Car and Driver Supercar Battle Royal

I've said it before and I'll say it again, auto journalists have the greatest job in the world.  Another example is Car and Driver's latest mega supercar showdown.  They pitted the 2011 Aston Martin V12 Vantage, 2010 Audi R8 V10, 2011 Ferrari 458 Italia, 2011 Mercedes SLS AMG,  and 2011 Porsche 911 Turbo S against one another on the track and the street to pick the best.  The winner was a bit of a surprise.

Check out the article here - 2011 Aston Martin V12 Vantage vs. 2010 Audi R8 5.2 FSI V10, 2011 Ferrari 458 Italia, 2011 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, 2011 Porsche 911 Turbo S

Motor Trend Test - 2011 Corvette ZR1 vs 2010 Porsche 911 Turbo

I just finished up reading Motor Trend's latest comparo test between the 2011 Corvette ZR1 and the 2010 Porsche 911 Turbo.  Their results were interesting to say the least.  As they point out, the Corvette has traditionally been the faster of the two in a straight line and the Porsche has always been better on the track in past comparisons.  That apparently has changed as the Porsche is now the faster car 0-60 clocking in at 3.0 seconds and in the 1/4 mile at 11.2 seconds with the traditional 6speed manual.  The Vette will do 3.5 seconds to 60 and 11.5 in the 1/4 so neither is slow.

On the track, the tables are turned as the Corvette, in the hands of racer Justin Bell, ripped off a best lap time of 1:29.69 at Willow Springs while he only managed to get the Porsche around the track in 1:33.31.  That's over 3.5 seconds behind the ZR1.  Times have changed.

In the end, they pick the Corvette ZR1 as the winner of the comparison due to it's performance and the excitement it brings.  They felt the Porsche was a little dull......as dull as a 500HP AWD Twin Turbo 0-60 in 3.0 seconds car can be.

Check out the whole article here - Motor Trend 2011 Corvette ZR1 vs 2010 Porsche 911 Turbo.

Bonus video - Motor Trend Comparo ZR1 vs 911 Turbo Drag Race

Caddilac CTS-V Review

No, I didn't get a chance to drive one. Unfortunate for me. I did, however, just read a great review of the CTS-V on About.com:Cars.

Aaron Gold just gushes over the car and it looks like this car will truly be a world beater for GM. What is unfortunate is the timing if the car's release. Hopefully the crappy economy and the retarded price of gas will not hurt the CTS-V too much.

Here is a link to the review:

2009 Cadillac CTS-V test drive

2008 Civic EX follow up

Well, my family and I have just returned from a little road trip during which I was able to get some more serious seat time in our new Civic EX Coupe. If you read my initial impressions of the car, you know that my only gripe with the car was somewhat vague steering and soft suspension. I was most concerned with the car's nervous feel. On the highway the car darts all over and that continued to an annoying degree on this road trip that consisted of about 1000 miles of driving.

That nervous feel was my only real complaint about the car during the trip. I did however find the reason for that condition which I'll tell you about in a minute. Here is a hint, it's something I should have checked earlier and it was not anything mechanically wrong with the car. Aside from that, the car performed flawlessly and was fairly comfortable for such a small car. My son didn't complain about the cramped back seat during the trip so I assume it was bearable.

The best part of the trip was the gas mileage. The Civic is rated at 36mpg highway and we managed to average over 39mpg for the two tanks we used on the trip. Pretty impressive. Most of that was highway with some local driving and a fair bit of stop and go traffic. I was in no way trying to squeeze the most mileage out of it. If I had, I may have hit 40mpg.

Now about that nervous highway handling. I decided not to give the car a once over prior to departing for our road trip, checking the fluids and tire pressures, since it's a brand new car. Bad move. I assumed everything was as it should be from the dealer. Well, you know what they say about assuming. I should have known better than to assume that the dealership checked everything before handing the car over to us. It turns out that the tire pressures were all off from what they should be. Three of the four tires were over 39psi when the recommended pressure is 32psi. The fourth tire, the left front, was only at 31psi. I think that right there should explain the darty, nervous feel. I've corrected that and it should make a big difference. I'll see the next time I get to drive it.

