When you look at the car from the front, it looks good, a bit like a Lexus IS, but substianally enough to not be confused as one. The front is nice, not aggressive, but nice ... very smooth if you will. From the side, the wheels do a good job of filling out the wheels (if you opt for the 18" sport package). Behind the 18" wheels are some complex looking calipers... you can tell those are not ordinary. There is something there requires additional machinery. I'll talk more about the brake drying, rotor wear indicators and panic brake preparation in a little bit. When you look at the rear of the car, you can visibly see that the car is longer. From the back, the car looks subtle, but again, you can see the added length by the visible rake of the rear window and the rear exhaust tips protrude just a little bit too much from the rear bumper. Somebody is going to sue BMW because they will inadvertently get burnt.
As the big door swings open, it is evident that it has BMW heft to it. The front part of the dash looks just like any other E90 3 series. However, that's about it. The center console now stretches all the way from front to bank eliminating the possiblity of a fifth passenger in the rear ... which is fine, nobody should be back there anyway. The passenger comparement has been completely redesigned for accomodate larger adults in the rear seats. I'm guessing that is where the added length went to.
When you close the door, the car utilizes a little arm if you will to push the seat belt forward from the B pillar to the drivers hand without the need to stretch... nice nifty feature, but I see it getting broken easily. Seats are much more supportive over the E90 3series sedan... Lots of bolster to keep you in place.
Insert key, clutch in ... push button start and the engine fires to life. The first words that come to mind are buttery smooth. Tapping the exhaust pedal yields nothing as again it seems throttle response is lacking from idle. Don't know if this is a function of the turbos or just the way the engine is designed... who knows.
Now we are off... Acceleration from a stop is good, very brisk. If you didn't know anything about this car, you would never know it is turbo charged. Full throttle from idle yields plenty of power, but no where near as fast or as powerful feeling as the E46 M3. E46 M3 felt much more brutal. However, that being said, the car does pull strongly. Suprisingly, it'll hit 110 in 3rd gear with ease. The shifts are crisp, but with BMW smoothness. There is no doubt that you are in a uber saloon as you change gears. Each gear change is precise and crisp. Power is available in all gears at all ranges of the powerband. In 6th gear at 40mph, you can mash the go pedal and the engine will pull you forward ... can't really do that in a E46 M3. The more you downshift, the faster you accelerate... but again, feeling of power is better in the E46 M3.
Brakes are beefy. Remember earlier when I was talking about the brake calipers? Well this car comes standard with some nice new braking features. Panic brake preparation - when you snap your foot off the go pedal, it pre-pressurizes the brake system and brings the calipers withing 1mm of the rotor so when you stab the brake, you get INSTANT stopping power and during that time it will maximize braking power without triggering ABS. If you trigger ABS it'll continue to work. The brake system also supports a Brake Dry feature. When driving in the rain, with the windshield wipers active, the brakes will periodically lightly apply the pads to the rotors to dry the pads and rotors so when you need braking power, you won't have to suffer from rain fade on the brake pad/rotor.
When it comes to handling... the car feels good, feels very tight, However, mid corner bumps can upset the chassis giving it an uneasy feeling, not all bumps, but certain bumps sent the chassis into an see-saw effect where you feel a bit unnerved. Loads of grip are available though which provides for lots of driving excitement. Throttle induced oversteer as power is readily on tap. However, by default, the car will understeer if you approach corners too swiftly. Traction control is switch to step in and act if needed.
Basically, it's a nice car... feels great, but it is no M. When the M comes out, expect a review from yours truly.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
2006 Chysler Crossfire Convertible Limited
Testing convertible... oooh fun! Well, lets just say if it wasn't for the convertible, this would be a much worse writeup.
First, with the top up, rearward visibility is almost nil. So, down it went. First attempts to lower the roof were met with frustrations and beeps. The convertible top is far from intuitive. Unlatch the roof... unfold, twist, pop, turn and the roof is detached. Push the button on the console... and BEEP. Nothing. Hold the button down, BEEP... nothing again. After about 15 minutes inside and outside the car and one kick of the tire. The top stayed up for the initial part of the test.
