General Auto Chat

Yes, I know crazy. Gets me sick... Mine was 130k new. Loaded convertible, but still, they suck at holding their value. I have a guy looking for them for me. He found one today, but it had too many miles, 92k. Had upgrades too, which scared me.

 

I'm seeing cars with under 50k miles for around $25k. I got no idea where you are located but there's a lot of M6s here in SoCal. If you're lucky, you'll find one owned by a rich lady who garaged it most of the time and didn't drive it all that much unless going clothes shopping and to the cafe.


Pics of my baby after detailing (except the wheels):

 

Beautiful bro!! I'm in South Florida. I have look around more, technically just started today. My business partner just bought a S63 amg, I'm using same guy. He gives 1 year warranty too... Which is very important, especially with Ms and amgs.

My vanos system went on my M6, would have cost a fortune, thankful for warranty. It almost did cost me. I was very active on the M5/m6 boards, they knew I molded my car. This was before the headers thankfully, but they actually sent an engineer to inspect the car to make sure it wasn't from my mods. I only had my pulleys and ram air kit, but the pulleys were worrisome. Supposedly Bmw was monitoring that board at the time.

Anyway, I'm going to search around for one myself. This dude seems good though, and he has very good prices. My partner paid 25k for his, which has 70k on it, I think either 09 or 2010.

Found a ton... But the problem will be finding a manual. I need my clutch (the actual pedal)!!

 

South Florida will be very easy since you guys have car culture over there too. I got mine with a DCT which is my preference because LA does have a lot of traffic (plus not knowing how to drive stick either).

 

That would make my life easier, but I love driving stick. People say dct or smg is the same, but it's not. I don't care if it's faster, I need stick!! Doesn't bother me in traffic either, did it in NY for many years.

 

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my more-recent automotive history was when I upgraded my favorite sports car with a conventional 6-speed manual to a newer version and, in doing so, opted for their "SportShift II" transmission. That's a conventional 7-speed box with a normal clutch plate, but no shift lever or clutch pedal (the computer controls the clutch electro-hydraulically, and uses a hidden solenoid-based system to manipulate the "shifter").

Yes, the paddles were "cool", and on the track the newer system was fantastic (not nearly as good as Ferrari or Audi/Porsche's DCTs however). In daily use, however, it turned the car from being "a bit more work than I wanted" (bitch-heavy clutch pedal) into something borderline un-drivable. In traffic it was a herky-jerky mess, in "auto mode" it was either juddering and almost stalling as you pulled away, or changing-up early and almost putting you through the windscreen as it did so. And if you took full control, while better, it'd often still do the jerk-and-near-stall thing ... which really detracted from the "elegance" of the rest of the thing.

So, a pure-track-toy excepted, no more automated manuals for me ... it's either full-manual or a real automatic from now on.

That experience was actually bad enough to cause me to take an early view to what cars I was actually driving and how and start thinking about consolidating things (not just the cars, but also my audio rigs, houses and so on). Timing happened to be good given my fiancé and my intent to begin some more intensive travels, including living in several other countries over the next 10 years, so I've slowly been selling off my automotive stable, and had it down to two as of the end of last year.

And today should be "new car day", assuming the snow doesn't keep me from getting to the dealer. This new one will be a complete departure from where I've been for the last 15 years with my cars, and hopefully straddles the line between practical and fun well enough to not be disappointing on a daily basis.

 

That was one of the two cars I had gotten my collection down to, yes ... a Vantage S (in Quantum Silver).

You can imagine how much "fun" I've had trying to find something that'll bridge the gap that that, and my daily-driver/practical car, will leave ... in a single car.

I think the E36 is one of my favorite BMW designs ... possibly because it was my first in the US (sadly the M3 variant here at the time only got a 240 HP version of the motor and not the full-fat 321 HP of the Euro version at the time). Bangle did what came after no favors ...

 

Lol... Chris Bangle definitely did a number on BMW designs.

@Torq, bro, you are my f'ing hero!! When I grow up, I wanna be like you!! I'm waiting on my first Aston... My dream car for a number of years. I was getting there, but unfortunately my old business went sideways, had to start over at 35/36...on the right track again, I can only hope and pray business continues on the path it's on.

 

Good luck with that ... both the car and the business!

