I bought a new toy today....

[ZeroTolerance]

So tell me what you think about this one..I will have it very soon...

[DRTYFN]

If you're going to get something in that price range might I suggest you consider making the small step further to the Porsche GT2. I'm sure that you're aware of it. Blistering speed and exclusivity.
Or just wait for the new M6 that should be out in a little over a year. 550hp!!!

[John D]

Dc beg to differ run flats are standard on the convert no room for a spare, also my C5 vette has run flats and has a great ride. Also SMG convert falls on it face off the line and then catches up at about 1500 RPM. This is with traction control off. Oh you can use the so called launch control and get the RPM up to 1500 and then it has enough power to spin and launch hard and spin, but doing that is only something you are going to do on a drag strip. Why do i want the car I just paid 65K to have enough power to spin the tires, what I wanted was power off the line and a near 4000 pound car that is limited to 900 rpm and has no torque converter or a way to ride the clutch and only has a little over 200 ft/pounds of torque is going to be a rat without a clutch. The M-3 BMG convert is a rat off the line and has no punch at 60 mph, all the BMW guys brag about how it handles and that I agree it is a great handler, but on the street leaving the toll booth, or rolling on the power at 60 it is a pooch. I expect BMW will like MB stop playing with the little zinger motors and go to a V8 in the M-3 in the near future, then it may be a real world class car, but even then it will be over priced and will cost a three times what it should to add a few ponies. If you like BMW's and MB's give them your money, be happy, I have my share and I think it is all hype and they are a rip off. Got to admit my Silver M-3 Convert was just about one of the best looking cars I have seen, and when you read the press you have to think it is great, but if you spend time on BMW news groups you will find many others who see it as I do. Problem is if they speak out they get bashed like there is no tomorrow, seems you are not allowed to speak out for long if you have any thing bad to say about the car. If I would have bought a stick instead of the SMG I think I would still have the car. The Convert is just too heavy and the six has too little torque for the SMG. The Convert weights 3800+- I way 250+ thats too much for the motor with that trans. I did not want a car that I had to do tricks with just to get off the line, some others don't think it is a problem and those i talked to with others that were non-converts and they said they could smoke the tires off the line. Smoking the tires is not the issue, having power to smoke the ties or launch hard was. Cost me $7000 to drive my M-3 800 miles.
John D. 03 H2 03 C5 Vette Convert, 02 ML55 (wife) <BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by John D:
Argonaut,
Case 2, In March this year I spent 65K for a new M-3 convert with SMG, after waiting till it had 800 miles of breakin I punched the car off the line. What a disappointment, the car could not spin the tires until you reached 10 mph. Also the car had run flats which gave it the ride quality of solid rubber. With 800 miles and one month old i traded the car for a 03 C5 Vette convert 6sp, this car I love, lots of power and torque and if I want more it is cheap. Much better ride quality, better car all around. The BMW M-3 may go around corners like few others, but like most people I do not live on a race track and I want a car that is fun to drive all the time not just when it finds a track.
Case 1, Last year my wife wanted a new SUV she had a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee (great car) and i thought she might like one of the Germany hot rods, well we bought a new 65k ML55, great motor, great tires for the rain, great traction control in the rain, but the ride sucks the Vette and my old 02 Subaru WRX rode much better, the germanys have a wierd way of doing just about everything and few are good an most suck. The cruise control stick sucks, the lack of personal setting by fob sucks, the lack of a place to store the book size owners manual sucks, most of the controls and switches suck, fit and finish is OK. The engine is the best part of the car and if I was allowed to abuse the car i could over look alot of the other short coming. MB service does not suck, they pickup the car at the farm leave a loaner travel 30 plus miles to dealership and bring it back serviced washed and detailed, that anyone is going to like. The car is fun to drive hard, the motor is great, but in normal driving the ML55 is sub standard. The wife loves it so i guess we are going to have it a while. PS The Dunlap tires it comes with have no snow rating so we had to buy 4 winter tires and (4) rims because no one makes witer tires to fit the ML55 rims ($1800). After many disappointments I have bought my last new import, they cost too much new, they cost too much to soup up and they are not any better then their American counter parts in normal use.
John D.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by argonaut:
I hate to disagree with you DRTY, but the handeling on the SL is just not very good. On a straight away it has a lot of power, and is really fast (fun to drive too, I like stealing my dad's) but once you hit the curves it really sucks. a stock bottom of the line BMW 3 series will out handle that merc any day of the week. The sad truth. Now if you aren't on the track, or driving curvy roads, that Merc would be ideal. And besides, it's an automatic. I guess that is my biggest beef with mercedes. they are no fun. All you have is an automatic and traction control that you can't turn off. What fun is that? The TC kills a lot of the torque of those cars. Now if mercedes offered a manual or at least and F1 tranny, and a button to turn the TC off like on the BMWs then I would run out and buy one because I think they are absolutely beautiful cars, and not girly at all.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[DRTYFN]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hummer Man:
I drove one the other day and it has the same problem most of the small M's do. At high speed (60 plus) in the corners the rear end is too tight. Their is know lateral adjustment to take care of this like on Ferari and Lotus. It's a nice little show car but for the money the performance is lacking. If you are not gonna push the limits with it it should be okay.
Without question the styling is great for a woman. It is for your wife right? Cuz that is a girlie girls car!
MEN DRIVE HUMMERS!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

