Drove a 997 and a Jaguar that some of you might find to be interesting today

"E90M3" (e90m3) 02/24/2018 at 17:52 • Filed to: unnecessary car shopping with E90M3

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In this Saturday’s edition of unnecessary car shopping with E90M3, we start with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! I went and test drove a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , figured I should continue that tradition.

This is third Porsche I’ve driven, I think I’m starting to become a Porsche person. The steering is sublime; it is, no other word, fantastic. It is a joy to operate the steering wheel, the steering is perfectly weighted, probably my favorite part of the car. I’m sure the lack of weight over the front axel really helps. I lack words to accurately describe how the steering felt.

The clutch, on the other hand, was something I didn’t really like. It seemed unnecessarily heavy. I bet stop and go traffic would be terrible in this. After driving two 997s, I’m going to assume that Porsche uses a heavy clutch. The M3 has a heavy clutch, but it’s not this heavy. I came into the drive expecting this, so I wasn’t shocked this time. That said, once you get moving, you sort of forget about it and just drive.

In keeping with the theme of shifting gears, I was going to say I found the shifting linkage to be sloppy. Now that I think about, it was fine. It wasn’t the most crisp shifter I’ve used, but it wasn’t bad. I red lined the 996 turbo in second, and was searching for third gear for a second, that shifter was sloppy. This 997 felt fine. Rev-matching downshifts with the top down was a glorious experience.

I think this car has been sitting for a while. I was breaking for an intersection and giving what would be adequate braking in the M3 and we were not slowing down enough. It was like oh shit I need to brake harder, going to assume that there might be water in the brake fluid; they felt pretty spongy.

Also, when I started the test drive the fasten seat belts warning would not go off. The sales guy and I buckled and unbuckled several times trying to get the car to shut up, that didn’t work. It did eventually go off and I’m not sure why. Although, I was too enthralled with the drop top manual Porsche I was driving to be bothered by it. I also found the materials in the interior to be lacking, they seemed more at home in a VW as opposed to a Porsche.

All of that said, I really want one. If I go back to the oilfield, I might get myself a 997.2.

The second car I test drove was an XF S Sportbrake. There was a Maserati/Alfa Romeo dealer on the same road as the Porsche dealer with a couple other dealers in the middle. One of those dealers is Jaguar. I was going to the Alfa Dealer because I wanted to look at the Giulia, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Well, on the short drive there, I saw this and wanted to at least look at it.

It is a very handsome car. I’m really like the styling on Jaguars as of late.

The saleswoman that came out was like let me get the keys. I really just wanted to look at it, but whatever I’ll drive it.

Popped the hood while she was photocopying my license.

I literally knew nothing about this car before I stopped by the dealer today other than the fact that they were selling them here. The saleswoman wasn’t very knowledgeable either, but she confessed on the way back to the dealer that she had only been on the job for a month and was still learning. She did know a lot about the features, and wasn’t phased when I asked if it was electric or hydraulic steering. Simply said I think it’s electric. She did a lot better than most salesman I usually get, I’ll give her an A for effort.

Now onto the car itself.

While she was inside, I turned on the stereo on turned up the stereo. It had the Meridian system and it sounded really good. The Harman Kardon stereo is the one option I really wish my M3 came with. While we’re talking about noise, let’s talk about the absence of noise. The cabin was very quiet at 60 MPH, then again, it is a $70k and that should be expected.

Steering was nice, didn’t feel over-boosted or numb. Felt responsive, but I didn’t really get to chuck it into any corners. I take note about steering in modern cars because I hated the EPS in the 228i I had as a loaner once.

The XF S Sportbrake comes with the supercharged V6, good for 380 hp. It felt pretty quick despite lugging around almost 4400 lbs. I didn’t take it to the red line, because it only had 44 miles on it when I drove it. Didn’t want to thrash it before it was broken in, but I could tell it wanted to move and even keeping it under around 4k it moved. The engine note was also pretty nice, not that you could really hear it from the cockpit.

Visibility from the cockpit was surprisingly good. It lacks massive D pillars, like the CTS-V wagon, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.