They're quite "special" cars ... in a number of ways; including having lots of "character". Which means that, while they're gorgeous to look at, finished impeccably, are an "event" to drive, and modern ones are very reliable (unlike the early ones that would break down if it even looked like it might rain ... courtesy of electronics from Lucas no doubt), they do have a number of "quirks" and can be quite fickle.

Overall they're very much like a love affair ... some days (most, if you're lucky) you are just smitten and you don't even register the little flaws that you know are there. Others ... like when you've just gotten to the top of the Space Needle on New Year's Eve, and you get a call from the valet due to the "delightful" behavior of the fancy crystal ECU keys ... and their tendency to do nothing useful (you know, like let you start the f'ing car) at the worst possible times, that you start thinking about trial separations ...

Now ... time to go pick up the new car, which really is an enormous departure, and which will determine if I keep my option on a late-2017 delivery DB11 or not.

 

Seems to be the case with a lot of exotic cars... They are beautiful to look at, fun to drive, but at times can do the strangest things, and can't do the simplest of things. Lol... Although, those are all problems I'd gladly live with to drive such a beautiful piece of machinery. I know the joys my M6 bought me... I can only imagine what an Aston would do. I could go out and buy one... But my girl might be pretty pissed if I spent the money for our second house on a car. To see the look on her face, priceless.

Personally, if I was single, I'd buy one this year... But alas... I'm not and I'd quickly be single if I did...if not dead.

 

Heavily criticized at the time, but for better or for worse, evolution of that treatment of the trunk lines is present in modern car designs across manufacturers. I think Bangle's tenure was highly influential period for BMW, and the late model E60 5-series is one of my favorites. At least had some character as opposed to their lineup now.

 

I'm actually a fan of what he did too. I love the e39 5 series, but I loved the E60 even more.

 

Aston Martin...sigh...gorgeous vehicles. Is yours a V8 or V12?

I think my "realistic" dream car is a 911 Carrera 4S. Being able to attain one without worrying about the maintenance cost is one of my shallower goals. Just love the 911 design, looking forward to actually driving one sooner rather than later.

 

Before I bought my M6, I went to look at Porche. I love the exterior look and design... But I sat in it. Guy asked if I wanted to test drive, I politely declined. Way too small for me. Was very uncomfortable.

 

That's one way of saying "from the back, he made that era of BMWs look like the Toyotas and Hondas of the day".

I went E36 M to E39 M and then to E66 and then to not having a BMW at all for a number of years. I still like the look of that E36 the best.

It was (I sold it shortly after New Year), the V8 S. I thought about the V12, but that meant manual and at the time I wanted the paddles.

Immediately prior to my first Aston I had a 996 C4S Cab. As long as you didn't run foul of the RMS problem, maintenance was a non-issue. Lock-the-hood-and-toss-the-key levels of reliability on that thing. Of course, you could remove the entire headlight assembly on that, from the outside, with a screwdriver and about 30 seconds work ... so it was not unheard of to park the thing, and come back later to find your lights missing. Happily they went back to proper 911-frog-eyes on the 997!

That's a long winded way of saying that maintenance on modern 911s is not a big worry.

 

E36 is a classic. One of their best Ms ever.

 

So ... after having a peak of six cars prior to meeting my fiancé, and gradually trimming that down to just an Aston and a Range Rover, I've taken the final step and "consolidated" those two into a single vehicle. This is much more compatible both with the kind of parking options available in the ocean-front properties (which seemingly vary from "none-at-f'ing-all" and "you'll never get a sports car down that driveway and if you do, you'll need a crane to get it back UP) we're looking at ahead of our impeding long-term traveling and, of course, being gone for long periods as part of those travels.

How do you combine those two?

The best option I could come up with was a BMW X6 M (Donington Grey Metallic over Mugello Red Merino Leather). Big enough that I can comfortably put our diving gear (including dry-suits, rebreathers and regular tanks) in it and piss off for the weekend, tractable enough that I won't worry about getting stuck when we're skiing, and fast and agile enough that it hopefully won't wind up being a terminal wrench from where I was.

 

Very nice bro. Best of luck with it!! I'm sure you will love it. That's my first choice for a truck/suv/xover, or whatever you want to call it. Sick performance too. I was toying with getting one as well, but since the car is just for me, I'm going with a car car.