The cars and bikes thread!

[boatme99]

Yes, I've always liked the 190. It would be my back-up car, so I don't care about the age. I'm also looking at something newer too, as a daily driver and for trips.
I could get a steal on a 1975 450SL with 90k original miles, but the maintenance on it would be as high as my continental.
I'm trying to do away with overly complicated vehicles, now that I'm retired. DOHCs, extra electrical systems, etc.

[Raza]

Yes, I've always liked the 190. It would be my back-up car, so I don't care about the age. I'm also looking at something newer too, as a daily driver and for trips.
I could get a steal on a 1975 450SL with 90k original miles, but the maintenance on it would be as high as my continental.
I'm trying to do away with overly complicated vehicles, now that I'm retired. DOHCs, extra electrical systems, etc.

If you have a chance at a 450SL, go for it!

[boatme99]

I should, but it is a bit difficult for ingress and egress. I'm not the svelte flexible fellow I once was.

I'm not sure about the C300 yet, either. I'll find out next week.

[tribe125]

I'm trying to do away with overly complicated vehicles, now that I'm retired. DOHCs, extra electrical systems, etc.

I had similar thoughts when buying my C220 - so splashed out on MB service plans and warranty instead.

There's a logic in there somewhere...

[Samanator]

Over time some of the classics are pretty decent. In the big picture of things our 2002 XK8 has not been that bad considering it was originally nearly $100,000 car. So it is reliable we have done about $8-9K in work over the past four years to be ahead of any problem. If we did this via warranties it would have cost at least double that figure and they would not do anything until there was and issue. Plus we still would have needed to buy the headliner, brakes, battery and tires on our dime even with a warranty.

When looking at these vintage cars look for service records. It's just as telling as the condition of the car. Low miles and little to no service records on old cars means it's going to need a lot of things changed, or it was possibly serviced by someone that maybe really did not know what they were doing.

[Samanator]

Wow the alfa guilia gets superb reviews - I hadn't read any until just now. Nippy round the ring too

https://youtu.be/XT8LrA21vuo

M3 beater.

It got a lot of praise for both versions(4cyl turbo base and the 505HP all wheel drive) in the latest Motor Trend here winning both comparisons. The thing that was more in question in the reviews is the reliability. In the front of the magazine in letter by the editor was about how the high performance version had to be trailered to the dealer when he tried to drive it home for the evening and the drivetrain locked up. We considered one, but it would be a gamble IMO.

[geoffbot]

It got a lot of praise for both versions(4cyl turbo base and the 505HP all wheel drive) in the latest Motor Trend here winning both comparisons. The thing that was more in question in the reviews is the reliability. In the front of the magazine in letter by the editor was about how the high performance version had to be trailered to the dealer when he tried to drive it home for the evening and the drivetrain locked up. We considered one, but it would be a gamble IMO.

Wouldn't be an alfa if it didn't break down at least once a day huh

[Raza]

Took my brother's S4 out today. In some ways, it's nice to be caged off from the rest of the world; especially driving in the city, you feel less vulnerable. But how do people drive sedans everyday? You sit so high up, the windows are so small, the rear windshield is big, but it's so high up that you need to rely on the backup camera. Changing lanes means you have to rely more on the mirrors because the pillars obscure vision, the windows are high up, and the car is so big, it's hard to get a feel of where everything is. Also, the DSG can act a little unpredictably in parallel parking situations, because it's programmed to act like an automatic and has forced transmission creep.

I really need to get my car into a shop and have the roof looked at so I enjoy driving it again. It's just not fun wondering if your roof will come back up or not when you put it down. I know you're probably saying "just leave the roof up", but to me, it's like asking the devout not to believe.

[Samanator]

Took my brother's S4 out today. In some ways, it's nice to be caged off from the rest of the world; especially driving in the city, you feel less vulnerable. But how do people drive sedans everyday? You sit so high up, the windows are so small, the rear windshield is big, but it's so high up that you need to rely on the backup camera. Changing lanes means you have to rely more on the mirrors because the pillars obscure vision, the windows are high up, and the car is so big, it's hard to get a feel of where everything is. Also, the DSG can act a little unpredictably in parallel parking situations, because it's programmed to act like an automatic and has forced transmission creep.

I really need to get my car into a shop and have the roof looked at so I enjoy driving it again. It's just not fun wondering if your roof will come back up or not when you put it down. I know you're probably saying "just leave the roof up", but to me, it's like asking the devout not to believe.

For the first time last week I drove the F Type to and from the Omega Event with the top up due to a pretty big storm. I've never driven either F Type before for more than a mile with the top up so I was a bit paranoid. It was better than the XK we've had for visibility since it doesn't have a back side windows. So I know exactly what your talking about? I never realized how low our Jaguars sat including the XJR until we went to dive a few things looking for new cars. The QX 30 is by no means tall, but it feels tall to me compared to the Jag. Ironically I felt the same way about the 370 Z we test drove, it just felt tall to me getting out of the XJR we drove there. Nearly as tall as the QX.

[Samanator]

Wouldn't be an alfa if it didn't break down at least once a day huh

Ferraris became more reliable in the face of competition from the original NSX according to the stories. That should filter down to some of the Alfas with Ferrari engines. I wonder if the $800 oil change charge for that engine will follow them also. Maserati told me $700 for the oil change for their cars with the Ferrari engines. I'm guessing you would be leaning more to the 280hp turbo 4?