Car lovers?

Hassasain wrote:

Vypre, I've always been impressed at people who can daily drive a sports car. I tried it out, and lasted for thirteen months. (Porsche 718 Cayman S.) Eventually I broke down and bought a Kia Soul, so i can help transport children....and it keeps the miles low on my Porsche, plus makes it so much more of a treat to drive.

I daily'd a 350Z from release in 2003 up until last year. I was single for half of that life, but I made it work, even with a kid that's a softball catcher with all the associated gear.

Vette's actually have a lot of hatch storage, so they're probably one of the easier ones to daily I'd suspect.

I now have an Audi S4, which is more practical, but I still kind of miss my little Z day in and day out. Most of the times it's advantage S4, but sometimes I just want the stick and small car feel.

Re: Oil pump
Most of the time the metal chunks are from the oil pump that usually dumps straight into the pan, you might be ok just putting a pump in it and pulling the pan to clean out the debris and the oil pickup tube.

detroit20 wrote:

As you say, it sounds like you're in line for a hefty engine rebuild or replacement. Have you been able to find any useful, cost-saving advice on C6 owners forums?

You mention having years of payments left. Is it financially viable to sell the car for parts and use the proceeds to pay off the finance?

The best cost saving advice is to do the work myself. The pump and/or lifters I can do. If it needs a new engine... I'd be willing to try, but there's a lot of little things in the electrical system that can make it very easy to break and very expensive to repair mistakes. In general, working on this car is not cheap, nor easy. Mainly from the way they wedge the whole damn thing into place. Just replacing the balancer - which is a matter of removing the belt and crank shaft bolt on most cars - is a 1-2 day processes of disconnecting and removing a large portion of the front suspension (and radiator fan, alternator, power steering, and a lot more to make it easier... unless you're a real sadomasochistic bastard). For replacing the motor, they actually recommend lifting the whole body off of the frame.

Parting it out might be a possibility, but I'm not really inclined to operate on a maybe and I hate to tear apart a car that is in otherwise beautiful condition.

Fastmav347 wrote:

Re: Oil pump
Most of the time the metal chunks are from the oil pump that usually dumps straight into the pan, you might be ok just putting a pump in it and pulling the pan to clean out the debris and the oil pickup tube.

I might give that a go. The procedure to replace it is a pain in the ass, but the pump is fairly cheap and I can get it done in about a day. Pumps are fairly cheap and regardless of whether or not it's just the pump, I can promise that the oil pump, water pump, and harmonic balancer that I have replaced and upgraded in the last year and a half will be moved over to any replacement motor (unless I decide to and convince the wife to let me upgrade to an LS3 and they're incompatible).

Hassasain wrote:

Vypre, I've always been impressed at people who can daily drive a sports car. I tried it out, and lasted for thirteen months. (Porsche 718 Cayman S.) Eventually I broke down and bought a Kia Soul, so i can help transport children....and it keeps the miles low on my Porsche, plus makes it so much more of a treat to drive.

After getting married about 8 years ago, the wife and I had two kids about 13 months apart from each other. The car she had at the time was too small to fit two rear-facing child seats and she was upside-down on the payoff value. Knowing how she treats her vehicles, there was no way in hell I was going to trade her my brand new, fully loaded truck (and I'm damn glad I didn't). So, we traded both vehicles in and I started riding my motorcycle to work.

At the time, we live just outside of Dallas so winters aren't much of an issue and I was only two miles from work. So, even when the weather was prohibitive, it was easy to walk, get a ride, or have the wife take me to work. A few years later, I ended up leaving the company and having to ride over 45 miles to work every day. Outside of ice, I rode 5 days a week, in temperatures as low as 5 degrees and as high as 120. I still have my nice gortex pants and coat from the military, so pouring rains didn't stop me either.

What did end up stopping me was an inattentive driver at an intersection. She pulled right out in front of me and I t-boned her at about 60mph, flipped over her car, and landed on my back in the middle of the street over 60 feet away. Overall, I got lucky with some bruised vertebrae, a broken wrist, and about 6 months of chiropractic and physical therapy.

Wife wasn't really inclined to allow me to continue commuting on a motorcycle in the insane Dallas traffic (this was far from my first incident - I had countless VERY close calls over the course of the previous two years) and I wasn't really inclined to argue. I had purchased a 2002 Trans Am WS.6 the last year they were made after my ex-wife filed for divorce, but endless broken 3-4 shift forks in the transmissions led me to unloading it after the warranty expired and I could no longer afford to fix and keep it. But I still miss it terribly and wish I had never let it go.