Air conditioning control work phenomenally. No confusion there, you can easily get all the cold air you want. The dash, well... it's good, gives you all the information you need, and a little marker down there to tell you what gear you are in. The radio... absolutely ghastly. While the sound is good... as it would have to be with a convertible and it's lack of sound deadening material, the usability of the unit is down right crap. Twist and turns of knobs get the circuitry to do what it is told, but the screen update is horrible slow and I would find myself scanning through stations while not knowing which station I was on because the screen took forever to update. I would often scan from one station to the next and the screen wouldn't update until a second or two passed. Who made this junk... bah. The interior is made of some cheap tacky looking aluminum substitute and causes plenty of glare.
Back to the top... not one to be defeated by any car. I went back to trying to tackle the top. After playing with the unit some, I found that eventually, I got to the top retract, but it required some forceful latching and unlatching to get it to work. I'm guessing a loose contact/sensor somewhere. So, let's try it again.
Fold, Twist, Pop, Fold ... hold the button. Voila... here we go. The top start to retract in a confusion down on mechanical noises and motors. Finally we have unlimited headroof. Visibility is understandable much better, however the glare from the interior is even worse.
Now we are rolling... the car has excellent power. Definitely makes going fast easy and it's easy to go fast with this car. Handling feels decent, but transmission is definitely not up to part ... and the manual selection of gears doesn't even work. Any request to use a wrong gear while in manual mode sends it directly back into automatic mode. BAH. Brakes feel good and are met with good resposne. The massive tires up front no doubt play a good role in stopping ability.
Now, back to the convertible top... now remember earlier that it was broken when I tried to get it to go down? Guess what... same thing happens when I tried to put it up. Clouds rolling in... Thunder grumbling through the sky and flashes of lightning in the distance send me into a panic stop and feverishly attempting to find cover before the skies open up and turn this convertible into a bathtub.
You would think it would be easy easy as following the original steps in reverse... right? WRONG! Hold the button and the mechanical noises start to bring the top out of hiding and return it to it's original position over my head... when half way through the exercise, BEEP and the top feezes in it's tracks.
DAMMIT! The top is half way up... so now I'm stuck. I can't drive anywhere and I can't put an umbrella over my head. I pop the glove box as my 15 minutes I allotted myself in the beginning to figure this problem out were more like 2 minutes now. The manual says, in case of malfunction ... call your dealer. WTF?!
Some forceful manhandling of the roof bring to light that the rear part of the roof is not falling back into place as it should which is not allowing some mechical contraption to grab it and pull it snug there by halting the top closing process. With one hand, I help the top and with the other, I hold down the button and voila... finally the top continues to unfold back into place.
I lock it back into place and then proceed to take this pile of junk back to where I got it. What good is a convertible if the top doesn't work right. I'll tell you, It's as good as driving a car with no soundeadening material with only a windshield to see out of cause the other windows are spray painted black.
First, with the top up, rearward visibility is almost nil. So, down it went. First attempts to lower the roof were met with frustrations and beeps. The convertible top is far from intuitive. Unlatch the roof... unfold, twist, pop, turn and the roof is detached. Push the button on the console... and BEEP. Nothing. Hold the button down, BEEP... nothing again. After about 15 minutes inside and outside the car and one kick of the tire. The top stayed up for the initial part of the test.
Air conditioning control work phenomenally. No confusion there, you can easily get all the cold air you want. The dash, well... it's good, gives you all the information you need, and a little marker down there to tell you what gear you are in. The radio... absolutely ghastly. While the sound is good... as it would have to be with a convertible and it's lack of sound deadening material, the usability of the unit is down right crap. Twist and turns of knobs get the circuitry to do what it is told, but the screen update is horrible slow and I would find myself scanning through stations while not knowing which station I was on because the screen took forever to update. I would often scan from one station to the next and the screen wouldn't update until a second or two passed. Who made this junk... bah. The interior is made of some cheap tacky looking aluminum substitute and causes plenty of glare.
Back to the top... not one to be defeated by any car. I went back to trying to tackle the top. After playing with the unit some, I found that eventually, I got to the top retract, but it required some forceful latching and unlatching to get it to work. I'm guessing a loose contact/sensor somewhere. So, let's try it again.
Fold, Twist, Pop, Fold ... hold the button. Voila... here we go. The top start to retract in a confusion down on mechanical noises and motors. Finally we have unlimited headroof. Visibility is understandable much better, however the glare from the interior is even worse.
