Long term automotive goals

On the car forum I frequent yesterday - The Car Lounge - a user posted a question of “What long term automotive goals are you planning for?”, which created quite a thread, with many users chiming in with their respective plans and dreams for the future. It’s rather nice to see people remaining hopeful and optimistic, amidst these times of huge uncertainty, though I guess it’s a biased representation: those that have lost a job aren’t wont to post about their future car plans.

We count ourselves lucky.

Because of the massive uncertainty caused by the current COVID situation, my own long term automotive plans are quite simple: pay off the GT3 as soon as possible. Now is the perfect time to pay down debt: monthly expenses have gone way down since the lockdowns began, and with future prospects murky at best, I want to be as prepared as possible. That means to not be encumbered with a huge car note, should I need to move or find something else to do. Fortunately, I have about a new entry-level luxury sedan’s worth of payments left on the 911, so I have to say this plan is going quite well.

And if I come out of this coronavirus pandemic unscathed, then the plan is to keep the GT3 forever - it might be the last “fun car” I buy. With the automotive industry heading towards a landscape I don’t particularly like: turbocharging and electrification, is there even an opportunity to upgrade for those of us who preference analog feel and naturally-aspirated motors? My 911 is plenty fast as is, and it presents a level of enjoyment that I think I can be satisfied with for a very long time to come - I bought it with the intention of it being the “forever car”, after all.

Should I need another car for commuting purposes, I’ll likely lease something super cheaply. Contrary to popular belief, the automobile can indeed be just an appliance for us enthusiasts; each type of car has its purpose.

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Right now may not be the best time to be reading this book…

Not even air cooled

I always knew it’s was a reliability risk in buying a German car rather than one made in Japan, even one as beautifully engineered as a 911, from a brand - Porsche - that’s got a great contrarian record of reliability. My one plus year with the GT3 was going quite well free of any hiccups. but the curse of the German car gremlins struck this past weekend while I was taking the car out for a drive to charge the battery, after having sat unmoved for over three weeks (COVID conditioning, I’d call it).

It was a typical cool day in San Francisco, so I didn’t notice it initially; after 15 minutes or so on the drive, I started to feel a bit stuffy and hot, which is abnormal because the car’s automatic climate control is set to 70 degrees fahrenheit at all times. I checked the air vents with my hands and felt a slight breeze coming out, so I dismissed the thought of anything being amiss; perhaps I just happened to catch the sun at a bad angle or something.

It wasn’t until I got further south - and the outside temperature climbed into the upper 80s - did I realize that something was wrong: the cabin was indeed getting hotter and hotter. As a test, I pressed the button for maximum air conditioning, but absolutely no air came out of the vents: the usual loud cyclone of whooshing noises were nowhere to be found. I then turned off the AC, and manually bumped up the fan speed; again, nothing, not a breath of air can be felt from the ventilation system.

I found a highway rest stop to momentarily park the car to see if turning it off and back on (it’s a cliche in the tech support world because it works an amazing amount of time) would do the trick to resolve the problem. Sadly it did not. Faced with rising temperatures with no way to cool down the interior, I resorted to head home and make an appointment at the dealership for the earliest possible date. Hilarious that I was just writing last week about the the negative aspects of owning a car - the time and money you have to spend when things go awry, like a tire puncture, or in my case, a malfunctioning HVAC system.

At least I get to tick this off my list: a German-made car with an unscheduled visit to the dealer service department.

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Resetting the battery didn’t do it either.

Ownership blues

Such is the negative side of car ownership that it’s a real downer when things such as a tire puncture happens. You’re going about your day nicely on the commute and then suddenly there’s a huge popping noise; not a minute later the dashboard is furiously blinking at you to say the front left tire is gone. After some curse words you are forced to stop the car to assess the situation, after which you thank the heavens that your particular car has still got a functional spare tire - rather than the can of goo that’s en vogue these days - to replace the failure.

After that episode, you now have to make a call to the tire shop to get the puncture repaired and/or the tire replaced. Good news for the tire shop, bad news for you because you’ve now got to take time out of the workday to make the trip over, and because of COVID-19 protocols, getting an appointment is neither easy nor quick. There’s also the looming potentiality for even more hurt: the car you have is all-wheel drive, so laws of physics dictates that if you have to replace one tire, the one on the opposite end of the axle must also be replaced as well, lest the differential gets destroyed due to the circumference mismatch.

You had plans for a good day, and then out of the blue you’re now down the price of one brand new tire, and a half a day of precious time.