I liked it, but I spent most of the test drive in disbelief that it was that easy for me to test drive a 70k car. That said, I remember before I had the M3 it was hard to even get dealers to talk to me, now they’re like let me go get the keys.

Before I drove either car, I stopped at Mercedes to see what they had. They didn’t have anything I wanted to, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

These 2015s are very much still on the lot and not just ones that the dealer forgot to remove from online.

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > E90M3 02/24/2018 at 18:04

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The XF looks like an SUV from directly behind. Looks great from every other angle though.

JeepJeremy > E90M3 02/24/2018 at 18:04

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Great post! Those are rad cars!!

E90M3 > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 02/24/2018 at 18:05

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It think it might have been the angle on the back, but I agree it does look fantastic.

HondoyotaE38: A Japanese and German Collab...wait a minute > E90M3 02/24/2018 at 18:09

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SPORTBRAKE ALL DAY

E90M3 > JeepJeremy 02/24/2018 at 18:09

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Thanks! I do enjoy doing these.

As far as the cars go, they were both excellent. I think my next car is going to be something besides a BMW. Unless I start making oil money again, then it might be a 1M.

Liam Farrell > E90M3 02/24/2018 at 18:10

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Are they still charging sticker for the c250s?

E90M3 > HondoyotaE38: A Japanese and German Collab...wait a minute 02/24/2018 at 18:10

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It looks so good in person, too bad it’s 70k.

E90M3 > Liam Farrell 02/24/2018 at 18:12

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It looks like they are. I didn’t talk to anyone about them, I probably should have.

JeepJeremy > E90M3 02/24/2018 at 18:31

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When you said “if I go back to the oil fields” what exactly does that mean?

E90M3 > JeepJeremy 02/24/2018 at 18:38

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It means I’ve got an offer to be a frac consultant in the oilfield. I used to be a frac engineer, in a previous life.

JeepJeremy > E90M3 02/24/2018 at 18:42

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Fracking engineer is more detail. I know what that means.

I’m sure that’s a challenging profession in a field that’s very interesting.

E90M3 > JeepJeremy 02/24/2018 at 18:44

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It can be a rough life.

I’m deciding between that and a process engineer job in Greenville SC. I don’t know what the frac I’m going to do.

JeepJeremy > E90M3 02/24/2018 at 18:47

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I wish I were in a position to get that kind of work life. My dumb ass fell in love with liberal arts. My father told me I should’ve been an engineer but NO I had to study things that I enjoyed. My $30,000 piece of paper doesn’t qualify me to do a damn thing

E90M3 > JeepJeremy 02/24/2018 at 19:02

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I wanted to be an engineer. Then again, my dad is an engineer and my mom has a computer science degree, so I was pretty much destined to be some with math and science.

I’ve had a couple of dates with this girl from Tinder, and she’s got a degree from SCAD in historical preservation. The words out of her mouth after she said that were 18 year olds should not be allowed to choose their future.

Liam Farrell > E90M3 02/24/2018 at 19:07

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Get that for half off. They would need to replace pretty much every consumable and a longer warranty to make it worth that.

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > E90M3 02/24/2018 at 19:15

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The spacing from the bumper to the tail lights and the tail lights to the bottom of the rear window just looks SUV-ish to me.

E90M3 > Liam Farrell 02/24/2018 at 19:30

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I’m really surprised they aren’t heavily discounted. When I was there in Feburary of 2017 seriously looking for a car I told them I wouldn’t pay much more than 20k for it.

interstate366, now In The Industry > E90M3 02/24/2018 at 20:24

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I’m not really into German cars, but I do love some 911s and Boxsters/Caymans. Good to hear the 997 lives up to its rep.

MINIGTI > HondoyotaE38: A Japanese and German Collab...wait a minute 02/24/2018 at 20:50

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I sat in one at the Chicago Auto show, extra good head room in the back seat thanks to the enormous glass roof that goes out and back far enough to clear my head.

Liam Farrell > E90M3 02/24/2018 at 21:18

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They’re just going to lose all there money rather than only a little. Nobody wanted a c250 for mrsp, so who would want one 4 years old. Ok, but really that’s a just bad business decision.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 02/25/2018 at 19:17

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Similar problem with the rear of the TourX.