The MW Automotive Thread 5.0 GT

[SchizophrenicMC]

Bring back the Celica!

*SUPRA*--- fixed that for ya!

No, the FR-Whatever is definitely the modern Celica. If they made a big, heavy, stupid version with a high-powered engine, maaaaaybe Supra there.

Only thing is, Toyota confirmed in an interview with MotorTrend that they would not rebadge the Scion products. iA becomes Toyota iA, iM becomes Toyota iM (even if it is Toyota Auris in other markets) and FR-S becomes Toyota FR-S. As stupid as that is.

In other news, Honda has called for a sale stop on all 2016 Civics, in line with a recall of over 34,000 vehicles due to missing or improperly installed piston pin rings.

[Sildani]

Oh bother.

[Shadow]

No, the FR-Whatever is definitely the modern Celica. If they made a big, heavy, stupid version with a high-powered engine, maaaaaybe Supra there.

Only thing is, Toyota confirmed in an interview with MotorTrend that they would not rebadge the Scion products. iA becomes Toyota iA, iM becomes Toyota iM (even if it is Toyota Auris in other markets) and FR-S becomes Toyota FR-S. As stupid as that is.

In other news, Honda has called for a sale stop on all 2016 Civics, in line with a recall of over 34,000 vehicles due to missing or improperly installed piston pin rings.

The FR-S is supposed to be the successor to the Corolla GT86. I'd like to see a cheap sporty coupe like the Celica return though. Maybe a turbo'd 4WD GT-Four make a return aswell.

[SchizophrenicMC]

It's a successor to the Corolla Sports in name only. That family ran itself out after the E90 generation, without Toyota's management helping it die. And in any case, the Corolla Sports was based on the Corolla, if only at a very very basic level. The FR-S is on its own chassis and is a dedicated sport coupe. Like the Celica was from the 70s through 2005 when the tC supplanted it. (tC totally doesn't stand for toyotaCelica) There are more similarities between the Mk2 Celica and the FR-S than there are between the FR-S and the Corolla Sports/Sprinter/Levin/GT-S E80 family. I think that's a pedigree to be proud of. After all, Toyota's highly-acclaimed midsize sedan got its start as a sub-model of Celica, their most successful rally cars were Celicas, and the name holds a lot of power for the 30-50 crowd. A high school classmate of mine was given his father's tC, which was purchased because his dad longed for the Celica he had when he was in high school.

The whole GT86 name is just a bunch of drift tax pandering to fans of Initial D and Keiichi Tsuchiya. The car itself is more akin to the Celica, and I think that's the role it's fit to play. The entry level Celica and its bigger, faster, angrier brother, the Supra. That's a winning combination. (And a set of actual NAMES. I'm so tired of cars that are just letters and numbers) Of course, asking Toyota to consider heritage and pedigree is almost as foolish as asking Nissan to. They just don't care anymore.

[dizman]

Yeah the GT86 name is a way to tie in to the 80's car nostalgia in Japan. I always thought the GT86 was Toyota/Subaru making the fun Z car that Nissan is too scared to make anymore. I'm not surprised that they will keep the FR-S name in the US, the car is already established under that moniker and changing it would just bring about confusion.

[SchizophrenicMC]

The Subuyota Celica is functionally equivalent to the lower-end variants of the Nissan S-chassis of the early to mid 90s. It fills the same inflation-adjusted pricing niche, has the same kind of curb weight, similar torque-weight ratio, and the same focus on handling over capacity to generate actual speed. The major difference, in my opinion, is that Toyota doesn't want to put a turbocharger on the car, even though the same engine architecture responds very well to forced induction in other Subarus. (Whereas Nissan started out the S13 as turbo-only in RHD markets, and only later began adding NA options to pad out the lower end of the range; turbo variants were dropped for the US to keep development cost and insurance cost down and keep the car competitive with the Probe GT and Eclipse GS)

It's the FR-SX that Nissan is too bloated and French to make anymore. Nobody has an answer to the Z at this point. 20 years later, and there's still no real follow-up to the 300ZX Twin Turbo.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Double post, disregard

Edited February 5, 2016 by SchizophrenicMC

[spanner]

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these things never did tickle my fancy very much but only recently I went and checked one out with my cousin and it kinda surprised me a little! Not sure I'd ever buy one though..