2008 Honda Civic EX Coupe - Initial Impressions

Well, as I mentioned in a previous post, the wife's leased 2006 Acura TSX was returned at the end of the lease in May. As a replacement we decided to go with a new 2008 Honda Civic EX Coupe. This time we purchased the car instead of leasing. We had been looking at used cars for a while but the ones we were looking at, especially the Civics were almost as expensive or more expensive than a new one and most had dings, scratches or worse on them. So the decision was made to buy new.

The Civic was one of many cars on our list when we first started looking. We managed to narrow it down to the EX Coupe and we were able to get a good deal for only a couple hundred more than the "invoice price" you see on some of the internet sites. All in all, not a bad deal since the Civic has now become the best selling car in the US over the last few months. Honda dealers really don't need to give any discounts below MSRP so we were surprised at the deal we got.

Since it's my wife's car it was purchased with the automatic transmission. That's the only option on the car as the EX comes with pretty much everything you could want aside from nav and leather. Standard on the EX are a sunroof, nice MP3 compatible stereo with changer, 4 wheel disc brakes (lesser models make due with rear drums), and 16" alloy wheels.

Also, since it's my wife's car, I don't get the chance to drive it as much as I would like. I did however get the chance about a week ago to put some miles on it. Obviously, there is a bit of getting used to in a new car and the Civic's funky dash takes some time to warm up to. It was hard for me to find a comfortable driving position not because I'm a large guy, I'm average height and weight, but mostly because the car has no power memory seats and my wife didn't want me "messing" with the seat or tilt wheel too much. I did manage to get close though.

On the road the car felt fine with adequate power. It's no speed demon though with only 140hp pushing around almost 3000lbs of car. The ride was smooth but the suspension was a little bit soft for my tastes. The car definitely leaned too much around turns. The brakes were good and the car was fairly quiet. Probably my biggest complaint is with the electric power steering. It is way over-boosted. It felt like an old American car that you could steer with one pinkie finger. There was limited feedback and feel of the road transmitted through the steering. Some people may like that, but I do not. It's funny since the Acura TSX we had also had an electric power steering setup and that was very nicely weighted and provided nice feedback. That was however a more expensive sport sedan and the Civic is more of a relatively cheap, economy car.

Mileage, the big plus of the car, is rated at 36mpg highway and that seemed accurate. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I can manage to get close to 40mpg when we take it on a road trip to Florida later this summer. My son may not enjoy that though since, at the age of 14, he is getting very close to 6' tall with no signs of slowing and the rear seats are a bit cramped. He'll have to work out the seating arrangement with my wife, since I do all the driving on the road trips.

After a couple of months of ownership, my impression of the Civic is that it is a well equipped, reasonably priced, economical, "appliance" type of car. It's not sporty and it's not meant to be. Of course, if it were my choice and it had to be a Civic, it would be the Si for me. Other than that, it's got all of the bases covered. Nicely appointed, reasonably priced, economical and with Honda reliability.

Acura TSX Long Term Review

Well, after a little over two years, it was time to say goodbye to our leased 2006 Acura TSX. For those who don't know the TSX is basically the Honda Accord that is sold everywhere except the US. We get a bigger, softer Accord here in America because alot of us are bigger and softer. The first generation TSX was released in 2004 and revised slightly by our 2006 model year example. New for this year is an all new TSX based on the all new Euro Accord.

We picked up our TSX in February 2006 as a new lease. This was our first experience with leasing a vehicle and it was a pretty simple process. Only thing was that since the car was not ours, I was even more anal about taking meticulous cars of it, much to the detriment of my marriage. Since it was primarily my wife's car, I was always bugging her to take better care of it.

I've always liked the styling of the TSX. It's classy and subtle. Very understated good looks that attract my eye every time I see one on the road (don't ask me about the styling of the new 2008 model). I also like the approach Acura has with the optioning of their vehicles. The only option on their cars is the navigation system. Everything else comes standard. On the TSX that meant our non navigation equipped car came with leather seats with memory, mp3 connection, 17 inch wheels, sport suspension, hid headlights, top shelf stereo system, metallic paint, multiple airbags, traction/stability control, dual zone automatic climate control, sunroof and bluetooth connection. All this for a base price of under $30,000. That's pretty good when you think that a comparable BMW 328 from 2006 did not come standard with most of that equipment and adding it to the car brought the BMW's price up to around $40,000.

