this is what i have on order for next year....although its not a replacement, yet anyway! should be hitting the show rooms in Sept 06! i am in the first 15 hitting the UK!

 

The new shoe....No offense, but keep your 8.

 

used 2004 Audi A4 1.8T Quattro 6MT with ultrasport package (S4 suspension and bodywork)... and then chip it

 

reread my post please. reread hard hitters. still not sure why we're fighting over this.You quoted a small part of my post.

All i was bringing up, again-was that the 2468 figure, could be an annual rate.
It Hard Hitters post, he has this figure. He says 6 month payment plan, NOT 6 month quote. So, because the prices seemed steep, i said, this may be an annual figure, broken up into 6 month payment plans. Many companies do pro rated payments, where for 6 months you only send in 4 payments, etc.. I just wanted Hard Hitter to explore that before he discounts a car because of an apparently high payment

You instead jumped the gun and said i don't understand how high rates can be etc etc. Then you stood by that in another post. Hardly civil in my book....

Me



You

 

I have an '05 350Z, I'll throw in my two cents on it:

- Stay away from the 03 and earlier 04 models. They seem to have a lot more reliability issues that were worked out on the newer Zs. Front tire feathering is the most notorious one.

- Modding a Z is very expensive. There are a couple of things like a popcharger and plenum spacer you can add that won't break you, but everything else you will pay dearly for. Forced induction will cost you at least $5k, and that's if you know how to install and tune it yourself.

- Unlike what somebody mentioned, the 300hp setup isn't really any better than the 287hp motors. The tradeoff is 13 ft lbs of torque, but horsepower helps sell more cars. A Base model Z with 287hp is actually a hair faster than most of the other trims with 300hp, because it's a lighter car.

- I love my car. I've got 10,000 miles on it, and I can honestly say that I still get excited whenever I'm about to get in it. I've had zero problems with it.


That said, if I were in your shoes, I'd get an econo-car and suffer for a few years. That's just way too damn much money to be spending on insurance, and there's more to life than cars.

 

I thought so at first until I saw it in person. It looks pretty damn hot. But not as hot as the Audi Shooting Brake Concept. It looked good in thepics and it was HAWT in person. I'd buy one... even if a 2 seater, and I'm a religious hater of 2 seaters.

 

Nick, how's the gas mileage in comparisson to the 8? I've heard the Z gets close to 400miles a tank where my 8 barelly got 330miles driving like a grandma.

Is the performance really a big difference? Is there a noticable difference?

 

Well, I drive mostly city and I get about 18-19 mpg. I don't drive like a grandma by any means, but I've tried easing off the throttle for a few tanks and haven't really been able to get a significant increase in mileage. Maybe one or two mpg, which isn't enough to silence my right foot. I also took a long road trip this summer and got about 26 mpg with mostly straight desert freeway driving, doing 85-100 almost the whole way. It's a 20 gallon tank, premium unleaded required.

Stock for stock, yeah I'd say that the performance is noticeably better than an RX-8. It's a heavier car, but it's got a pretty decent hp advantage and way more torque. One knock I will give it, the Z seems to get loose very easy when it rains out. I'm not sure if it's because of the OEM Bridgestones or it just being my first RWD car in ten years and me not seeing much rain anyway, but the roads seem damn slippery when wet.

 

good point nick. there is definitely more in life than just cars. looks like that you will have to suffer as in terms of paying off your responsibility.

 

i'd say a good portion of it is the tires. i wasn't at all impressed with the potenza's wet performance.

 

YOIKES! that monthly quote is only a couple hundred less than what i pay per year!

 

Well now that this thread is back from the dead... let me tell you what has happened since. My insurance did total the car, and insurance is paying for $750 more than the cost of the car and then $5000 that I put into it for my mods, so I got everything back in mods and the car + $750 more, so I made $750.

With that said, I've been looking at insurance quotes and cars. I've test driven a 05 GTO, 2006 350Z, Cobalt, WRX, 04 Mustang GT, etc.

Insurance wise, the WRX is the most expensive out of all of this which I find intersting, but it's most likely because it comes with stock turbos.

What I am looking to get is something reliable, looks nice, and gets better gas mileage than my 8 did (17-18mpg) I love the GTO, but I don't think I'll be able to afford one. I've heard Transams like WS6 would be a good choice or cars like those. I've also tried to find a LS1 RX7.

 

haha. according to fueleconomy.gov, the auto GTO gets slapped with the gas guzzler tax.

also, i see you've checked out the gto forum. some were getting good mileage (22-24 @ 70% hwy) and some were getting poor (i saw one guy posted 13 for mostly cty) and the average seemed to be between 17 and 19 (also known as 18 ). almost exactly like the 8s gas mileage. there are several people on the forum that have gotten into the 20s on highway trips (my highest is 23.5, and low is 16.4, and avg 18.6). the 350z owner that posted earlier avg. 19.

neither of those really meet the requirement of "better gas mileage than my 8".
the mustang does a little better, and the ws6 does a little better than the stang. i haven't looked up the cobalt, but its probably in the low to mid twenties for the SC version.

 

What I meant with better gas mileage is like better gas mileage/power ratio. Basically the GTO has the same gas mileage as the 8, but the the GTO has also 100-200+ more HP than the 8. Does that make any sense? So even though these cars have about the same mileage as the 8, the power in these cars are around 100+HP more.

 

That's one of the beauties of an OHV engine.

 

and the gto weighs almost 1000lbs more. after driving the gto, i was extremely disappointed with it.

meh any ways. get what you can afford and want. its your car.

 

Something is screwy, the WRX should be the cheapest to insure of all the cars you list. Are you sure they didn't give you an STI quote? My vote would still be for the WS6 or an SRT-4.

 

They get good gas milage when driven easily and on extended trips cruising. Drive like some people drive their 8's on this forum and you'll be lucky to get 13 mpg in a GTO...

 

Drove my 8 like nothing I thought, shifting at 3.5k and keeping my rpms low in order to get good gas mileage, but I would still get 16-17mpg. That was mostly stop n go traffic. If I got a car like the GTO, I would definatly keep the shifts low and drive economically.

The SRT-4 is going to be out of the question, it's going to most likely be between the Z, GTO, and WS6. I haven't done too much research on the WS6 but how do they compare between the Z and GTO in power, gas mileage, reliability, etc.

I know the GTO is basically all performance, the Z is a good mix of performance and handling, the WS6 seems to be like a GTO?

 

Holy crap is this thread still going!?

 

I said the same thing, I got an e-mail saying someone replied to it, lol back from the dead :-)

 

I would rock a WS6. Pure muscle and you can make em handle too

 

WS6 > 350z?

 

350z > WS6