That’s just part of the game, isn’t it? It comes with the territory of owning a car: you have to spend time and money to maintain and upkeep it. Such complicated machines aren’t destined to run perfectly all the time, and of course there’s many external factors as well, such as hazardous nails on the roadways. It doesn’t help that us car enthusiasts are so obsessive about our vehicles, constantly worry about its condition and making sure its as perfect as possible. The stress goes through the roof should you have to street-park your car, scared of the one day you’ll return to some act of vandalism, or worse, a mangled mess of metal.

Well it’s a good thing that everything I’ve described above happened to my brother and his Audi A3, though I can surely sympathize with the anxiety and hassle of having to deal with the less glamours parts of owning a car. Tire problems especially: it’s really down to pure luck.

No boring colors.

Money back

So my auto insurance came up for renewal recently, and I received a nice chunk of money back for the previous six-month period. Due to the coronavirus situation and how almost everyone is driving far less miles than before, insurance companies have saw fit to refund 15% of our premiums. While I’ll never complain about getting money returned to me, a measly 15% does seem bit small given that I’ve only driven a quarter of the miles I’d usually put on the car compared to last year. I feel like we deserve more than 15%, especially when these days, my 911 sits parked for 28 days out of a month.

Granted, because it is a 911, the amount of premiums I got in return is actually quite substantial - some two hundred dollars. It’s a testament to just how enormously expensive it is to insure a six-figure sports car in San Francisco, a city that’s notorious for car break-ins. That is indeed paying to play, as the saying goes; I would be a far richer person if I didn’t like cars and otherwise fully okay with driving around in a plain Japanese sedan. Alas it is destiny that I would be spending a significant chunk of disposable income to keep an expensive German sports car around.

One that’s barely done 500 miles since the COVID-19 lockdowns began in March.

I have thought about cancelling insurance on the 911 for the duration of the shelter-in-place, though on second thought that would not be wise because the car is not parked safely in a garage, so if someone were to tamper with it, last thing I want is to not have coverage. Things can get pricey very quickly: the front bumper alone - just the skin - is $6,000 dollars for a genuine replacement piece. That’s definitely not something I’d want to or can pay out of pocket for, should it get bashed in by another car while the 911 is stationary.

Besides, it’s rather therapeutic to take the car out on periodic drives; anything to escape being stuck to our homes. I’ll happily continue to pay the exorbitant insurance premiums.

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The coronavirus chronicles.

Pops crackles and bangs

Readers of this blog will know that these days I’m driving around in my brother’s car when I need to physically go into work. He’s still in the phase of car enthusiasm where he likes to pour money into modifications and making the vehicle his very own. As someone who drives the car rather infrequently, it’s always a treat and surprise to find out what exactly has he done to the car each time around. It definitely reminds me of the days when I too put most of my discretionary income into modifying my Toyota Corolla.

The latest mod my brother did to his Audi A3 is an exhaust and a retune. While most people tend to purchase an aftermarket exhaust for more flow and sound, he simply got the muffler chopped off. Much like a Fiat 500 Abarth that comes from the factory with no muffler, my brother’s Audi A3 now barks loudly at any RPM. For someone of my age where I prefer to slip out of buildings unnoticed (don’t mind the GT3, please), the newfound loudness of the A3 is a bit bothersome. I can see why switchable exhausts with both a silent and loud mode is so en vogue in sports car these days.

My own 911 is rather noisy at any engine RPM, so it’s not really something to complain about in my brother’s car. What is worthy of complaint is the tune he’s put on the Audi: the notorious “burble tune”. This refers to the pops and bangs that happens when the throttle snaps shut as one lets off the gas pedal, something manufacturers have programmed into cars these days because for whatever reason, people seem to like the fake crackles and reverberations. Never mind the fact that it’s effectively gasoline being burned off in the exhaust track: an utter waste of gas for some noise.

You’d expect pops on the overrun from dedicated sports cars such as a Jaguar F-Type; on a plain Audi A3 four-door it’s downright silly. Worse, my brother have put a tune where the burbles happen even when I let off the gas at low RPMS, which is just about as fake and contrived as it gets. Honestly I it’s slightly embarrassing driving his car around, all the while wishing for a quiet cruising mode to toggle to.

Trying to turn a commuter sedan into a sports car have drained many a wallets from enthusiasts. Take it from me, someone who has done exactly that: save the money, buy the sports car. It doesn’t even have to be a 911, though it should be.

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Noodles are better than rice.

2018 Audi A3 impressions

Recently my brother traded in his Volkswagen GTI for a 2018 Audi A3, and I got have a brief go in the new-to-him car. Here are some quick thoughts on the entry-level Audi machine, though I’ll caveat my opinions with the fact that my views are incredibly colored by the fact I drive a 911 GT3, the preeminent sports car, so the potential to misjudge a compact luxury sedan with some sporting intentions is quite high. Anyways, here goes.