So, I started looking around online for info on the most reliable used sports cars. And ended up deciding upon a gently used older C6 Corvette. Nice thing about Vettes is they're really not that expensive after a decade or so and the fact that their new sales price lends them to being primarily owned by older middle-class men who often keep them as weekend cruisers / garage queens means they're often in far better shape than say a Mustang, Camaro, or one of the import options (in which I have very limited interest). So, I found my (then) single-owner, 11-year old 2006 with 60k miles and I paid $18k OTD - first used car I've bought since I was in high school over 22 years previous and the cheapest car I had purchased since my very first new car, a 1996 VW GTI ($18,500, plus whatever the tax and title was... suffice to say a fair amount more). At 42 years old, the insurance is a ton cheaper than the VW as well. In fact, it's one of the cheapest cars I've ever insured and I still have full coverage.

Anyway, after riding a motorcycle in all manner of weather from 2011-2017, a 2 door sports car with a large trunk was a pleasant change. Even better, since it sits lower than a Camaro or Mustang, my wife doesn't like to drive it, and since it only has two seats, I don't have to tow around more than one kid at a time, and it's easy to ensure the little hellions don't treat my car with the same level of disregard as they do my wife's car.

As far as comfort, my daughter's 2003 Accord is far more jarring, and the low, stretched out seating position is perfect for my 5'4" frame and bad back. I've driving it back and forth between Dallas and Indianapolis a couple of times and was actually very comfortable and had an absolute blast.

Daily driving a sports car? I do... DID it happily.

What's the closest thing to manufacturer recommended collision repair, or is there even such a thing? My wife was in a injury free wreck today, the entire driver side of her car has damage. It's probably all superficial, but who knows.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

What's the closest thing to manufacturer recommended collision repair, or is there even such a thing? My wife was in a injury free wreck today, the entire driver side of her car has damage. It's probably all superficial, but who knows.

My guess is that unless you're footing the bill yourself, the smartest way to go about it is have your insurance company tell you which body shop they'll pay for you to take it to.

It's what we did with the injury-free crash we had a couple years ago.

Jonman wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

What's the closest thing to manufacturer recommended collision repair, or is there even such a thing? My wife was in a injury free wreck today, the entire driver side of her car has damage. It's probably all superficial, but who knows.

My guess is that unless you're footing the bill yourself, the smartest way to go about it is have your insurance company tell you which body shop they'll pay for you to take it to.

It's what we did with the injury-free crash we had a couple years ago.

Yeah, our insurance likes a chain called Caliber Collision. Based on my experience they aren't fast, but they do acceptable work.

It's going to be covered but by their insurance, not ours. I trust an insurance company I'm not paying even less than the one I pay. I'm sure they will make sure I get the best service. I won't be surprised if they require me to go to a certain place.

In Virginia, insurance companies cannot limit where you can go. I would say just find an independent shop and stay away from the ones advertising on tv and such. Thankfully my regular mechanic works with another shop and I just left it with him when I had a similar crash. So the cosmetic and the messed up steering all got fixed in 'one place'.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

What's the closest thing to manufacturer recommended collision repair, or is there even such a thing? My wife was in a injury free wreck today, the entire driver side of her car has damage. It's probably all superficial, but who knows.

In a similar situation I called up the service manager at my dealership and asked what local body shop they would recommend.

If you have any local car forums or car clubs for your particular brand could also post the question there, I would expect to get some good recommendations that way.

mguenther wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

What's the closest thing to manufacturer recommended collision repair, or is there even such a thing? My wife was in a injury free wreck today, the entire driver side of her car has damage. It's probably all superficial, but who knows.

In a similar situation I called up the service manager at my dealership and asked what local body shop they would recommend.

If you have any local car forums or car clubs for your particular brand could also post the question there, I would expect to get some good recommendations that way.

That's the answers I would have given. A lot of times insurance will require you to go to an approved shop, but will give you a check based on those estimates. I've been able to get stuff fixed at my preferred place.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

It's going to be covered but by their insurance, not ours. I trust an insurance company I'm not paying even less than the one I pay. I'm sure they will make sure I get the best service. I won't be surprised if they require me to go to a certain place.

The one time I got hit I tried to be a super nice, non-litigious guy, and I'd estimate it probably cost me $1500 or so. I'm not saying everyone who is in a fender bender needs a lawyer, but the other guy's insurance certainly isn't looking out for your interests.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

What's the closest thing to manufacturer recommended collision repair, or is there even such a thing? My wife was in a injury free wreck today, the entire driver side of her car has damage. It's probably all superficial, but who knows.

If you service your car at a paticular dealer, see if they have a halfway decent body shop attached, most quality dealers also have a quality body shop with them. That way if you have any issues later, you can also say "you guys did that"

After talking to the insurance, they told me to take it wherever I wanted, but if I took it somewhere they were not affiliated with things would take longer, but I would have a rental for however long its in the shop.

EverythingsTentative wrote:

After talking to the insurance, they told me to take it wherever I wanted, but if I took it somewhere they were not affiliated with things would take longer, but I would have a rental for however long its in the shop.