"High speed"- 60? Too tight in corners? What in the hell are you talking about?
If it's the SL55 we're talking about then you really are off on the performance /$ ratio. That thing absolutely rips!!! You could go out and hunt down just about any car you wanted in it. I'd go so far as to say that unless you came up on a 360 at a stop light and Schumacher was behind the wheel it'd be a really close race that the SL55 might just win.

Your comment about the styling being for a woman is pretty prehistoric, too. Bet you think the kitchen is where the women should go right after they get barefoot.
And if it's a girlie girl car then give me some panties to wear because I wanna drive one.

Could you go back to not posting for awhile? You're going to screw up all of my hard work trying to secure the Uber-prick title.

[DRTYFN]

Hang on!! I was talking about the SL55 not the slower SL500.

[argonaut]

I can spin my tires, and my stock tires are run flats. there is no spare in the trunk because of the exhaust system, so it came with run flats, same thing with the M5. everybody has a preferance in cars. I'm not a corvette fan, but some people like corvettes. I wanted something fast that could still comfortably seat four. My M3 is slow compared to my M5, but it still has balls and is a blast to drive. If you hold the stick forward you can get a launch start and burn some rubber. It is built into the SMG, pretty fun. you also have a hill start mode and some other cool settings. But yeah, DC is right, turning the TC off is key. the cool thing is all BMWs have the option to turn DSC off. pretty cool.

[argonaut]

HM, it's Detonate that wears panties, although Dennis seems to take offence if I imply that panties are a bad thing, so who knoews what those canadians do...

[ZeroTolerance]

HAHAHA, adopt, wish I had a dollar for everytime I have heard that, then I would have even more money.... hahahahaha

2003 H2 Black
2003 Ferrari 360 Modena Black
2003 Yukon Denali Red
2004 M5 BMW
2004 M3 BMW
2003 525i BMW
2002 Chevy Crew Cab HD Duramax
1989 930 Porsche Turbo White
2003 996 TT Porsche Black
1972 914 6 3.6L Porsche white
1995 Ferrari 348 Challenge Yellow
2004 47 ft Outerlimits Trip 1050 SC Mercs.....
2002 Honda CR250
2004 Honda CRF450

Sweet ride! To small my big fat butt. I may run down to LA next week to pickup a new 7 series. Big rebates right now! BIG-C

White 03-H2-LUX

<a target="_blank" href="http://www.gstyle4u.com">
</a>

[Hummer Man]

I drove one the other day and it has the same problem most of the small M's do. At high speed (60 plus) in the corners the rear end is too tight. Their is know lateral adjustment to take care of this like on Ferari and Lotus. It's a nice little show car but for the money the performance is lacking. If you are not gonna push the limits with it it should be okay.
Without question the styling is great for a woman. It is for your wife right? Cuz that is a girlie girls car!
MEN DRIVE HUMMERS!

[uniblack]

Great car especially in that color. Is that the color you're getting?

What kinda interior are you getting with that thing?

[[uniblack]]

[argonaut]

yeah, I was talking about the SL55 too. The caddy looks neat, but I'm not a huge fan of that square jawwed styling. Just not my style. I like the more graceful euro curves personally. I'm just not a fan of those manumatic trannies. They flat out suck. If you do something without a clutch, the F1 is the only way to go. It shifts faster than you ever possibly could, and doesn't weigh that much more. I really like the SMG on my M3. It is fun. I want my net M5 to have one of those. It is a good compromise between manual and automatic, and gives you a performance benefit to boot.

[argonaut]

You know, to counteract what I just was saying. Dude has a 360 spyder. he doesn't need a performance car. the SL will be a very comfortable grand torer for you and will deliver you in style to wherever you want to go. If he wants raw performance, he has his ferrari to play with. good choice Zero. I was too hasty earlier and didn't think about the Ferrari. maybe I was just jealous that you have a place to put all your cars and thus can collect them. Whenever I decide to settle down and buy a big house for a family, I will start my own collection. storage units are just not good places for cars. I hate being hip, it doesn't leave much room for toys... sigh

[Drag]

Argo,

I think that the Merc SL500 comes standard with the manumatic, like all other ultra lux roadsters. The AMG verion is a full automatic. Sure, it's not the same as manually swapping cogs, but it's better than nothing.

Still, though, between the SL500 and the Caddy XLR, the XLR has it beat in sheer power and weight, and the torque to weight ratio is on the side of the domestic for a change.

