After a long wait, it sits in my driveway

After a long wait, it sits in my driveway (Updates last page)

UPDATES PAGE 6


Hi guys! Some of you may remember my previous thread, http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?6091273-Waiting-for-a-car-purchase-What-to-do where I had to wait to pick up my recent car purchase. I thought I would go ahead and make a new purchase thread and give a little background.

A little about myself, up until now, I was finishing my bachelors of architecture down in southern California. I was working (avg 25-30 hrs/week) concurrently while going to school full time, and got hired once I graduated in June. Ever since my senior year of high school I've wanted an s2000. It sounds cheesy but it's actually true. A friend of my brothers had one and I still remember riding in it the first time. Nighttime, top down, it was tons and tons of fun. So ever since then, I've wanted one.

Starting 6 months ago I started tracking the market to see what I could find. I needed to be full time employed in order to finance a portion of the purchase, so I had to wait until I graduated. I created an excel spreadsheet that tracked all of the cars that met my criteria. '06+, 60,000 miles or less, under $24,000, and not red or yellow. (sorry to anybody who drives a red/yellow s2k- they look great, but I can't pull it off.) I set my range to 1,000 miles and every few days checked my list to mark off what was sold and add new cars that I found. I polled from sites like Autotrader, cars.com, craigslist (lol), the s2ki classifieds, and I even went through dealer websites looking for them. It was a great way to distract myself from my senior thesis. (bleh)

In the beginning of this month, I went in and talked to a loan officer and found out that I could get a really good interest rate if the car was '07 or up. With that information, I looked through my spreadsheet and found a recent addition, an '07 being sold at a dealer for $23,000, 43,000 miles, one owner female. Talked the guy down to 23k out the door and I secured financing, put down 35%, and bought it. I had to wait 4 days until the weekend before I picked it up, two days ago. My girlfriend got mad at me for buying before I test drove it, but frankly I knew what I wanted and I didn't want to drive 6+ hours to test drive a car to have to come back the next weekend to pick it up. I told her it was my money not hers, which she didn't appreciate so she told her parents about my misdeeds and now they think I'm irresponsible. ha, ha.

On to picking up the car!


I drove up to my parents house Friday night because they live halfway between L.A. and San Francisco, which is where the car was located. Leaving L.A. was a nightmare.


I left my parents house at 5:30 in the morning. (Booooo)


On the way.


Getting foggy! It was a nice break from the 104 degree heat that the valley (central California) was dealing with.


Traffic


And the moment you have all been waiting for:
I walked up to the car, opened the hood, and saw this-


Talk about pristine. You could eat off of the engine bay! The dealer cut and polished the paint (claybar) and cleaned the engine bay. Since I was in a hurry (parents wanted to throw me a belated grad party so I had to get back home, 4ish hours away) I signed some papers and then drove down the road a little ways to find some grub.
First picture I took of it where it was all mine! It was a pretty good feeling turning around, seeing the car, and knowing that I had the keys.


I stopped at a place called Sam's Chowder House. It's raved about online so I had to check it out. All in all I would give them an 8 on a scale of 1-10. I had a bowl of clam chowder that was pretty "meh," but the seafood dish made up for it. You would think that a place called "chowder house" would be known for their....chowder....


Now it was time to beat feet home. I took a break at the intersection of the 101 and 152 to take a few pictures in a parking lot, and stretch.




And of course my girlfriend had to get starbucks. It is...hard to shift when there's a drink in the "cupholder." (If you can call it that)


Practically new!


It was blisteringly hot on the drive home. Fortunately, the air conditioning worked flawlessly. That also meant the top had to be up otherwise I'd be dealing with some serious sunburn during the 4 hour drive. I drove top down on the way to work this morning though and it was awesome!
During the drive in the heat:


I saw as high as 103 on the temp gauge.


Pretty good MPG too (And I didn't put in regular, I just clicked save and forgot to change over to premium)


Once I got in my parents driveway everyone came out to take a look/sit in it. Needless to say everybody loved it! My parents just bought a 2013 cooper S so they want to race now. LOL they're funny.


Since I bought it, I've put 475 miles on it in 2 days. Before I continue, as reference my previous car is a 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee that I drove for two years. Before that, a 1998 Jetta GLX that was my first car. In terms of the s2000, I can honestly say that it is extremely loud even with a stock exhaust, and there is a lot of wind noise coming through the soft top. I have to pay attention to curbs, driveways, bumps, and uneven road surfaces now. The stereo leaves a lot to be desired. Did I mention that there's exhaust drone? (it's not as bad as it could be)

With that said I have no idea why people whine about the "lack of torque." I had no problems accelerating in 6th on the Grapevine going to L.A. (6.5% grade), there is plenty of passing power at 60-70mph on the freeway, and frankly the car is pretty darn fast. Could it be because I'm coming from a jeep that it feels fast? Sure, but I think that the power levels more than adequate for the application. It's a lightweight sports car that revs to 8k- it's plenty. Why people hate on it is beyond me. It handles on rails, it looks great, I laugh when I drive it, and I loved driving it even when it was just boring freeway driving.

Do you want to know the best part of all of this? The car is MINE!

I have no immediate plans other than it could use an alignment and I really want to switch out the Falken ZE's for some bridgestone Potenzas with a 255 rear. Then it will be perfect.