Volkswagen Passat 2.0T

2006 marked the year Volkswagen updated the Passat line with an all new body and a clever new 2.0 turbo engine propelling the car to 60 miles an hour in under 8 seconds while still getting nearly 30 miles per gallon. This feat isn't half bad for a luxurious family sedan with a base price under $24,000. Shifting through the six speed manual box is nothing special, but it is very easy to use. Volkswagen shifters have always felt a bit cheap and imprecise to me, lacking that nice positive engagement you get from other manufacturers.  The car gives a very nice feel, pulling smoothly to redline with minimal turbo lag, and even has enough bite to chirp the tires on up shifts. This 2.0 turbo engine is miles better to drive than the optional 2.5 liter 5 cylinder: smoother under light throttle, and will show an equivalent 2.5 it's tail lights at full throttle. Torque is available anywhere over 2,000 rpm's, but the power does seem to die off towards redline.

 Living with the Passat day to day is very nice with plenty of room for driver, passenger, and even enough leg room in the rear for most people. A long trip in the back seat was fairly comfortable and quiet. The interior is convenient too, with a nice sound system to listen to and plenty of room in the trunk. 

Though the car by no means encourages sporty driving, it does provide a very nice steering feel at it's limit. The biggest qualm I had with the handling was the massive amount of body roll. A stiffer suspension could easily eliminate most of this body roll, but for the market the Passat is aimed towards the handling takes a back seat to ride quality.

The exterior of the car is fairly basic, nothing exceptional, but certainly not an unattractive vehicle. Some of the chrome bits and pieces seem slightly gaudy, but the worst part is the wheels. A car with a full leather interior and many other options can still come with terrible steel wheels with hub caps; come on Volkswagen, a car in this class should only have alloy's as an option. 

Through the driving experience is very positive overall, there are some major drawbacks to the Passat. Engine troubles are fairly numerous, and potentially expensive. Adding a quart of (very expensive) oil every 1000 miles is mandatory, lest you get a "low engine oil pressure" warning around every sweeping corner. The owner of the model I tested was on his second turbo, and had to replace 3 coil packs due to random misfires. Another issue he had was the electronic parking brake, very cool in theory, but certainly has it's drawbacks. The switch malfunctioned during the test, allowing the car to roll backwards even after applying the parking brake, requiring another significant repair. Volkswagen produced a car that is very good to drive, but until they nail down some of the mechanical gremlins it just doesn't quite get my full seal of approval. 