Now we are rolling... the car has excellent power. Definitely makes going fast easy and it's easy to go fast with this car. Handling feels decent, but transmission is definitely not up to part ... and the manual selection of gears doesn't even work. Any request to use a wrong gear while in manual mode sends it directly back into automatic mode. BAH. Brakes feel good and are met with good resposne. The massive tires up front no doubt play a good role in stopping ability.
Now, back to the convertible top... now remember earlier that it was broken when I tried to get it to go down? Guess what... same thing happens when I tried to put it up. Clouds rolling in... Thunder grumbling through the sky and flashes of lightning in the distance send me into a panic stop and feverishly attempting to find cover before the skies open up and turn this convertible into a bathtub.
You would think it would be easy easy as following the original steps in reverse... right? WRONG! Hold the button and the mechanical noises start to bring the top out of hiding and return it to it's original position over my head... when half way through the exercise, BEEP and the top feezes in it's tracks.
DAMMIT! The top is half way up... so now I'm stuck. I can't drive anywhere and I can't put an umbrella over my head. I pop the glove box as my 15 minutes I allotted myself in the beginning to figure this problem out were more like 2 minutes now. The manual says, in case of malfunction ... call your dealer. WTF?!
Some forceful manhandling of the roof bring to light that the rear part of the roof is not falling back into place as it should which is not allowing some mechical contraption to grab it and pull it snug there by halting the top closing process. With one hand, I help the top and with the other, I hold down the button and voila... finally the top continues to unfold back into place.
I lock it back into place and then proceed to take this pile of junk back to where I got it. What good is a convertible if the top doesn't work right. I'll tell you, It's as good as driving a car with no soundeadening material with only a windshield to see out of cause the other windows are spray painted black.
2007 Porsche Cayman
What a nice car... just needs more power. Having the engine in the back of the car really gives you a different feeling (more so that just being chased around by a pile of angry bees). The front end feels nimble and connected to the road. The handling is precise and down right surgical. Understeer is present, but extremely extremely faint. Oversteer is easy to come by provided the RPMs are up and you ask for it the right way.
My only disappointment about the car is the lack of HP. The car is the refinded in every manner, but needs some more grunt... going from partial to full throttle at 4000rpms leave you with no added feeling of power other than the increase in engine noise and what you can see on the speedo. The feeling of speed just is not there.
Another downside to the car is the brakes. Now I know Porsche's are known for the shockingly awesome brake systems, so I'm going to chalk up the poor brake feeling to a test car that had just been overly abused. While the brakes did work awesomely and performed flawlessly each and everytime from triple digit speeds, the feedback through the pedal seemed non-existant. In other braking systems, you could feel the magical point jsut before lockup... in the Cayman, not so much. I often found myself going into ABS lockup instead of reaching the threshold braking point.
Unfortunately, I was so wrapped up with the performance and superb handling of the car, I really didn't pay much attention to the interior of the car as it was pretty much a base model equipped Cayman. The Guards Red seatbelts were a definite bonus tho giving the interior an added stab of color to the otherwise bland black.
Hopefully soon, I'll be able to get my hands on a Cayman S to see if the added power makes it a better drive. I can see what people rant and rave about Porsches though after driving this car. It's handling and suspension are top notch... if it only had more power...
My only disappointment about the car is the lack of HP. The car is the refinded in every manner, but needs some more grunt... going from partial to full throttle at 4000rpms leave you with no added feeling of power other than the increase in engine noise and what you can see on the speedo. The feeling of speed just is not there.
Another downside to the car is the brakes. Now I know Porsche's are known for the shockingly awesome brake systems, so I'm going to chalk up the poor brake feeling to a test car that had just been overly abused. While the brakes did work awesomely and performed flawlessly each and everytime from triple digit speeds, the feedback through the pedal seemed non-existant. In other braking systems, you could feel the magical point jsut before lockup... in the Cayman, not so much. I often found myself going into ABS lockup instead of reaching the threshold braking point.
Unfortunately, I was so wrapped up with the performance and superb handling of the car, I really didn't pay much attention to the interior of the car as it was pretty much a base model equipped Cayman. The Guards Red seatbelts were a definite bonus tho giving the interior an added stab of color to the otherwise bland black.
Hopefully soon, I'll be able to get my hands on a Cayman S to see if the added power makes it a better drive. I can see what people rant and rave about Porsches though after driving this car. It's handling and suspension are top notch... if it only had more power...
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