Last August, I did a bunch of test driving. I never did buy a new car. Today, I did a bunch more test driving. Here's my story.

Acura TL - I really wanted to like this car, since it seemed to solve many of my concerns with the underpowered Acura TSX. Unfortunately, the reviews were true. This thing has mean torque steer. You don't notice it in a straight line, but if you punch if when you're making a turn (say, when you're turning right after a stop light), then you're fighting the wheel. The 6-speed manual does feel pretty good, and the sound system is the best one I heard today. The electro-luminescent gauges didn't seem quite as nice as the TSX's, for some reason, but I'm relying on my fading memory. The dealer gains points for giving me the key and saying "go have fun", but looses points for giving me the car with the empty tank light on and 12 miles left according to the trip computer.

Volkswagen Golf R32 - What the heck, I thought, maybe I'll stop at the Volkswagen dealer. They had an R32 in the showroom and two sitting out on the lot on those pedestal things. They only had one for test driving and it was "out". I played with the showroom model and found that I could actually wedge myself into the backseat. The car seemed comfortable, and definitely had more room than the Audi TT (but more on that later). 20 minutes later, the test driveable car never came back and dealer-boy was doing his best to ignore me. Screw it. I left.

Subaru WRX STi - The Subaru dealer is next door to the Volkswagen dealer, so I thought I'd try my luck. It took some convincing ("I could write you a check for that car right now if I felt like it"), but they actually let me test drive one. They had one out back with 26 miles on it. I was only allowed to take it down the freeway feeder lane, u-turn, and come back. Umm, okay. I'm in the car, adjusting the mirrors and whatnot, and look down at the gauges. All the idiot lights are lit up: DCCD, Check Engine, etc. "Are you sure this thing's okay to drive?" "Sure, go ahead. We haven't PDI'ed it yet, but it should be okay." (PDI, or whatever acronym they used, is the "dealer prep" they're supposed to do.) For the first mile, it was everything it was supposed to be: amazingly fast, and with a very tight suspension. It felt just like riding in my father's 911 Turbo, and for a whole lot less money. Then, after the first mile, the car became less happy. Even when I floored it, it was accelerating like it didn't have the turbo at all, even though the boost gauge was indicating the turbo was boosting. "Do you smell something funny?" The salesman said it was nothing. Uhh huh. We got back to the dealer, parked the car, and turned the key off. Then, smoke started coming out from under the hood! Smoke! Dealer-boy opened the hood, and we could see anti-freeze all over the engine compartment. That's what was burning. The radiator cap looked fine, and the coolant reservoir was at the proper level. The head service guy came over, and said "I didn't PDI this car. I think we got this one in a dealer trade." Normally, when this guy preps a car, he drives it for 8 miles to make sure he gets everything right. Heaven only knows what the history of this car was, but needless to say, it was a memorable experience.

Infiniti G35 Coupe - The next stop was Infiniti. I wanted to drive a G35 Coupe with a manual transmission. Thankfully, they had one this time. The engine is fantastic. Lots of pull. The brakes are also very strong. The clutch sucks: its grab point is much higher than every other car, and it's quite difficult to do smooth shifts under full acceleration. You end up chirping the tires and jerking the car. The only smooth shifts either I or the salesdroid could do were under half throttle or less. The factory Bose stereo has lots of base, but it's boomy and non-distinct. Yuck. The DVD navigation system requires you to use this dorky joystick to enter an address -- slower and more painful to use than the Acura touch-screen. The G35 Coupe's back seats are barely passable, but I did fit. The car isn't actually a hatchback. It's a trunk with a hatchback-shaped rear window and fold-down rear seats. The only way you could get something large into the rear would be through the side doors, not the rear trunk lid. Lame.

Audi TT - Finally, I went by the Audi dealer, and asked to drive an Audi TT and an S4. This is the new TT with the 3.2liter engine and the dual-clutch computer-controlled pseudo-manual transmission. I loved it! The car is fast, and they fixed all of my complaints with the original 2000 TT. Most notably, they shrank the B-pillar, giving you visibility behind you. The back seats are, like Porsche, purely vestigal. No grown adult would ever sit in the back. However, unlike the G35, you have a hatchback and a serious amount of cargo space. The Bose stereo, like the G35's Bose, was boomy and yucky. At least it's easier to replace.

Audi S4 - The S4 is about the same size as the Acura TL, but they've somehow wedged a V8 engine into the thing. It's the fastest car I drove today, and it's also amazingly quiet. The suspension has that luxury-but-sporting feel that you expect from finer German cars. The brakes were grippy, and the brake pedal felt like it was two inches closer to me than the gas pedal. In an emergency stop situation, I could easily see getting your foot hooked up on the brake pedal. They got it right on the TT, but screwed up the S4. Go figure. This particular S4 didn't have the Bose "upgrade", so I got to hear a normal Audi stereo. Yuck. Bass was much tighter than Bose, but didn't go as low. The trebble was weird. It was like they had a special tweeter that only kicked in at very high frequencies, but forgot to have anything in between that and the mid-range. What can I say? Audi's audio sucks.