2011 Mustang vs 2010 Camaro

Right off the bat, anyone who bought a 2010 Mustang should be kicking themselves, or at the very least driving down to the Ford dealership to trade in. Both V6 and V8 mustangs have completely new beating hearts, and man are they both fantastic. For 2011 Ford finally ditched that wasteland of valve-train noise they called an engine in the V6 model. Even though displacement is down for 2011, the V6 pumps out 305 horsepower, just ten less than the previous year's GT! The car is very good to drive, and even boasts a very nice soundtrack through the exhaust, but it somehow lacks that racecar feel you get in some cars with similar performance. However, if you want a fast, cheap, fuel efficient car with room for four, look no further, the V6 Mustang has arrived. I have yet to get the opportunity to drive a V6 Camaro, but based on my impression of the V8, buyers should opt for the Mustang either way.
Now, onto the big boys; the V8 crowd. The Camaro's new body absolutely screams muscles, and has the power to back up the badass look.  Chevrolet lifted the engine straight out of the new Corvette; the LS3. At 6.2 liters this engine packs quite the punch with 426 ponies, 14 more than the mustang delivers. At idle, and even full throttle the engine is fairly quiet, but I also had the opportunity to drive a Camaro with an aftermarket Borla exhaust, which really gave the car a sound to compliment its looks. This Camaro is a bit tricky to drive, it feels really big and has a strange feel to the clutch. Even after several miles I couldn't seem to get the clutch perfectly smooth, which was rather annoying. Acceleration doesn't feel quite as brutal as I was expecting considering the overall power of the car. The first time I put the power down hard I actually felt myself leaning forward as I expected to be pushed harder back in the seat. The car itself feels very good, but incredibly big. Too big, GM needed to shave at least 200 pounds off the weight of this car for it to be right for me.
The 5.0 mustang is powered by an all new engine, codenamed the Coyote. I didn't know Ford had such refinement in them, a big, muscular Mustang has never revved so smoothly, or felt so lively. If my vote counts for anything, I'd give the Coyote the award for best surprise engine of the decade. Lined up against the Camaro, the Mustang will barely pull away, but at the same time the car feels much faster, and puts the power to the road through a phenomenal 6 speed manual transmission. If I didn't know better I would think that the Mustang was pumping out 50 more horsepower than the SS. Driving along the Stang feels slightly large, but seems to cope with this size a lot better. Its a lot easier to drive, and looks better too (though it doesn't have that big-bully-coming-to-beat-you-up appearance of the SS). The car also handles worlds better than the SS, and the transmission is an absolute blast to shift. Think of the best shifter you have ever felt; this is it, and then some! The positive feel of engaging a gear is so satisfying that automatic junkies would consider this six-speed. My one qualm with the Mustang: the steering wheel. Its terrible, horrible, uncomfortable, but at least it looks alright. The split spoke design makes me feel uncomfortable no matter where my hands are positioned, but its not bad enough to detract from the overall car. Not only is the Mustang a better performing car, but its much easier to live with day-to-day as well. Its smoother, easier to drive, sounds better, and similarly priced. With a $30,495 sticker price, not much gives a better value than this, the fastest Mustang GT ever produced.
Contrary to the pony car race of the early 2000's, the tables have turned on Chevrolet. GM has some serious catching up to do (literally) if they want to have a chance at knocking this Mustang off as top dog.

2002 Porsche 911 Carrera

At first I was very hesitant to write this review, as my opinion of the 911 seems to differ from that of most people. I've always been of the opinion that the Volkswagen Beetle look-alike, the 911, was one of the ugliest cars in production, but until a few months ago I had never actually driven one. I assumed that everyone was just in love with the driving characteristics to the point where they looked past the rather charmless exterior.

Up front everything is pretty typical Porsche looks. A decent sized boot sits at the front, just enough room for, well, maybe a bag or two of groceries. Don't expect to be hauling too much stuff with you in this car. While this car may have not been designed to carry much luggage, I've fit a bicycle in my Corvette making it seem a lot more practical, despite the two seat disadvantage.

Driving around slowly at first I got accustomed to the Porsche interior. The 996 is arguably one of the worst interiors in the entire 911 line, and that's blatantly obvious from the drivers seat. Whoever ordered this 911 new obviously didn't care too much about listening to music considering they didn't spring for the optional CD player, instead going with the 1990's technology cassette tape player. This typically wouldn't have bothered me much, except that the 3.6 liter engine powering the Carrera doesn't make a noise worth listening too, leaving one to focus on tire and wind noise while rewinding your tape deck. This very well may have been the first time I've ever complained about wind and tire noise, and it wouldn't be an issue if I at least had the option to play some music besides the garbage on modern day radio.

The driving experience of the 911 was quite good. Porsche really does know how to make a car feel nimble and quick. At the same time an MX-5 feels very nimble and quick, yet costs a fraction of a 911. As I grew a little more confident with the car, I started to drive it a little harder. Slinging that heavy rear end around was a weird feeling, and I'm confident that if I were to push it hard at the track I would end up crashing well before posting a solid lap time. The car just felt as if snap oversteer was in its nature, especially towards the foolish (like myself) who like getting on the throttle hard exiting corners.

Running through the gears was an absolute dream. This shifter is actually what convinced me that I had to do something about the stock piece in my Corvette. It really was that good, my absolute favorite thing about the car.

