Guys, previously, I bought a lemon R171 and in my thread R171 Woes had already described my situation.
Now I am faced with an issue which I though some of you maybe able to advise me on.
My car is as of today out of service STILL since 8/31/05 and I had not driven it since then. It is still with my dealer ZUNG FU no report issued. Strange.
I am offered a choice of trading it in with my Extended Warranty renewed for another 3 years (I paid for it when I first bought the car anyway). However, only problem is that I have no choice in colour except a BLACK on RED interior if I want Jan 06 delivery. My original colour was Silver with Black.
Now I am considering given all the bad tastes, maybe I should try the 987 Boxster. However, on plain paper, the Boxster looks grossly underpowered compared to my 350 but the salesman said that it would perform as good as the 350 because it is built based on balance and not power. He said on plain paper, the 350 looked excellent but on track it would handle only at best on par with the boxster. He said numerous tests on Nubering had already showed that the Boxster S and Cayman S could do better than even the 55 AMG.
I only wanna ask because if I am dissing some money out for this situation, I may consider buying the Boxster for a change given the bad experience. However, I truly have no idea how the Boxster would drive like compared to the SLK. The salesman only had me test out the boxster S and surely, the boxster s was powerful with a great engine sound... however, the interior is a bit plastic-KY and cramped... frankly speaking, it is not as spacious and the retractable softtop is a bit of a turnoff... I will have to pay double the amount of what I diss out on the SLK (for mercedes, I have to put in 150,000 and for porsche, I have to put in 300,000 if I can successfully get rid of my SLK).
Any vote? I am leaning towards Porsche but my father said I should stick with Mercedes... cos he said they would wanna take extra care of me now that they had caused so much trouble to a customer... no idea on my side.
You must live in Asia since that is a big difference in price. What the Porsche salesman told you is true on a track the Porsche has better lap times ( The guys that have tested the Boxster S/SLK350 on the track are pros) So this plays a big role when it comes to track times for the average Joe. From what it sounds like to me, it seems that your leaning towards a Porsche due to the trouble MB has caused you. It seems that in all other aspects you like the SLK350 better then the Porsche. I haven't seen the interior of a Porsche boxster in person, I can't comment on the interior quality but from the pictures I've seen it looks very simple. I too like the hard top of the R171 SLK and being the owner of a hard top roadster I wouldn't give this option up. All in all I would go with the SLK350, especially when taking into consideration the cost of the boxster S being double in price (this is just my opinion).
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Gaz
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SLK 350 (r171 - 10/04)Iridium and black
SLK 200K (r170 - 09/00)
Audi Coupe 2.0 (12/94)
Ford Escort Mk V (90)
Ford Escort Mk II (85)
If you track the car a lot, then the Boxter S/Cayman is likely to be a better bet. The weight and position of the roof motors and mechanism and the fact that the engine is not in the middle mean the SLK will never have the same balance - on the track. If you don't track it much, or not at all, then the Nurburgring times, or any other track times, are irrelevant. The SLK is more comfortable definitely better looking, and manages to be a real hardtop coupe and a real convertible, rather than just one or the other. All three cars driven on the road rather than the track, where cornering limits are rarely (if ever) reached, will be comparable.
Agree with Steve-P. If you want a car for the track, but a track car.But on the road,in the UK anyway, the SLK is a better proposition every time.I also looked at a Boxster recently & for the money it was far from value.The Cayman needs at least £10,000 of options before it is acceptable which takes it into SLK55 country.You should contact the main man at your dealer and tell them exactly what you want or you will seek legal advice.
I agree for sure about the track deal. There isn't one in HK. I live in HONG KONG, hilly billy and loads of lights and traffic jam. That's also why you never see many manual boxster in Tokyo... just ain't practical. In the states, you spend an hour and you can drive off to ski. In HK, you drive an hour and you are still stuck in traffic moving 10 km from home.
I hadn't heard much positive or negative about it. If I am trading it in, it's only going to be a BOXSTER without S because with the S, it puts you up to and above 820,000 HKD (100,000 USD). For that amount on a brand new Boxster S, I might as well save up for a few years for a Carrera. Boxster is really an entry level porsche and there's no reason to get the S. I never doubt that many truly like the Boxster's look but there is always this image that any boxster owner would take the carrera in a minute if not for the budget. Hence, a few friends of mine said you simply would buy boxster for the damn PLAQUE and it would never give you the real bread and butter of a RR car.