As I said before, this car was for my wife but I pretty much directed her choice. She really didn't know or care much what she got as long as it had the right name on it and it looked good. I suggested the TSX because of it's reputation as a fun nice driving semi-sport/luxury sedan. I have been and probably always will be a big Honda fan so that was a big influence as well. Mostly, I wanted something that I would also enjoy driving when I got the chance. The only compromise though was that the car had to be an automatic since my wife doesn't drive stick.

I've read that the TSX looses a lot of it's friskiness when equipped with the 5 speed automatic instead of the wonderful 6 speed manual. I'm sure that's the case and had it been my car it would have been the manual. That being said, the automatic was not too bad. It is an electronically controlled auto with the option to manually shift via the console shifter. Unfortunately it's a bit outdated compared to some of the more modern autos in that the shifts are still fairly slow even in manual mode and it does not "blip" the throttle on downshifts. Steering wheel paddles would have also been a nice plus. Ideally, the TSX would really benefit from some sort of sequential "clutchless" manual like VW/Audi's DSG. Most cars would.

On the road, the TSX's suspension does a decent job of finding a mid ground between handling and comfort. The biggest limitation of the car in the handling department is the standard all season tires. Stickier performance tires would really help take advantage of the nicely balanced chassis. Even with the auto, the TSX was a good amount of fun to drive. I can only imagine how great it is with the manual. On long trips like our two summer drives to Florida from New Jersey, it was a more than adequate comfy long distance cruiser. On top of that, it managed to average well above it's rated 31mpg highway. In fact, our average for last year's trip was over 34mpg.

The 2.4l 4cyl i-VTEC engine in our 2006 TSX was rated at 205HP and 164TQ, not bad but this is a 3200lb+ car. Acceleration is decent but not breathtaking. As is standard for most Honda engines, particularly 4 cylinders, you really have to work the engine to get the power out of it. Peak HP comes at 7000RPM and you can hear and feel the VTEC changeover that takes place around 5000RPM. Honda engines are so smooth and sound so nice in the higher RPMs that you want to keep the engine in that zone all the time.

The cabin is nicely appointed with leather seats with memory as I mentioned earlier however Acura overlooked adding the side power mirrors to the memory setting. It would have been nice to have them adjust to each driver as well as the seats. Interior detail and plastics were above average quality and fit and finish was good. Everything was well laid out and easy to reach. The stereo was more than sufficient however the 6 disc changer did not read mp3 CDs. For that, you had to plug in your mp3 player of choice into the aux input concealed in the center console. The dual zone climate control worked nicely but every time you turned it on whether to use just the vent or heat the AC automatically turned on requiring you to turn the AC button off. A minor annoyance. Trunk space was decent and the rear seats split and fold. Rear leg room was also OK. I'm not very tall and I didn't have many opportunities to sit in back but our rear seat passengers never complained.

All in all we really enjoyed the car and it served us well. There were never any issues that required warranty service. The only time we were without the car was when the Acura dealer accidentally scratched the car while giving it a free wash after an oil change. I immediately noticed it and pointed it out. I was contacted the following week by the service manager and he agreed to have the small scratch repaired by their body shop and provide us with a loaner. All professionally handled with no hassle. We had no complaints regarding the dealership. My only other complaints about the car aside from the small things already pointed out are the somewhat hollow tinny sound the doors made when closed. They sounded sort of cheap. Also the steering wheel stalks felt somewhat flimsy and cheap as well and the power windows on the front doors occasionally made awful noises like there were rocks in the doors. We never brought it to the dealer's attention because it was intermittent and they never stopped working.

We wanted to buy the car at the end of the lease but the price just wasn't right. The leasing company would not negotiate their price. I guess they don't need to since the TSX has been near the top of the list in resale value since it was introduced. The first generation TSX is a pretty good used car to pick up if you're in the market. There should be a decent supply of them around too because Acura sold lots of them. More than they even expected. There should be even more of them around as leases expire and people who have to have the latest trade them in on the new generation TSX.

Nissan GTR Underrated?

Many people seem to be confused by the new Nissan GTR. Lots of them may be Porsche 911 Turbo owners. The main problem is how can the GTR be faster than the Porsche when it has a substantially poorer power to weight ratio. Some people claim that Nissan is pulling a fast one by having some not so stock, "tuned" models around for testing. Road and Track took a GTR around a track about 5 seconds faster than a Porsche 911 Turbo and a Corvette Z06. That's a huge difference. Then Car and Driver went out and tested a GTR ripping 0-60 in 3.3 seconds and the 1/4 mile in 11.5. Those are crazy numbers especially for anything costing less than $250,000. A lot less as the GTR's MSRP is around $70,000.