The engine felt incredibly refined, and revved through the range very smoothly, though it lacked that punch-in-the-gut acceleration many people find intoxicating. Porsche has the answer to this though in their 911 turbo, but the price sky rockets well past the already over priced Carrera S. The acceleration of this particular 911 reminded me of (and I'm sure I will be the only one to ever make this comparison) the old SVT contour's engine. The first time I drove an SVT contour I was absolutely thrilled at how peppy the 2.5 duratec engine was, the thing just kept on pulling up to redline! The 911 obviously pulled quite a bit harder, but the overall feel was very similar.

Maintaining the 911 isn't too terribly hard, the only minor hassle is the fact that, well you know, the engine has to be dropped from the vehicle to do any sort of repair. I guess that makes it pretty inconvenient and very expensive to even, say, change the spark plugs. The only other potential problem to worry about is known as the IMS bearing. Without getting into any detail, the IMS bearing was used by Porsche for over a decade, and failure of this bearing requires at a minimum, complete disassembly of the engine, though more commonly complete replacement.

If money is no object, the Porsche provides a well built, fairly fast, fun to drive machine. However, if money is a factor in any decision you make, you can save yourself a fat stack of cash looking elsewhere to find equal performance and thrill.

C5 Z06

Even before I liked cars, a passing corvette was quite an event for me. I knew nothing about them, and the fastest car I had ever been in was quite possibly a minivan, so I had no perspective of performance. Even with my lack of interest in cars in general I knew one thing for sure: the Corvette just had a presence about it, it was iconic, it was incredible. Years later, with a brain fully immersed in car facts, performance numbers, and reliability ratings I still somehow knew very little about the corvette. I'm not sure why it took me so long to start learning about them, but the first time I was handed the keys to my coworkers shiny red 1999 corvette I was weak at the knees. Days later I could still have described every detail of the car, because it had finally become real to me, I had finally been in my dream car. There was only one thing to wonder next, when would I get one of my own?

Chevrolet did a lot of things differently with the fifth generation Corvette: performance was up, reliability was better, comfort was improved, and the car was even more fuel efficient. While the interior has always been a drawback for the Vette, the C5 was a much nicer place to be than the previous generation. The C5 interior became very functional, but still lacks the pop and finish of many competitors. The weird thing is, none of that even matters when you drive the car. The experience, as a whole, is so incredible that the first time I ever drove a Z06 is burned into my memory, I could retrace the exact route from memory even now, years later.

When a car manufacturer updates a successful car, usually about half the components remain similar, or even the same as the previous generation. The chassis may be stiffened, the engine tweaked to produce more power, the interior freshened up, but rarely is absolutely everything changed.

The 1997 corvette was just this though, a fresh start with all new components. There was a new, sleek body, radically stiffened chassis, and a brand new engine-the coveted LS1. Fast forward to 2001, where the fifth generation gets a slight redesign, but more importantly the introduction of the C5 Z06--a high performance track oriented version of the base car. The power-plant  in this rocket ship was designated the LS6, and produced up to 50 more horsepower than the base LS1!

Changes didn't end with the engine though, nearly everything on this car was designed to make this Corvette the fastest to ever lap a track. The standard MN6 transmission was replaced with an entirely new one-the M12-which gave the car shorter gearing for quicker acceleration, and beefed up components to handle the added torque of the LS6. 60 miles and hour zips by in under four seconds, and sub 12 second 1/4 mile times have been recorded indicating that Chevrolet succeeded in making this car FAST. 

Cruising along on the highway at a tame speed fuel economy can easily travel north of 30 miles per gallon, a feat that only small four bangers typically achieved back in 2001. 

I purchased my Corvette in early 2013, a bone stock Speedway White Z06. This color is extremely rare, with only 352 of them ever produced, and only optioned in 2001. Since purchasing the car I've made a few changes and modifications; new tires, black lower rear fascia, long tube headers, a Borla exhaust, B&M Ripper short throw shifter, and what's known in the C5 world as the zip tie mod. The two absolute best changes I have made to the car were the tires (Continental ExtremeContact DW) and the XS Power 1 3/4 inch headers.