...and then the car was mysteriously in the shop for the rest of your life.

Dakuna wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

After talking to the insurance, they told me to take it wherever I wanted, but if I took it somewhere they were not affiliated with things would take longer, but I would have a rental for however long its in the shop.

...and then the car was mysteriously in the shop for the rest of your life. :D

You joke, but when my wife crashed my car after an ill advised lane change (nope I'm not bitter, why do you ask?) it took like a solid month for the shop to fix one side panel.

imbiginjapan wrote:
Dakuna wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

After talking to the insurance, they told me to take it wherever I wanted, but if I took it somewhere they were not affiliated with things would take longer, but I would have a rental for however long its in the shop.

...and then the car was mysteriously in the shop for the rest of your life. :D

You joke, but when my wife crashed my car after an ill advised lane change (nope I'm not bitter, why do you ask?) it took like a solid month for the shop to fix one side panel.

Free rental for a month though? That sounds like a win to me. I mean.. not free, obviously someone is paying for it.. bleh.. nevermind..

Dakuna wrote:
imbiginjapan wrote:
Dakuna wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

After talking to the insurance, they told me to take it wherever I wanted, but if I took it somewhere they were not affiliated with things would take longer, but I would have a rental for however long its in the shop.

...and then the car was mysteriously in the shop for the rest of your life. :D

You joke, but when my wife crashed my car after an ill advised lane change (nope I'm not bitter, why do you ask?) it took like a solid month for the shop to fix one side panel.

Free rental for a month though? That sounds like a win to me. I mean.. not free, obviously someone is paying for it.. bleh.. nevermind..

Between deductibles and re-rating annual premiums there isn't anything free about it

imbiginjapan wrote:
Dakuna wrote:
imbiginjapan wrote:
Dakuna wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

After talking to the insurance, they told me to take it wherever I wanted, but if I took it somewhere they were not affiliated with things would take longer, but I would have a rental for however long its in the shop.

...and then the car was mysteriously in the shop for the rest of your life. :D

You joke, but when my wife crashed my car after an ill advised lane change (nope I'm not bitter, why do you ask?) it took like a solid month for the shop to fix one side panel.

Free rental for a month though? That sounds like a win to me. I mean.. not free, obviously someone is paying for it.. bleh.. nevermind..

Between deductibles and re-rating annual premiums there isn't anything free about it :)

Cars going to be in the shop for the better part of a month. Was close to being totaled, but I guess the body shop was aware of that and kept the price as high as possible but low enough to not total it.

EverythingsTentative wrote:
imbiginjapan wrote:
Dakuna wrote:
imbiginjapan wrote:
Dakuna wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

After talking to the insurance, they told me to take it wherever I wanted, but if I took it somewhere they were not affiliated with things would take longer, but I would have a rental for however long its in the shop.

...and then the car was mysteriously in the shop for the rest of your life. :D

You joke, but when my wife crashed my car after an ill advised lane change (nope I'm not bitter, why do you ask?) it took like a solid month for the shop to fix one side panel.

Free rental for a month though? That sounds like a win to me. I mean.. not free, obviously someone is paying for it.. bleh.. nevermind..

Between deductibles and re-rating annual premiums there isn't anything free about it :)

Cars going to be in the shop for the better part of a month. Was close to being totaled, but I guess the body shop was aware of that and kept the price as high as possible but low enough to not total it.

The crappy thing about that is the trade/resale value is trashed either way. Hopefully it comes out well enough to keep around for a while.

18 months ago, I bought a Porsche Cayman fully intending to keep it for several years. However, for a number of reasons, I'm now looking to move on.

First, the steering. Local roads in Britain can be pretty bad, and I'm finding the steering very 'noisy'; it twitches and skips with every bump in the road... and round me there are a lot of them.

Second, the manual gearbox. I don't think the one in the 987 Cayman is that good anyway. Certainly, it's not as slick as the one in my previous car, an Audi. Also, the combination of speed humps and 20 mph limits in my area have left me hankering for an automatic.

So tomorrow I'll be putting down a deposit on a(nother) used Porsche.
IMAGE(http://media.dovehousecars.com/vehicle/1302/standard/V15VAC-3.jpg)
40,00 miles...
IMAGE(http://media.dovehousecars.com/vehicle/1302/standard/V15VAC-2.jpg)
Two previous owners.
IMAGE(http://media.dovehousecars.com/vehicle/1302/standard/V15VAC.jpg)

I'm quite excited.

Congrats!

imbiginjapan wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

Cars going to be in the shop for the better part of a month. Was close to being totaled, but I guess the body shop was aware of that and kept the price as high as possible but low enough to not total it.

The crappy thing about that is the trade/resale value is trashed either way. Hopefully it comes out well enough to keep around for a while.