[spanner]

geez they turned this wreck around! looks quite nice in black too!

http://www.carscoops.com/2016/02/rebuilt-black-ferrari-enzo-sells-for.html

[Duke Togo]

geez they turned this wreck around! looks quite nice in black too!

http://www.carscoops.com/2016/02/rebuilt-black-ferrari-enzo-sells-for.html

Why the hell would you put a Bose sound system in a Ferrari? My car has Bose, and it's not really impressive. Bose in general is pretty lackluster.

Edited February 7, 2016 by Duke Togo

[areaseven]

Why the hell would you put a Bose sound system in a Ferrari? My car has Bose, and it's not really impressive. Bose in general is pretty lackluster.

Why even bother adding a sound system in an Enzo in the first place? It already has an excellent soundtrack behind the seats.

[Duke Togo]

Why even bother adding a sound system in an Enzo in the first place? It already has an excellent soundtrack behind the seats.

Ok, but they put in a Bose of all things.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Bose: Better Off with Something Else

People install Bose systems in things because they (or more aptly: their customers) recognize the brand and are willing to shell out mad cash for it, even though it's trash, which is the bit most people don't recognize, because in reality, most people don't give half a damn about audio fidelity. If they did, automakers would still adhere to the DIN standard because nobody would be willing to buy a car they couldn't change the factory junk out in favor of actual quality components. But people often think they give half a damn about audio quality- at least enough of one to pay for some fancy-sounding manufacturer name, like Harmon Kardon or Boston Audio.

Augh the state of car audio in the industry frustrates me immensely. I just replaced the head unit in my Outback, which required the use of a $300 dash kit made by Subaru Japan because the USDM center console was never made to be replaced by anything but an OEM replacement, so they integrated the HVAC controls into the radio.

And I'm from that lucky period where you can actually get a dash kit, even if it does fit a bit poorly because it was made for RHD. My buddy's Focus ST is going in for warranty soon because it had its Sync module die to death, and the whole dash has to be pulled out to replace it. There are no dash kits available for the Focus. And you better believe the car is going to squeak and rattle once the dash comes out and goes back in. But even more amazingly: it turns out none of my speakers are blown. They all sounded like it when I had the OEM stereo installed. Turns out it just doesn't have any kind of signal clarity at all. While I still intend to eventually install an amp and replace the speakers in this car, for now, the setup is totally usable, which is a nice change. (Thank you, Kenwood)

I don't even consider myself an audiophile. But I do notice, and given the amount I drive, it does bug me enough to make this kind of spending justified.

[Duke Togo]

I chose to live with the Bose. I don't love it, but I'm not motivated enough to spend the money to have it replaced.

[SchizophrenicMC]

Audio is one of those things I like to do because it feels like it's a mod, and it's easy and relatively cheap to do. For me, the joy in owning a car is largely in making it my own. To that end, $300 for a stereo isn't too bad. This time it just hurt more, because the money I could have spent on an amplifier ended up going into just the dash kit.

[dizman]

Thanks SMC, I needed a reminder to listen to runnin in the 90's again.

[Duke Togo]

Audio is one of those things I like to do because it feels like it's a mod, and it's easy and relatively cheap to do. For me, the joy in owning a car is largely in making it my own. To that end, $300 for a stereo isn't too bad. This time it just hurt more, because the money I could have spent on an amplifier ended up going into just the dash kit.

While I agree with this, I listen to way too many podcasts and baseball games/talk to invest in a superior sound solution. I drive a 2012 right now; I feel like that ship has sailed at this point.

[spanner]

Why the hell would you put a Bose sound system in a Ferrari? My car has Bose, and it's not really impressive. Bose in general is pretty lackluster.

Yeah dont particularly care for a sound system.. and yes wouldn't have put it in that particular car either!