Continental doesn't make a tire in exact OEM sizes, the fronts have to be bumped to 275, but the tires fit perfectly fine and don't look bad at all. As far as street tires go, these have to be given the nod for best overall value. My car produced a mind numbing 386 foot pounds of torque to the rear wheels, and unless the temperature is below 30 degrees I CAN NOT break these tires loose in any gear (without dumping the clutch, that is). Since I purchased these tires my lovely lady can no longer ride in the car without feeling sick to her stomach from the vicious acceleration forces-something that was never a problem with the stock Goodyear tires. A friend with a set of Toyo tires opted to teach his rear tires a lesson by spinning through third gear after riding in my car because he wanted a set so badly. At the drag strip a set of drag radials will serve you better, and at the circuit the softer sidewalls of the Continentals tend to flex a little, but the long wear life and superb traction make these my favorite street tire. If you're in the market, buy them. Don't think about it, just buy them, you will not be disappointed.

After the header install and tune my car made 365 rear wheel horsepower and 386 foot pounds of torque. These numbers are a little off compared to many Z06 corvettes, but nothing absolutely out of the realm of normality. These headers make the car really scream, especially past 3000 rpms. "Eargasmic" is the best way I've heard a bystander describe the sound. At above 85 miles an hour there is a fair bit of drone, but at typical highway speeds the car sounds relatively tame.

With prices dropping to under $20,000, the C5 Z06 makes the absolute best value sports car I've ever found. If you can think of another car that matches the looks, performance, reliability, fuel economy, and ease of use PLEASE let me know!  If you have never been in a Z06, give it a try. The power delivery is entirely different from similar cars in it's class, including later model C6 corvettes with the same power ratings. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jyJqgC5_8Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVtGp7c_b0w

Not top of the line interior, but everything is perfectly where you would expect it

The LS6: Identified by the Red Engine cover

Competitive driving mode

My White Z06 with a friends Black

The classic shape of the C5

How many cars do you know of with supercar performance that hit 300,000 miles?

Happy motoring, everybody!

David.

A day in the life of an automotive enthusiast

Cars have so many different meanings to people. Some don't care at all, and would honestly rather be driven around than have to operate any controls aside from the radio. Others love cars for the convenience of not having to walk everywhere. Finally, there are those who love every single thing about cars. They love looking at cars, reading about cars, working on cars, listening to cars, smelling cars (yes, smelling. The smell of leather, oil, combustion gasses get us gear heads revved up like there's no tomorrow) but most importantly: driving cars. Hopping behind the wheel of a favorite car provides a release from the messed up world we all live in, and a few wide open throttle pulls reminds us of the amazing things this world has to offer. 

Car life isn't all good though, there are certainly drawbacks. If our cars breaking down wasn't the worst part, we have to worry about break ups too. It's a serious problem, a relationship with a car can put a serious strain on a relationship with another person. I've been blessed with a beautiful, wonderful girl who understands my borderline obsession with the automotive industry, but it's still not always easy. I couldn't count on both hands how many times in the past week she's dozed off at me talking about compression ratios, firing orders, transmission ratios, or whatever may be on my mind at the time. For the number of times I've heard someone say to me "is all you care about that stupid car?" You would think I would change, but for the life of me I just can't get my mind of cars. In fact, the main reason I started writing this was because I knew people were getting tired of non-stop car talk from me, and I wanted to reach out to an audience that wanted to hear my input. In the next couple of days I'll continue on the life of a gear head. 

Alright, we're back. Today we're gonna tackle one of the automotive enthusiasts biggest fears: breakdowns. Now nobody likes having their car breakdown. It costs money, you lose the convenience of getting up and going wherever, whenever, but most importantly you're undoubtedly going to have to call in favors from people you probably don't even like just to get rides. For a gear head all of this is still true, but there's more! 

