turbomatt

iTrader: (1)

Hi all , Anyone have any experience with one of these ? Im not buying one but before i bought my Subaru i was juggling with one of these, a Teg type r and the Scoob.Finally opted for the Subaru but i always wondered what these were like, I think they look decent enough and the interior is alot nicer than my Scoob.I think they have 190bhp? but not sre how they handle etc.Anyone own/owned one of these?
Cheers
Matt.

Shark Man

To sum it up: Pants. I actually have my Mum's for sale. But i've been driving it this week whilst my own car is in for warranty work. Perhaps I shouldn't be typing this seeing we are selling it, but meh, I can't be arsed.

Great initial novelty value, but it soon wears off:

Interior is nasty plastic, nicely styled, but terrible materials; nothing anywhere near as well made as the older Celicas....I've lost count the amount of trim clips I've had to put blobs of silicone on to stop them rattling.

Handling: Skittish would be a good word, it does handle well and quite neutral, but it always feel nervous, tramlining on poor road surfaces, squirming and weaving under hard braking, it just never feels settled on the road.

Traction: FWD open diff, wet road, Vetec stylee cam...take a guess Its not that brilliant, below par IMO. Add the factory Yokohama A680s and your in skid-pan territory when it rains.


Brakes work well enough....but the fronts disks have a habit of rusting up on the inner surfaces causing heat soak problems and thus fade issues when driving hard. EBD helps control the weaving under hard braking.

Engine: Power is either on or off, most of the time off as the powerband is so narrow its next to useless in the real world: if its not on the limiter before you change gear, it'll drop out the power band...changing gears mid-bend with an already nervous chassis to keep in the powerband isn't my idea of fun. And when out the power band, its gutless. Well, by that I mean on par with a 1.8 mondeo, apart from you need to change gear three times more often.

190bhp it may have, but it only has 125lb/ft torque.....bear in mind that BHP is calculated from torque its goes towards explaining at why I find it no faster to drive than my old XR3 when it was standard (119lbft/130bhp in a lighter chassis).

Wheels: wouldn't corrode any quicker if there never painted and left on a beach. That's why you see alot with the upgraded wheels option or aftermarket alloys.

Intelligent charging system not so intelligent: headlamps randomly dimming and radio cutting out....that'll be £600 for a new ECU please, sir.

Reverse bleeper: needs to be given a slow and painful death: highly annoying.

Gearshift: Was somewhat uncoperative at first but as the miles have rolled on its freed up quite nicely. Swapping to syntrax oil, may have or not have been a factor.

Boot, like all Celicas: superb...last week it swallowed a 32" LCD tv still in the box without even needing to fold the seats

Comfort, yup, comfy from seats (vinyl rears though - cheap skates) Leather not that durable. Need earplugs on the motorway though, or a better radio

Alarm: Add coins or keys in the centre storage box or cup holder and it'll wake you up at 3:00am, them 5:00am, then 6:00am etc. (microwave sensor is located there).



I think you made the right choice in not having one

delcbr

nice write up!!

turbomatt

iTrader: (1)

Yes very nice writeup indeed! makes me glad i went for the Subaru instead.Had it almost a year now and very happy with it, cant be faulted for performance/handling.Brakes are good too, Only downsides too me is the paint work chips easily and the interior rattles a bit now and then apart from that happy.May keep it another year and try a teg out or maybe upgrade to an sti or a type r.