All of this would certainly point to some sleight of hand by Nissan. Maybe they are providing "special" GTRs for testing. Maybe not. Motor Trend has also thought of this and they went straight to the dyno with the GTR they secured for testing. They claim it is a fresh, new, US spec, production GTR. They used a Dynojet dyno and registered a whopping 430+ HP to the wheels over several runs. At just 15% driveline loss that would equate to about 506HP at the crank. At 25% loss, we're looking at 570+HP and 560+TQ. Pretty far off from Nissan's numbers of 473HP.

They conclude that these cars are not "special" test mules but rather have been underrated by Nissan for one reason or another. Remember, Japanese manufacturers for years had to abide by an agreement in their home country that they would not make cars with over 280HP. That lead to underrating HP figures for countless models. I guess old habits die hard. The GTR truly lives up to it's Godzilla nickname. What a beast!

Here is a link to the Motor Trend article.

Seriously Long Term Car Test - 2002 Mazda Protege 5

I purchased my 2002 Mazda Protege 5 new in June 2002 and as of my writing this I have racked up more than 60,000 miles. The car wasn't my first choice and I was actually at the Mazda dealer to drive a Protege ES sedan but they didn't have one with a manual transmission which was a requirement for me. The salesman suggested that I drive the Protege 5 since it was basically the same and they had some with manual transmissions. Well, after that test drive I decided that I wanted to buy the car. I had previously test drove Honda Civics both new and used as well as some slightly used Accords.

I'd never owned a Mazda and I've always been a big fan of Hondas but the Protege came with so much more than the Civics and Accords for a lower price. The Protege 5 had four wheel disc brakes, 16 inch alloy wheels with sport tires, a front strut tower brace and more horsepower standard than the Civic at a lower price. The suspension on the Protege 5 was also much sportier than the Civic. In fact the Protege 5 may be the best handling front wheel drive car I've ever driven. Plus it's just a hell of a lot of fun to drive for an economy car that cost around $15,000 new.

One of the things I've really come to appreciate about Mazda is that they seem to engineer sportiness into every vehicle they make. That whole ZOOM ZOOM thing isn't a gimmick. Every car they make from the bottom of the line economy car , to the minivans and SUVs, to the sports cars are engineered to be fun to drive. In that respect, I think they are kind of like Japan's version of BMW, or what BMW used to be. I mean, what other car company makes a minivan available with a manual transmission and sport suspension(Mazda 5)?

The 2.0L DOHC 4 cylinder in the Protege only makes 130HP but the gearing in the 5 speed trans makes it seem quicker than it is. Gas mileage is rated at 25city/31hwy and I average about 30mpg on regular unleaded with a daily mix of about 75% highway 25% stop and go driving. On a couple of long road trips I've taken the car has averaged around 33mpg with the A/C cranking.

I don't really have many complaints about the car. The biggest one is probably the manual transmission. The shifter is pretty flimsy and the whole tranny and shifter seem to feel weak and fragile to me. That being said, I haven't had any issues with the tranny at all in the 60,000+ miles I've driven aside from an occasional clutch shudder which is a known issue with the Protege. The car is a bit noisy on the highway where the engine turns about 4000 RPMs at 80MPH, a drawback of the aggressive trans gearing. Road noise and engine noise are very noticeable but I don't really mind. Other than that there is nothing negative to report with this car.

In the 5 years I've owned the car it has never been back to the dealership once. No warranty work needed and only routine maintenance required, which I performed myself. Regular oil and filter changes every 5000 miles with Mobil One oil, tires rotated every 10,000 miles, air filter changed every 10 - 15,000 miles, transmission oil changed once at about 30,000 miles, new tires and alignment at 55,000 miles and I just replaced the front brake rotors as well as front and rear pads at 60,000 miles. That's all that I've needed to do and the car has never let me down. It's still a lot of fun to drive and provides a lot of utility thanks to it's 4 door hatch/wagon styling. The suspension seems to be getting a little tired as it doesn't seem to handle quite as well as it used to. Those wonderful New Jersey roads have taken their toll on the struts. The engine purrs just like new and it has never burned even an ounce of oil.