When a car guy is without his vehicle, it's about like being homeless. At first thought you may be thinking "that's ridiculous, you may not like it, but it's not THAT bad!" Well you're wrong, it is that bad. Ever had a pet at the vet going through surgery? It's that and then some. Veterinarians at least are generally people who love animals, and want nothing more than to make your dog perfectly happy and healthy again. Car mechanics tend to want other things. While they probably do love cars, they generally don't really care what happens to yours, unless it makes them money. It's sad, but true a lot of times. If a vet had the choice, save the life of a puppy, or make $20 I would almost guarantee that you would hear a happy healthy puppy barking the next day. On the other hand, I once had a mechanic argue with me for half an hour that the spark plugs I replaced not 6 months earlier were the set from the factory with 70,000 miles on them. He already had the spark plugs out for the header install he was doing on my car, so all that arguing was to make him an extra $18 for some new plugs. After all that I was without my car for 2 weeks, and who knows how they drove the car in my absense? I've known mechanics, I knew one who wrecked a customers brand new audi s4 while showing off for his girlfriend. I knew a mechanic who swapped a good battery out of one customers car with the dead one from another customers car, charging full price for a "new" battery.  It's scary to think that the people many are forced to trust with their cars, can be so shady. 

Now, on to another topic, a bit happier than the last. As a car guy, how quickly would you jump on the opportunity to have a garage stocked with every car you could ever want, with one circumstance: you have to sleep in the garage with them. When I was first asked that my initial thought was "as long as there's a shower for me, I'll sleep on an inflatable mattress anywhere. Now my girlfriend wasn't quite as excited by this, but hey, she likes fast cars too, I'm sure she would come around eventually. That's all the time I've got for this topic though, thanks for reading!

My Car History

My first personal car was a 5 speed manual 2001 Toyota Celica. The car was absolutely brilliant, I could throw it into a turn at any speed with the revs wound out to over 7000 rpms, and still end up getting 30 miles to the gallon. After plenty of research I realized a could never get the straight line performance I desired out of the car, so I left it stock and enjoyed the car for a couple years. The Celica was certainly one of the best starter cars I could imagine, but I lusted after torque, something it could never reliably give me even with extensive modification. I had a buyer lined up with $5,500 cash to buy the car, when my parents surprised me with $6,000 to sell the car to them. This meant I would get a new one, and still occasionally get to drive my first ever car!

One day my friend called me and asked if I could go check on his dog because he hadn't been able to let him out all day. I got to his house and had the strange urge to get on his computer and check some local listings, and to my surprise I found the most beautiful Nissan 350z I had ever seen, and right in my price range! 3 days later I was driving it home, but not without problems. The car was by no means in perfect shape, it had been wrecked and cheaply fixed, something that haunted me for the next two years of ownership. The stock leather seats were ripped up, the previous owner had torqued on the wrong size lug nuts so the wheels weren't tightly fastened, it was missing a transmission mount, all four brake calipers were missing a mounting bolt, and man was it dirty, but it was mine.

Two years and 25,000 miles later, the time for another car was approaching quickly. I mentioned to my family that I wanted to sell the car, and promptly everything started going wrong with the vehicle. Transmission started grinding, radio went dead, exhaust broke, replacement exhaust broke, everything. It was officially time to get rid of the car. I met with a potential buyer, who test drove the car and absolutely loved it. His only request was "can I take it to auto zone to make sure there are no codes?" This wasn't a problem, after all, the car had never thrown a CEL for me in the time I owned it. Boy did I have another thing coming, six, yes SIX codes were thrown ON THE WAY TO THE AUTO ZONE. That knocked a grand off the selling price, but he still bought the car. 