The idea of getting a new car is exciting, but we already have to buy a car for our 16 year old daughter, so we are not too torn by the fact that it's just getting repaired. We did plan on keeping it for about 3 more years and by then it's not going to be worth much either way. If it doesn't come out looking at least as good as it did prior to the wreck, it's not going to be going home with us.

Picked up a Chipwerke's piggyback tuner box for the S4 off of ebay and installed it tonight. (Install...5 minutes. Zip tying it in place and routing cables? 10 minutes.)

Definitely pulls harder. Chipwerke's claim 50 HP, and it seems legit from posts on the Audi boards. The downsides to a piggyback vs an actual CPU tune is that the piggyback reportedly sometimes confuses the TCU in the way it allows boost to build over what the CPU is aware of, so it is a bit laggy in gear shifts at times. I figured it was worth a shot for $250, vs $1000 for a stage one tune, especially as it makes no changes that may be detected by the dealer for warranty work.

For some reason, Audi tunes are pricey vs other makes. GM, Ford, or even BMW tunes go for half or less vs what the Audi tuners want. Maybe the market is just smaller? Don't know.

$250 for 50 hp isn't a bad buy though. But long term, I'll probably resell this once warranty expires, and go to the more integrated ECU/TCU tune instead.

Thought this was pretty cool. Jay Leno let Doug Demuro review his McLaren F1. And he gets into a lot of the little quirks of the car design.

MannishBoy wrote:

$250 for 50 hp isn't a bad buy though. But long term, I'll probably resell this once warranty expires, and go to the more integrated ECU/TCU tune instead.

$250 doesn't seem bad at all TBH.

Evo wrote:
MannishBoy wrote:

$250 for 50 hp isn't a bad buy though. But long term, I'll probably resell this once warranty expires, and go to the more integrated ECU/TCU tune instead.

$250 doesn't seem bad at all TBH.

They're $450 or so new. Bought this off of ebay. Still not a bad price new vs the expensive tunes on this platform.

I saw the 911 on Saturday, and couldn't give them the deposit fast enough! The Dark Blue Metallic looks fantastic 'in the metal'.

Unfortunately, I could buy-and-drive-away; the dealers want to prep the car first. They've got stone chips to repair. And they're also planning to replace the brake pads and maybe even the disks too (which would be fantastic, and well worth the wait).

Roll on Saturday...

Was the steering in the 911 heavier / less twitchy than the Cayman?

LeapingGnome wrote:

Was the steering in the 911 heavier / less twitchy than the Cayman?

Er...

Embarrassingly. I don't know. Because I didn't actually drive the car. I'll report back next week after I pick it up.

Truth be told, I've only ever test driven a car once (I've owned 5 cars previously). That was the Cayman 18 months ago.

This partly because I find the prospect of test drives a bit stressful. I kind of get stage fright. I'm so worried about the driving bit, that I can't focus on the testing part.

And it's also partly because I'm not sure that I know what I'm meant to be testing. Should I be checking that all the buttons and switches work? Should I be checking that the ride is alright? Can I tell if something's wrong with a car or is it "They all do that, Sir!"?

Linked to that is the fact that test drives - certainly, for second hand cars - are pretty short, and I don't feel that I have to the time to carry out the really important test: can I actually live with this car for the next 3 years? Does it complement my lifestyle or are there some compromises that are deal-breakers?

I am genuinely embarrassed by this.

detroit20 wrote:
LeapingGnome wrote:

Was the steering in the 911 heavier / less twitchy than the Cayman?

Er...

Embarrassingly. I don't know. Because I didn't actually drive the car. I'll report back next week after I pick it up.

Truth be told, I've only ever test driven a car once (I've owned 5 cars previously). That was the Cayman 18 months ago.

This partly because I find the prospect of test drives a bit stressful. I kind of get stage fright. I'm so worried about the driving bit, that I can't focus on the testing part.

And it's also partly because I'm not sure that I know what I'm meant to be testing. Should I be checking that all the buttons and switches work? Should I be checking that the ride is alright? Can I tell if something's wrong with a car or is it "They all do that, Sir!"?

Linked to that is the fact that test drives - certainly, for second hand cars - are pretty short, and I don't feel that I have to the time to carry out the really important test: can I actually live with this car for the next 3 years? Does it complement my lifestyle or are there some compromises that are deal-breakers?

I am genuinely embarrassed by this.

For me the test drive is less about testing components or telling if something is wrong with the car (though I'm on the lookout for that), and more about seeing if I like the driving the car subjectively; are the seats comfortable for me, can I adjust the driving position where I want it, do I like the ride quality, the steering feel, how the shifter works, etc. It's like trying on shoes; you can get a lot of that just sitting in the car/putting the shoe on, but I find it valuable to take it for a drive/walk around the store for a little while.

For mechanical stuff I want a pre-purchase inspection before I buy a used car (unless I go into it knowing it will be a beater)