Also, in terms of performance per dollar, you're getting more out of the new Caddy, considering it's fully loaded price is $10K less than a BASE SL500. Fully loaded SL's are in the 100K+ range for every option that is standard on the Caddy. Not only that, but there are 2x as many Merc-Benz SLs on the road as Caddy XLRs, meaning better residual value at the end of lease, and more value to collectors if you keep it long term.

Damn it, where's SJ to help me stand up for the domestic automobile?!

Corvette= "The ability to pass with class"

[KenP]

M parents picket theirs up three weeks ago and love it. Black and bad. Good choice for a car.

As for those of you who suggest the SLR, I seem to remember another Caddy that went after the SL series sometime back...the Alante Remember that garbage.

I also wonder what the trade in values will be in a year or two. '04 model year is not available at kbb.com yet.

Black Lingenfelter Lux

[John D]

Argonaut,
Case 2, In March this year I spent 65K for a new M-3 convert with SMG, after waiting till it had 800 miles of breakin I punched the car off the line. What a disappointment, the car could not spin the tires until you reached 10 mph. Also the car had run flats which gave it the ride quality of solid rubber. With 800 miles and one month old i traded the car for a 03 C5 Vette convert 6sp, this car I love, lots of power and torque and if I want more it is cheap. Much better ride quality, better car all around. The BMW M-3 may go around corners like few others, but like most people I do not live on a race track and I want a car that is fun to drive all the time not just when it finds a track.
Case 1, Last year my wife wanted a new SUV she had a 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee (great car) and i thought she might like one of the Germany hot rods, well we bought a new 65k ML55, great motor, great tires for the rain, great traction control in the rain, but the ride sucks the Vette and my old 02 Subaru WRX rode much better, the germanys have a wierd way of doing just about everything and few are good an most suck. The cruise control stick sucks, the lack of personal setting by fob sucks, the lack of a place to store the book size owners manual sucks, most of the controls and switches suck, fit and finish is OK. The engine is the best part of the car and if I was allowed to abuse the car i could over look alot of the other short coming. MB service does not suck, they pickup the car at the farm leave a loaner travel 30 plus miles to dealership and bring it back serviced washed and detailed, that anyone is going to like. The car is fun to drive hard, the motor is great, but in normal driving the ML55 is sub standard. The wife loves it so i guess we are going to have it a while. PS The Dunlap tires it comes with have no snow rating so we had to buy 4 winter tires and (4) rims because no one makes witer tires to fit the ML55 rims ($1800). After many disappointments I have bought my last new import, they cost too much new, they cost too much to soup up and they are not any better then their American counter parts in normal use.
John D.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by argonaut:
I hate to disagree with you DRTY, but the handeling on the SL is just not very good. On a straight away it has a lot of power, and is really fast (fun to drive too, I like stealing my dad's) but once you hit the curves it really sucks. a stock bottom of the line BMW 3 series will out handle that merc any day of the week. The sad truth. Now if you aren't on the track, or driving curvy roads, that Merc would be ideal. And besides, it's an automatic. I guess that is my biggest beef with mercedes. they are no fun. All you have is an automatic and traction control that you can't turn off. What fun is that? The TC kills a lot of the torque of those cars. Now if mercedes offered a manual or at least and F1 tranny, and a button to turn the TC off like on the BMWs then I would run out and buy one because I think they are absolutely beautiful cars, and not girly at all.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[KMAzz]

DRTYFN ...back off!!


but see ZeroT this way you add one more H2 to the driveway and ummm... Im house broken.

2003 Yellow H2
1993 Ford Probe GT(SHOW CAR)

[DRTYFN]

Zero,
Could you drop the very impressive signature line please. I really enjoy it, but it's killing me. Just a slight problem with daydreaming.

[DRTYFN]

Motorcycles.

[ZeroTolerance]

Honestly I did not purchase the house because of the garage space, I was actually disappointed that it only had a 5 car garage. My meaning was that I have other space to hold my possessions and I need not dwarf a neighborhood with a huge structure to hold that many vehicles when I only can drive one at a time and some of them I do not drive very often at all, maybe once a year. I bought a house like this cause I liked it, it was what I was looking for in a house and the garage set up allows me to put my wifes BMW in the garage, my H2, the dirtbikes, my Modena, and the 996 so that they are close to me. The rest of the stuff is in storage.. That was what the gray matter between my ears told me to do, be sensible and I did... And thanks for the Kudos on the new ride...

2003 H2 Black
2003 Ferrari 360 Modena Black
2003 Yukon Denali Red
2004 M5 BMW
2004 M3 BMW
2003 525i BMW
2002 Chevy Crew Cab HD Duramax
1989 930 Porsche Turbo White
2003 996 TT Porsche Black
1972 914 6 3.6L Porsche white
1995 Ferrari 348 Challenge Yellow
2004 47 ft Outerlimits Trip 1050 SC Mercs.....
2002 Honda CR250
2004 Honda CRF450