to have them replace the seat recline handle, as the "chrome" coating on the handle cracked and cut me one day. Other than that, no issues so far. Oil changes are a breeze. I've had the dash apart to fix a rattle and it was well engineered, the way the radio secures is much better than I'm used to.

I'd like to go up to a four-door, but you can't get the c350 4matic in a 4-dr, which is annoying. I keep eyeing the is350 AWS F-Sport -- it'll most likely be what I end up with. I'd rock an e550, but it's not a sexy imho, and it's a lot more car than i need, but the v8 powerplant is nice. I think the new c-class is ugly, so not even a consideration.

My commute is about to go from 25miles to 3 miles, so i can get something a little ridiculous, but i still want 4-dr. It's becoming a bit of a pain -- might as well be a roadster if only 2-dr...

Yeap, that is correct. The gen C63 I have, the 14 has plastic valve covers where the older C63's had aluminum valve covers. Weight aside, there is no way a plastic valve cover is better. It's cheaper. The aluminum will last forever, and when my plastic ones break I'll replace them with aluminum ones from an older C63. BMW is terrible about making everything out of plastic on engines, Audi too.

I saw a youtube vid about this a couple years ago. Back in the day, mercedes built cars to a standard, and whatever it cost, it cost. Now all cars are built to a price, and thus standards are adjusted to hit the price they are aiming for. I want to build a 300D turbo at some point just because of how overkill well built they were. They are a 4 door tank without the tracks.

Mercedes made a choice to go mass market in the late 1980's. I recall reading about it. They decided to chase sales volume instead of upmarket quality. I can't recall who was running things then.

can i just mention the Prius is a cheap pos? i was in vegas over the weekend and in about a dozen of them... they are so shitty.

Subaru as well.

LS Swap?

And yet more reliable than basically any modern Mercedes.
And better gas mileage. And resale value.
And more practical than most of them.
And...

It's a well developed hybrid powertrain with the interior slapped together as an afterthought for the pennies left on the budget. We loved our 2010 because we didn't expect it to be anything it's not.

One of the most popular selling cars recently made for a reason.

If you want Honda reliability, buy a Honda, they mostly fail to fit the "fun DD" category, though.

I've owned Audis as my daily driver for the last 17 years, and been very pleased with them. While they haven't been as reliable as a Honda, the internet horror stories about them are totally overblown IMHO. Mine have been new or very-low-mile used, though, and I definitely buy the extended warranty after the factory one runs out. And yeah, no tunes. There's a $1200 chip for my S6 that would turn it up to 600+ hp, but realistically the 450 stock figure is just fine and the factory warranty is far too precious to risk that way.

--Ian

I have been loving my Fit. Set of $1k coil overs (Bilstein PSS9) and some decent tires and it is fun for all the reasons a Miata is. It also has similar road noise... Way better than my 97 Civic was though.

My wife wont let me buy an audi... :(

I'd love and S4, S5, or S6

Depends on the system you use. ECUTek trips a counter in the ECU that can be detected if looked for.

OFT does not.

Keep in mind I haven't had my MK7 GTI for a year now, but they were also using a flash counter. At that time, nobody seemed to have a way around it and I've not kept up with it.

If the dealer even suspected you had a flash at some point, they would send the PCM to the VAG "tech center" and they would analyze it further. I never felt the need to jeapardize my powertrain warranty for another 20whp, so I was more than happy with the JB1 piggyback. To each their own though.

This was a big bitch for a lot of MK7 owners because the first run of the cars had highly failure prone IHI turbos on them. I don't even blame the tunes, tons of stock cars shatout turbochargers as well (including my car). I did not put the JB1 until after the turbo was replaced. Some of them failed spectacularly enough to lunch the engines.

When I bought my first Cobalt SS/Turbo in 2009 (I had three), I had a whole spare PCM I could swap back/forth... but that car, to my surprise, was totally reliable even on E85+30psi of boost :P go figure.

And that's part of what keeps me from getting an Audi S3. They don't seem to have found a way to flash a tune, then flash back to stock without it being traceable.

It wouldn't be so bad, but the MK7 GTI, and I guess by extension the A3, is underpowered when stacked up with the competition in my opinion. There is no reason the 2.0 Ecotec Turbo in the older Cobalt/SS should have more HP/TQ than a GTI which is labeled and marketed as a hot hatch. Then they leave you no aftermarket or even factory option to increase power.

I'm sure someone will chime in to tell me balance/blah/handling/blah but the GTI in stock form does NOT put a smile on my face when you go WOT. Adding the JB1 made the car have acceptable power, for my tastes. They even pipe in fake engine noises, which I promptly disabled, through the "soundaktor" in the cowl. I would love to have been in the boardroom when that decision was made, and yes I know VW has been using those for a while now. Like I said in my first post, I bought my MK7 on a whim and promptly regretted the decision.

Previous to that MK7, my wife and I owned a MK4 new from 2005-2016. People love to hate the MK4's, but we loved it and it was totally reliable for us and looked like new when we traded it in for her Beetle. We have been pretty loyal to the VW/Audi brand, I drove a B6 and a B7 A4 on lease.

It's the same with the newer fords, and everything I've seen points to no way around it.

At least the Monotune doesn't violate the Focus RS warranty, right? By the end of the year I really want to get something that's just a touch more practical and much quicker. And preferably a bit more luxurious as well.

I may end up just leasing something, I work from home a couple of days per week and my roundtrip commute is less than 20 per miles day, so I wouldn't have a problem keeping under the 10k mile limit on the cheapest leases.

Leasing has been great for me, it's not for everyone. It helps I have other cars to keep the mileage pressure off of my leases which I'm guessing you do as well. I tend to lease econoboxes that are on special these days though. Before this Nissan Leaf, I had a 2013 Chevy Volt on lease and before that a string of Audi's.

I love working on cars, but not my DD. I just consider it an operational cost of living at this point. How many people, assuming they arent paying cash, ever bring their cars note to conclusion anyway? Not many, especially in the age of people financing shit for 72-84 months.

edit: also don't believe the horror stories about returning a lease. I've had no issue on the 5-6 cars I've leased, zero drama. Do make sure you research and understand how to negotiate money factor and residuals though.