The other 2 concerns on a Boxster is that (fine, I don't mind simply driving it for the look...) it is a soft top. Soft top is always less durable and less comfy. Finally, a few others had truly commented on the antiquated technology of the porsche's tiptronic system which was developed back in the early 90s... sure it was a big hit in the early 90s but this is 2005 and Porsche HAD NOT spent any money and R&D into developing a system comparable to Mercedes' 7 G tronic or BMW's SMG. Rumour had it that Porsche will simply adopt's VW's DSG in the future but 5 speed automatic is sortta quite an antiquated system. Even the Jags are coming out with 6 speed steptronic. It is not moving fast enough. This is odd thought because these days, you see plenty of ladies pushing past you in a DAMN TURBO which once could only be driven by a man due to the heavy clutch. If you take a look around, you see more tiptronic porsche around town simply for practicality/daily use/easy to drive purpose. Hence, I still can't get over the fact that the newly developed 998 and 987 are still using the same old tiptronic developed back in the 90s.
Hence, I like the look but I don't like the tiptronic system and the soft top. I like the SLK but I had a real bad taste last time with my lemon which was still in the shop as of today. Status quo is "unfixed and unexplained and pending (since 8/31/05)." I am sure it is an isolated incident and there are many happy owners. The market these days are dominated only by 3 types of cars in HK, Mercedes, BMW and Toyota. They sell the most with BMW and Mercedes head on this year with cumulative sales figures up to 1 mil. Porsche could not compare in terms of selling cars like hotcakes and hence I would imagine that it just couldn't pour as much into playing with the technology.
Here are my choices:
Porsche Boxster (no choice in colour for Jan delivery, only in metallic grey thought I prefer the silver)
SLK 350 (no choice in colour except for BLACK AND WHITE thought I still like silver)
The one good thing about Boxster is that it looks longer and the SLK seems a bit short because I am 6"3.
Or I could simply wait and wait and wait for all the new cars to come out in 2006... AUDI TT... but there is no better times to buy cars than NOW because so many firms are doing their new line ups just like when the SLK first came out in 97... you wanna buy it back then... and not the R170 in year 2000 or 2003.
One more comment about quality... a few friends of mine said BMW and Porsche still made better cars... I wonder if it is true that the MB's quality has degraded so much to be so far behind... I thought I had an isolated incident... but of course I had read numerous reports on MB's quality in JD Power and found them to be making new low ever year. Damn a few reports had it below buick and ford. I wouldn't be so pissed if I had paid 50K on this car but I would be pissed if I had paid 500,000 HKD on it. That's all... it's a matter of expectation.
Then again, I ain't sure about BMW either... cos BMW had already set up factories in China and a few said that the 3 series (though the dealer in HK claimed otherwise) in HK (new ones) were partly assembled in CHINA. Just like C is made in South Africa (Also A) and ML is made in MEXICO. It is hard to keep cost down. Afterall, these companies need to make a profit and DCAG is busy pleasing the shareholders and churning out cars. When you mass produce, there are bound to be problems but the company must strike a balance.
Take a look... if it weren't for AUDI, Lymboghini would have gone BANKRUPT eons ago... the fact that it is now selling over 3000 GALLARDOs meant that even true breeds of die hard sports cars must evolve to survive. Only a few cars can claim to stray away from this globalisation trend like Ferrari. Even Porsche must work with VW hence upsetting many shareholders and true fans because many felt that Porsche has completely strayed away from the legacy by producing derivatives such as Cayman and Cayenne. Everyone knows that the Cayenne V6 is simply a VW Toureg and heck, it even uses the same engine and technology so there ya go... you are really driving simply a plaque. But Porsche has no choice but to work with VW cos it has to survive as well. 5 years ago, Porsche was losing so much money that it just had to make that decision.
Well you answered one of the questions I had for you, Manual or Automatic? Since your looking at automatic, I wouldn't buy an automatic Porsche. I agree with you about the Porsche being longer, It also seems a bit lower and sportier but not by much.
Hi I also live in HK and have a E46 M3 Cabrio and in fact considering a SLK 55. Hey how about wait some more for a new V8 M3? 7-speed SMG and over 400HP.
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