The first immediate complaint is that the seating position is far too high. My brother’s A3 has the optional sports seat for the driver, and while its comfortable and supportive, it doesn’t go down nearly far enough - the stock seats of the front passenger can go lower, which is just baffling. I’m only 5’10” on a good day, and with the seating position adjusted properly, my hair is brushing the ceiling. I had more headroom in my old Mazda ND MX-5!

The A3’s 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder, ubiquitous within the entire VW group portfolio, offers decent punch and adequate passing power; it makes the car a solid urban runabout with the occasional fun sprinkled in. I was able to zip in and out of traffic with ease. The motor obviously doesn’t make the most entertaining noise, emitting the same dull growl that all other turbo four-poppers make. Coming from the mighty atmospheric GT3, it’s indeed a bit of a let down, and so is the meager redline of barely 7,000 RPM. Gunning through the gears in the A3 for the first time, I almost didn’t upshift in time because I’m so used to having an engine that revs to 9K.

Main reason my brother switched from the GTI to the A3 is for the transmission: at a ripe old age of 21 years, he’s already tired of the manual transmission (someone take his car enthusiast card away, honestly) and wanted out into an automatic. The DSG dual-clutch unit in the A3 proves to be as advertised: the shifts are rapid, and its slow manners are super smooth (it even imitates the off-brake creep forward of a traditional automatic gearbox). It’s definitely engineered towards an economy bent, however: at anything less than full spirit throttle, the DSG will acquiesce to minimizing emissions such as letting the engine rev-hang before snicking over to the next gear, and upshifting to the highest gear as quickly as possible.

Armed with an all-wheel drive system, the A3 never lacks for grip, though the reactive Haldex differential is not an ideal situation. Again, it’s a luxury sedan with some sporting intentions, rather than a pure sports sedan, so the all-wheel drive system is designed towards efficiency, rather than maximizing lap times. Under normal situations ,the A3 feels like a front-wheel drive car because indeed only the front-axle is getting power. It’s not until under certain conditions does the computer activates the Haldex differential and sends power to the rear. I could feel this happening, too: punching the A3 off the line there’s a definite pause because the rear-axle hooks up.

None of this is to say the A3 is a bad car; I can even live with the slightly high seating position. One aspect I cannot excuse, however, is the utter lack of steering feel, a sort of achilles heel of Audi products, even on models as focused as the R8 supercar. The A3’s rack is responsive and direct enough as most modern electric assisted units are, but there’s really no feel at all. I have zero idea what the front tires are doing, and road imperfections gets utterly filtered out. I intentionally ran the car over some cat’s eyes and I couldn’t feel a thing in my hands.

Even though they are built on the same MQB chassis and shares the same engine, I reckon I’d take the GTI over the A3.

Not sponsored by Chanel.

Save the combustion

It’s the week of Frankfurt Motor Show, and just like the Geneva Motor Show earlier this spring, the buzzword is electrification. European automakers are scrambling to meet looming fleet emissions standards, and the most expedient way to offset the pollution from petrol and diesel engines is to produce many emissions-free electric cars. Major players like Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz are investing billions, and it seems much of the industry is hell-bent on making this electric revolution happen, consumer demand be damned.

From a utility perspective, I have nothing against electric cars; I’d love to own one as a daily runabout. However, the electric car infrastructure remains highly inadequate, especially for apartment dwellers like me who lack the ability and space to charge a car “at home.” EV charging stations are nowhere near as ubiquitous as the age old gas equivalent, and the few charging spaces at work gets taken up by the super early birds.

As it stands, an electric vehicle is unfeasible for me, and I assume, a significant many other as well. What I’m seeing at auto show like Frankfurt and Geneva is heavy action on the supply side from manufacturers, but no movement on incentivizing the demand side of the equation. Tax rebates aren’t going to do anything for me with regards to the lack of charging ability.

From a thrill of driving perspective, I have everything against electric cars. The low decibel whirl of electric motors cannot compete with the melodic crescendo of my GT3’s naturally-aspirated flat-six that revs to 9,000 RPM. I fell in love with cars for their mechanicalness and the sweet noises those oily bits make, and electric vehicles represents the absolute antithesis. For sure, the accelerative forces of a Tesla Model S is something to behold, but car enthusiasm is far above and beyond simply pure straight-line speed.

In the past decade, there’s been a movement amongst car geeks to save the manuals, to preserve the manual gearbox option in interesting cars; maybe it’s time to start another movement: save the combustion.

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Who needs a proper garage anyways. This owner of a Honda Beat in Japan doesn’t think so.