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After picking up the car on Friday and only driving it straight home so that I could pack and load the M3 for a track event, I was finally able to take it for a spin today. This morning was raining so I took the M3 to work. Got home, ate dinner and took a ride.
Everyone raves about the positives, so I'll just point out some things I noticed.
- The clutch pickup is very high. I would rather have it closer to the floor...makes smooth shifting easier. The clutch pedal effort is also very light.
- The gear shift mechanism is tilted to the right. It's a bit weird and make it difficult for me to find third and fourth since I'm used to my M3's gearbox.
- The engine is rather "husky" right off idle. Blipping the gas say in stop and go traffic will make this engine sound pretty...eh. I definitely like the soundtrack from the M3 better
Once you get going, the engine sounds good. I haven't really taken it on the second set of cams, so I don't know how that sounds.
- There is very little travel in the suspension. When I first drove the car home, it didn't feel solidly connected...more like something was perhaps loose. I'll probably take it up on my friend's lift tomorrow and give it the once over to make sure that all the nuts and bolts are tight. But just looking at the suspension when the car is at rest, there is perhaps an inch of front shock travel before the bumpstop comes into play. I'm not sure how the suspenion height is set since people have said that the sport packaged and non sport packaged cars use the same shock bodies (just valved differently) so I'm curious as to how much shock travel there is with the LSS cars.
- Rear visibility is horrible. Backing out of my driveway is more of a test of blind faith than anything else. That roll hoop/covering is a hude obstruction.
- The brake pedal goes way past the gas pedal to make heel-toeing comfortable. When everyone talked about how close the pedals are, etc, I went in wearing my pumas. The darn sneakers turned out to be too narrow especially with the way the pedals end up after hitting the brake pedal.
- I love the small steering wheel...feels like a little toy
- The lack of power steering is awesome in the turns...you feel everything
- The stereo is absolutely horrible. ...if you care about things like that. But if you're going to get a nice upgraded head unit when getting the touring package, you would at least expect to have a somewhat descent sound reproduction.
That's it for now...we'll see when I take it to work tomorrow.
Everyone raves about the positives, so I'll just point out some things I noticed.
- The clutch pickup is very high. I would rather have it closer to the floor...makes smooth shifting easier. The clutch pedal effort is also very light.
- The gear shift mechanism is tilted to the right. It's a bit weird and make it difficult for me to find third and fourth since I'm used to my M3's gearbox.
- The engine is rather "husky" right off idle. Blipping the gas say in stop and go traffic will make this engine sound pretty...eh. I definitely like the soundtrack from the M3 better
Once you get going, the engine sounds good. I haven't really taken it on the second set of cams, so I don't know how that sounds.- There is very little travel in the suspension. When I first drove the car home, it didn't feel solidly connected...more like something was perhaps loose. I'll probably take it up on my friend's lift tomorrow and give it the once over to make sure that all the nuts and bolts are tight. But just looking at the suspension when the car is at rest, there is perhaps an inch of front shock travel before the bumpstop comes into play. I'm not sure how the suspenion height is set since people have said that the sport packaged and non sport packaged cars use the same shock bodies (just valved differently) so I'm curious as to how much shock travel there is with the LSS cars.
- Rear visibility is horrible. Backing out of my driveway is more of a test of blind faith than anything else. That roll hoop/covering is a hude obstruction.
- The brake pedal goes way past the gas pedal to make heel-toeing comfortable. When everyone talked about how close the pedals are, etc, I went in wearing my pumas. The darn sneakers turned out to be too narrow especially with the way the pedals end up after hitting the brake pedal.
- I love the small steering wheel...feels like a little toy
- The lack of power steering is awesome in the turns...you feel everything
- The stereo is absolutely horrible. ...if you care about things like that. But if you're going to get a nice upgraded head unit when getting the touring package, you would at least expect to have a somewhat descent sound reproduction.
That's it for now...we'll see when I take it to work tomorrow.
