If greed puts more of a smile on your face than driving a fine automobile, then you are not a driving enthusiast. If you would rather save the money than spend $300-$400 on a 2-day driving school with, say, the BMW club, then you are not an enthusiast. Anyone who would choose a boring car with no more motivation than yours is not an enthusiast.
Apparently, I'm not 'average'. I generally put in some 35-40 miles a day commuting on largely deserted rural roads. If it isn't 'Jeep weather', I'll be in my BMW.
No it doesn't. But maybe you should meet Da Red Dog:
That's all you need to say to make it abundantly clear that you, too, wouldn't know what to do with a performance car if it smacked you upside the head.
How would you know? Ever lost traction in your BMW? Ever autocrossed in it? Ever engaged the ABS on dry pavement? I'm betting your driving never has and probably never will come close to the performance envelope of your car.
OOH! Speed limits! Yeah; I've heard of them. I use 'em as advisory numbers when I'm anywhere near traffic.
Not that you needed to add this, but it simply reinforces that you haven't a clue what a BMW is about. It is not a 'beamer' except to the unwashed masses. Why you would go to the bother of typing a longer cutesy nickname than simply 'BMW' is beyond me. If you want to be cute, it's 'bimmer' - which rhymes with 'simmer' or 'glimmer'.
Not if Chris Bangle had anything to do with it. =8^O
It's not a musclecar. It's not a drag racer. It is a *drivers'* car. That means you need to *drive it* to appreciate it. A well trained chimpanzee could put it in 'Drive' and stomp the accelerator and hold it there while going in a straight line ... can't you?
An enthusiast can often fix it. But messing up your manicure working on your car would be beneath *you*, wouldn't it?
Didn't get the sport seats?
Ah; there *is* a God! You do that and stick with 'em. We don't need more BMW dilettantes. We do need more BMW driving enthusiasts and you clearly don't qualify.
Ewww! A slushbox! No surprise there. During the first 187,000 miles, my car has needed a clutch release bearing, so I changed the clutch even though it was working fine. It's one of those 'while you're in there' jobs. The gearbox is still fine. Getting my short shift kit installed soon, I hope.
Yup. All that stuff. But the apparent reason is, the car's 19 years old.
Nope.
Yup. Fixed.
Not sure. It *looks* kinda' new ... but I've only had this one for
20,000 miles.
Ain't got one.
No; but it was converted to R134a.
Nope.
No; but there's some northeast Ohio salt-caused rust starting to show up in the rockers and door bottoms. I'll probably fix it.
Nope
Gee; probably more than I've spent on my car *and* its repairs. Meet Da Red Dog at
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It's never let me down. You have my permission to be jealous.
JonB, (So, do they call you "Sloop"? I would...), Good to see another 2-wheel commuter on this board!
I'm just now in the market for new tires for my road bike. Flatted the front last night; 4-wheeler decided he had the right-of-way and I skidded to a hard stop. Now I have that thump-thump-thump from the flat spot.
What've you owned & which have you liked? ...I'm leaning towards the Continental Ultra Gatorskins; heavy but bulletproof from what I've read. Thx&Rgds...pay
BTW - If you can find any, I swear by the Scott Matthauser brake pads.
You're putting words in people's mouths now--all so you can try to justify yourself.
Life is full of choices. For example, I prefer to be on the beach in Hawaii over driving a BMW. If I can do both, great. If not, if I have to rank them, I'll take the beach.
What I said was--now listen carefully--if I have to make the choice between having fun driving a car (because that costs money) and having fun on a beach on Hawaii, I'll CHOOSE to have my fun in Hawaii instead of paying for fun in a car.
Choices. It's all about choices. I can accept the Lexus for what it is--a dead-reliable choice for transport that does the job very well and which allows me to put my discretionary--DISCRETIONARY, look it up--dollars into a *more* enjoyable endeavor.
And interestingly enough--it puts a smile on my face knowing that that car allows me to make the choice, that I'm not stuck with a world of cars that are all expensive to own.
It's nice that you have a choice in life. You've made your choice. Enjoy.
So, where do you play all these fun and games. Have your own road course on your property? I used to drive like this some when I was 16. Some guys never mature beyond that. You sound more like boy than man.
How's your driving history? How much in insurance premiums?
Save it. I'll call it what I want. That beamer/bimmer/bremmer/blather/ bummer shit has been flogged to death here over the years.
I prefer Bummer.
Manicure my ass. My hands are scuffed up as I speak from doing work under the hood last week (belt replacements). The frigging things were already cracking at 28,000 miles.
----- Kill ratio of Palestinian children to Israeli children 5.7-to-1, Israel's favor. Kill ratio of all Palestinians to Israelis: over 3-to-1.
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"Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." ---Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 2001=20
Ya know, you're probably right. They could've lasted the usual 60k miles. I've noticed that there can be a lot of cracking on the rubber side, with the rest of the belt seemingly as good as new, and I find it hard to believe that they are near failing at that point. I've had a belt fail on me just once in my life, about 25 years ago, and believe me, this thing was clearly worn out from just looking at it, but I kept putting off replacing it. So it left me stranded in the middle of nowhere.
I replaced these last week because a BMW mechanic who was doing other work on the car told me that they really should be replaced, even though he had no interest in doing it himself, as he knew I did this kind of work myself. I thought, what the hell, I'll put new ones on, especially since I'm driving the car to Miami next week. But I still believe that what you say is probably true.
----- Kill ratio of Palestinian children to Israeli children 5.7-to-1, Israel's favor. Kill ratio of all Palestinians to Israelis: over 3-to-1.
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"Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." ---Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 2001
Now I feel bad. I bought my 633 4 years ago for $500 at a dealer auction. Nobody wanted to touch an exotic complicated expensive to maintain car like that.
I put in a new brake bomb, soft lines and had to locate a NLA turn signal bezel.
Oh, it ate a fuse once too. The car is not rusty, the interior looks new and it goes like a scalded cat and handles like a Lotus 7.
I've spent more than the price of car+maintenance, just on shocks (struts actually) for a Japanese car.
Just one data point. And proof that to say "all german cars are expensive to maintain" is factually incorrect.
This is all really quite hilariious considering that Lexuses (Lexi?) and BMWs cost about the same amount to purchase new and BMWs cost absolutely nothing to maintain during the 4 year warranty.
Just ignoring any difference in fun-factor right now, how is that Lexus saving you money? What model do you own that is so much less expensive than a BMW?
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