So, do I want to trade in my flakey BMW Z3 Coupe for something else? Nope, not yet. I'm holding out to see whether the 2005 G35 Coupe has a better interior and maybe addresses the weird clutch problem. I'm also holding out to see whether Lexus spins a replacement for the IS300. If my car blew up tomorrow (without injuring me), then I'd either buy myself an Audi TT, a Golf R32 or the Acura TSX.

How come you didn't give the EVO a shot? =]

Most notably, they shrank the B-pillar, giving you visibility behind you.

I wasn't aware that they had tweaked the body of the TT yet, beyond adding the rear spoiler to all models.

What I want to know is... Why are you getting rid of a Z3 coupe? That's my dream car.

How come you didn't give the EVO a shot? =]

I don't think there's a Mitsubishi dealership near the other dealers. That, and on a business trip I once ended up in a rented Mitsubishi Lancer. Not an Evo, just the base Lancer. What can I say: it felt really, really cheap. They'd have to do a lot more work to improve it than Subaru did for the WRX over the base Impreza.

I wasn't aware that they had tweaked the body of the TT yet, beyond adding the rear spoiler to all models.

Me neither, but there were numerous small tweaks throughout. The original TT interior was full of chrome and was generally quite loud. The new TT interior is more subdued. More professional. They tweaked something about the door such that I no longer bump my head getting in. They tweaked the B pillar so you can actually turn your head and see something useful next to you. I remember in the original TT that I had to pull my head up to the steering wheel to check my back left corner before changing lanes.

What I want to know is... Why are you getting rid of a Z3 coupe? That's my dream car.

Mainly because it's now beyond its warranty period, and it's been astonishingly unreliable, whether we're talking about mechanicals or interior trim. Keeping my current car in good repair is going to become hellaciously expensive. However, since the car is still working, I don't feel the need to jump right now. I can wait for the "right" car. Maybe that will be the revamped 2005 Infiniti G35 Coupe. Maybe it will be the rumored replacement Lexus IS300 or the rumored reintroduction of the Toyota Supra. Maybe Acura will add a turbo-charger and AWD to the TSX. Maybe I'll overcome my aversion to American cars and look at a new Mustang or GTO. That would be more of a stretch...

You might be interested to know that I finally got the empeg in my S60R and it sounds good. Still need to tweak the EQ and also stop listening to music that has lots of fiddly little electronica bits tucked in the background so that I'm not constantly thinking I'm hearing audio system feedback/crossover/interference at low volumes.

Anyway, all went well except for the actual HU installation, where the installer guy basically screwed everything up. The adapter plate was the wrong color, it was just kind of placed in the dash opening, not secured in any way, etc. I got my money back for that (the amp installation went fine) and am currently in the process of redoing it myself. I have to find an ISO harness (any pointers here would be appreciated) since the installer guy decided to use those little vampire tap jobs, claiming that the ISO connector was nonstandard. The interesting thing is that I was searching for a better dash adapter and came to discover that Volvo actually sells one themselves -- a double DIN one, even, for $30 (cheap!). So I ordered that and it should all be installed by the end of the week, I hope.

And, for what it's worth, my local dealer has five on lot. Not sure how many are manual, though. At least one, I think.

Mainly because it's now beyond its warranty period, and it's been astonishingly unreliable, whether we're talking about mechanicals or interior trim.

Hm. I've got an Accord. Wanna trade straight across?

Tell us more about that DSG transmission - that's the one that shifts instantly IIRC. What was it like to drive?

The Audi DSG transmission is a really slick toy. There's no clutch pedal. Instead, you've got paddle shifters behind the steering wheel (that turn with the wheel -- could make shifting be confusing while in a tight turn). You can also shift using the gear selector on the floor (comparable to the "tiptronic" style automatic transmissions).

Shifting is smooth. You just press the button and you're in the next gear. No fuss, no muss, no lifting your foot off the gas. I can see this being fantastic for autocross; if you're in a very slow turn, you just blip it into first and you've got power on your way out. Shifting a normal manual transmission into first can be difficult because there are no synchros. As a result, most autoX drivers don't bother with first gear. Now it's available to you again. For normal daily driving, you can leave the car in "automatic" mode, but you have none of the "slushbox" feel of typical automatic transmissions. You punch it and it goes right now.

I'm told that the BMW seqential manual gearbox shifts faster, but I haven't tried one. It's only available on the Z4 or M3. I may need to suck it up and test drive an M3, but then I'd be going back for more years of incompetent BMW warranty service. Oh, the pain.