[Sildani]

In the 16M, Ferrari used a JBL system. It was excellent.

[Ghost Train]

Loving my new Lincoln MkZ.

Love the glass cockpit, and that buttonless center console. Got an awesome deal too!

[spanner]

those Lincoln's are lovely cars eh! Love that center console design! Congrats on the new car!

[Duke Togo]

While we're in the subject, where does the group stand on buttons and dials? While I certainly use my touch screen, I prefer the buttons and dials. They allow me to do things without taking my eyes off the road.

[Sildani]

Buttons and dials for volume, hot/cold, and fan speed. All else can be handled by the infotainment system.

[SchizophrenicMC]

While we're in the subject, where does the group stand on buttons and dials? While I certainly use my touch screen, I prefer the buttons and dials. They allow me to do things without taking my eyes off the road.

I don't mind touch screens terribly, because all the buttons on a radio feel the same when you're not looking at them, so I still end up looking down to use them. At least on a touch screen, the buttons are rather large and give a large general area to hit, which is a lot easier to do blind. With that said, I hate HATE Ford's capacitative buttons. They offer no feedback, they're small, they're all over the front of the console, and they respond to proximity, even if you don't touch them with any force at all. You about have to use Sync to use the climate control while driving. And the map lights turn on and off the same way, meaning 100% of the time, if I'm putting a visor up or down, I turn the light on by way of my hand existing.

The only dials we got in the Fusion were the volume and tune knobs, and then a few controls off of the console are handled by actual buttons, but all of the HVAC and radio controls are capacitative and it sucks. I very much prefer the dual-zone in the Subaru, with its knobs and buttons. (Though I do wish it had a button to synchronize left and right for the times I'm in the car alone)

[jenius]

I doubt it's true any more but Bose systems used to run at a lower impedance so if you did want to swap out a crappy Bose deck you also had to swap out every speaker. I've done it TWICE now and I hate it.

Edit - that said, I've never been thrilled with the results of the stereos/speakers I replaced everything with either.

Edited February 9, 2016 by jenius

[SchizophrenicMC]

Of course the car audio standard is 4ohm, though some systems run at 2ohm. However, most factory-installed name-brand speakers, for whatever reason, run at 2.7ohm. Many amplifiers can run 4ohm or 2ohm speakers, and any 2ohm amp can run either as well, but 2.7ohm is a much more difficult thing, and you can't mix and match. It's a real pain.

[Agent ONE]

these things never did tickle my fancy very much but only recently I went and checked one out with my cousin and it kinda surprised me a little! Not sure I'd ever buy one though..

Lotus makes AWESOME cars if you are into street legal cars that are borderline race cars/go karts... I loved my Lotus for the 3 years I had it. Was my daily driver and every drive was like playing Mario Kart.

While we're in the subject, where does the group stand on buttons and dials? While I certainly use my touch screen, I prefer the buttons and dials. They allow me to do things without taking my eyes off the road.

I don't think there should be any touch screens in cars. I also don't think there should be cup holders in cars. When you drive, the car should be an extension of your being.

[Sildani]

Nope. Not for the hour commute I have. Cup holders are essential.

[Duke Togo]

Cup holders are an extension of my being

[SchizophrenicMC]

My commuter has cupholders. My Jeeps have cupholders. My sports car has several ash trays.

Ah, Japan.

[dizman]

Throw me on the button/dial/cupholder love train, I don't have much love for touch screens. I just like the feel of turning a knob or flipping a toggle as opposed to poking a screen. I also hate seeing modern radios in restored classics, why cheap out at the radio when you spend thousands getting everything else just right?

[Sildani]

Because AM/FM radio sucks these days?

[anime52k8]

on the button/dial subject, my favorite thing is steering wheel mounted controls. I love being able to flip radio stations without having to take my hand off the wheel at all.

also, any car you plan to drive in for more than an hour should have cup holders. I'm all for driving as an extension of your being and driving for the enjoyment of the ride itself, but that experience is gonna be better when you're properly hydrated.