Anyway, after assuring me that he had measured the tire-tread and fuel level, he handed me the keys and I was off. After almost an hour, I was convinced of a few things. There were three things I didn't like about it (all of which could be remedied) and a thousand things I love.
1) Whenever you ran over something in the road - crack in the pavement, manhole cover, a pebble - you felt it right into the pan of the seat. It never affected driveability, but it was distracting and irritating, considering none of our other cars have that issue.
2) The seats are uncomfortable. While all of the bolstering is good for keeping you in place on the track, I felt scrunched just driving down the road. And the seat pan is particularly horrible, IMO. If I bought one, I'd replace them within the first week.
3) There's not one in our driveway.
As for what I love, it's everything else. It's not super-fast, but it doesn't need to be. The balance between power, weight, handling, and ease to drive make this car an easy sell. The shifts were smooth, the clutch was perfect, the exhaust note is addictive, the steering is incredibly responsive, and it can handle curves with some pretty impressive speed. The interior was nice (minus the comfort of the seats); very functional, everything is within easy reach and is intuitive. The back seat isn't very accommodating to passengers - legroom is almost non-existent- but the space is plenty big enough for "stuff". I love the real time MPG gauge. It's something I've become used to in the Insight and something I miss in all of the other cars. When you're rowing through 1-4 gears, the mileage kinda sucks (especially when you're revving up pretty high between shifts). However, once you get into 4th gear+, the mileage is pretty awesome. Christian said he was averaging around 31 mpg overall and that's not shabby at all, especially in a car that is so fun to drive. Dar loved it. Christian let me go pick him up from work in it and Dar was stunned. He was really hoping I had gone to the dealership and made a spur of the moment decision.
In conclusion, here are the Cliff Notes:
Would I own this car: Yes, Yes, Yes.
Would I pay full price for it? Probably not. Brand new, after taxes, they're around $28K which is a bit much for me. Granted, I don't like to pay full price for ANYTHING so I may not be the best gauge for that question. However, next year, I will be looking for them as a used car option and seeing what happens with the price / value / issues they've found in the first year. I'll also be looking at the Focus ST (which I hope to drive soon), and I always have my eye on the Mazda Speed 3 Hatch. Now, the only question I have left to consider is, do I pick the black or the blue?
Also, sadly, Nissan has absolutely nothing to compare this too.
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