(And, Tony, unless you've souped up your engine as much as your stereo, I don't think I'd really be interested in trading cars... )

And, Tony, unless you've souped up your engine as much as your stereo, I don't think I'd really be interested in trading cars...

Hey, you're the one that brought up reliability...

Have you been to a Mazda or a Nissan garage yet?

I assume the RX8 and 350Z are available over there

I'm told that the BMW seqential manual gearbox shifts faster, but I haven't tried one. It's only available on the Z4 or M3. I may need to suck it up and test drive an M3, but then I'd be going back for more years of incompetent BMW warranty service. Oh, the pain.

Move over here to germany, BMW service is competent and reliable here...
And go for a M3 CSL, it kicks ass. (at least all the testers say that, i'm not in the situation to ever drive one myself, not even test-drive... )

I assume the RX8 and 350Z are available over there

I test drove the RX8 last August (link in the first post above). In short, it was a seriously flawed car. The 350Z and the G35 Coupe are essentially the same, and I'd prefer the G35 for its vestigal back seats.

BMW (for no readily apparent reason) recently invited me to a CSL test day, where they let a group of about 20 of us drive brand new CSLs back to back against brand new M3s. Hell, we were thrashing the poor little non-run-in things around Rockingham's national circuit non-stop - someone even put one in a gravel trap.

Then, they fed us and let us go home. Why? Well, looking at the list they gave us, they have about 160 used examples in their UK dealer network - obviously they got every dealer to register at least one. Only 422 UK-spec ones were ever made. Doesn't look like they're selling well (could be the £20k premium over the standard M3, maybe?)

The the day most bought home is how pissed off I'd have been if I owned an M3. The CSL is really night & day over the stock M3, even the sequential shift code is tweaked and it really bangs through the gears (and blips the throttle on downshifts which makes you sound really professional). Both the M3 and the CSL feel heavy as track cars though.

Hugo

Most notably, they shrank the B-pillar, giving you visibility behind you

This one bugged me, because my two major complaints about my TT were precisely this, linked to the impression that I'd climbed into a post box every morning and was looking out of the slit.
It bugged me so much that I've been looking at every newish TT in the town, but eventually I gave in and went round to the dealership: Maybe my height (6' 3") doesn't help, but I couldn't perceive any improvement in rear vision.

How does starting and stopping work? Is there a neutral setting or does it "detect" when you're intending to start and stop and do the right thing automatically a la and automatic? If there's a neutral setting, how does slipping work? In either case, can you start in gears other than first? And how does reverse work? Is it below first or is there a separate selector?

BMW (for no readily apparent reason) recently invited me to a CSL test day, where they let a group of about 20 of us drive brand new CSLs back to back against brand new M3s

How come I only get to test drive Rover City cars (the ones they make in India: They get our call centres, we get their cars - I suppose that we're going to the source when we need to complain to customer service)?

How does starting and stopping work?

Prayer, if it's anything like the Aston Martin one.
Ooops, I just contradicted my last post.

How does starting and stopping work?

From the user interface, it feels just like driving an automatic transmission. You put the car in "D" and away you go. If you're lazy, you just move the selector between "P", "R", "N", and "D", and you might never even realize it's not just another automatic transmission. For example, when you want to stop, you hit the brake and the car eventually stops. At some point, no doubt, it goes into neutral but you don't have to worry about it. If you were in a gear other than first, it resets automatically to first for when you start again. You let your foot off the brake and the car starts going by itself -- again just like an automatic transmission. You can somewhat feel the clutch being slipped, but it's all very subtle.

The fun starts when you shove the selector to the right from "D", where it has "+" and "-" labels. At that point, the car won't shift automatically. It's up to you, either with the steering wheel paddles or the gearshift. Likewise, even if you're driving in "D", the computer will let you take over any time you press a paddle shift button. At that point, I believe the computer will say "okay, you're the boss", but if you leave it alone for a few seconds, it takes over again. When the shifter is on the +/- side, you have full control.

My only question is how you make it do a clutch drop for a fast start.

Meanwhile, with regard to the "B" pillar, if you're 6'3", I can imagine your eye level would be above the window line. I'm 5'11", and the new TT worked for me, although I did go out of my way to put the driver's seat in its lowest setting. Clearly, the Audi TT was never engineered for very tall drivers.

In reply to:

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My only question is how you make it do a clutch drop for a fast start.

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Launch control - Turn off ESP (aka traction control), foot on brake, foot on gas. The computer will allow revs to 3K. Release brake, and hold on :-)

This feature is disabled in the US :-(

This feature is disabled in the US :-(

I'd be willing to bet that armed with a Bentley manual and VAG-COM that you could rectify that.

This feature is disabled in the US :-(

Nothing a VAG-COM can't fix