A month or so later, I was still without a car, and still dead-set on a Z06 corvette. Every time I would find a good candidate, it would sell out from underneath me before I got to pull the trigger. I fell in love with the Speedway white corvette when I found one relatively close to me, but it was scooped up the day before I was scheduled to take a look. After a two hour drive to purchase a nice silver Z06 ended up a flop, I got a phone call from the dealership (coincidentally within 5 miles of the first one) with the Speedway white Z06 -- the financing had fallen through, and it was back available for me to buy! Within ten minutes I was at the dealership, and an hour later I was driving home in my brand new Corvette!

More details on each car to follow,

Happy motoring!

Seventh Generation Celica

The new edge styling of the seventh (and final) generation of Toyota celica brought several changes both good and bad. The body was sleeker, sharpened, more aggressive in appearance, but the days of the gt-four were gone. All new Celica’s (GT and GTS) would be front wheel drive, with the choice of 1zz or 2zz engines. Both engines utilize variable valve timing, but the 2zz in the GTS offers valve lift as well, boosting power from 140 to 180 (or 190 depending on the market). 
While the GTS offered much improvement in performance, many people preferred the less powerful, less peaky engine due to ease of driving. Both cars offer superb handling, I threw mine into a few turns that should have been disastrous, but was saved by the cars performance. At the limit the celica offers a delightful throttle lift oversteer that few other front wheel drive cars can be proud of. After watching many videos I came to realize that these cars were certainly not afraid to cock a rear wheel in the air under hard cornering, proof of the astounding grip they offer for the price. 
While the engine is lackluster for straight line performance, in the right situation these cars absolutely fly. The interiors are pretty typical budget coupe quality. While a moderate sound system will have you tracking rattles for days on end, it is extraordinarily functional. Reliability is typical of Toyota, a few early model cars had a slight oil consumption issue, but towards the end of the run the cars were well dialed in for reliability, performance, and fuel economy. A few weeks after I sold my beloved Celica to my sister I got a phone call worrying that the gas gauge was broken because she hadn’t seen it move since she started driving. 
These cars will serve anyone looking into an entry level sporty car with plenty of room on the inside, so if that’s where you’re looking, give one a try!

A few pictures of my personal celica:

The Car That got me Started

The car that snapped my brain into it's automotive (for lack of a better word) obsession was very unusual in the car world. Most kids ride in an uncle's Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette, Jaguar... you get the point, but I fell in love with my (now future Brother in Law) sister's boyfriend's 1999 Mercury cougar. 
At the time I really hated that guy, but damn was that car awesome. The car was far from stock, but it was my first taste of how great a properly modified car could be. The list of modifications was rather extensive, but the biggest part of that car's character was with the addition of the 3 liter duratec engine. Stock the car came with a 2.5 liter engine producing a measly 170 bhp, but its replacement added 50 extra horsepower, and buckets of torque. Driving this car is seriously like trying to fight an alligator while riding on the back of, well, a cougar. The addition of a quaife limited slip differential made this rocketship a torque steering, fire breathing monster out of the hole. Trying to convince a person that this car only made 200 whp is impossible, they simply will not believe you. 

Watch the video here:

Both of those videos were recorded when the car was limping on three cylinders, I've never seen a car drive so well well with holes in half the pistons. These cougars, they're troopers.

About Me

My Name is David Goodwin, and I am the definition of car enthusiast. By the time it was legal for me to get a job I had one, for a single reason - I was going to buy my own car, I WAS NOT getting stuck behind the wheel of my parents old raggedy minivan. I’ve only owned 3 cars in my life, but I’ve driven A LOT. Let me put it to you this way; in high school I made it a goal to drive at least 2 different cars to school each week. People remember me pulling up to school in cars that I don’t even remember driving. Expect pictures, reviews, articles, and much more over the course of this blog, but for this first post, I’ll just add a few pictures of my cars (past and present)

My first ever car, and still in my family: 2001 Toyota Celica GT

My second car added a boasted a bit more in-your-face style

2003 350z Touring Model

This is my current baby, a Speedway White Z06