Sorry for the essay.
I love Honda. But they're taking their sweet time. And the promising stuff to come won't be for at least a couple years in North America. I can't be waiting that long. I've had a few Honda's. An Accord, couple Prelude's, and a 2001 Integra. I've tried other cars as well. NA MX-5 Miata, e36 BMW with an e46 3.0L swap, and now a Japanese market RHD 97 WRX. I've considered getting back into the "Honda game" but the ST does everything better. I'd have to Type R the crap out of a usdm EP3 SiR hatch k20 vtec swap and all which is too much work when you can get a shiny new factory car with a warranty.
I was in the market for an FRS, and have a couple hours experience driving in them. I don't like the FA20 motor. I don't like half the people that drive them. I hate the Scion brand, and have had a terrible time at dealers with salespeople that didn't know their product, with one couldn't even tell difference between TC and FRS. Everything else about it is exceptionally brilliant. I'm just not willing to pay what they're going for both used, and new, which they made pretty clear to me is 30k OTD for base, with little to no wiggle room & 4.99% interest. Not to mention base VS base of each, Fi-ST comes with so much more including Recaro's in Canada and I think the only notable options that aren't on the base here are sunroof and nav.
Besides, FRS is out of the question as I now have the opportunity to get employee pricing at-cost with Ford, 0% financing for 72 months, and a grad rebate of 500. 21,000cdn with 0 down and no interest over 72 months, obvious winner is obvious. Might even be able to afford to keep the gas guzzling WRX, or sell it, save a little more on top and import a different JDM to play around with alongside the ST.
And best of all I don't even feel like I'm settling with the Fi-ST which surprises me. I have a LONG list of pros after research and driving one.
-Feels well sorted, balanced, can feel everything under the car working nicely.
-Torque. I've lived with gutless DD's for too long. Frequent gear changing and revs is no fun day in day out.
-Standard options: Recaro's, Sony sound, heated seats, spoiler, block heater, high performance tires (re050a's), decent looking 17" alloys
-Hatch/practical/road trips/reliable. Not sure about my Subaru, but so far so good - hasn't even broken 70k miles, its just old/I need something new.
-Fun to toss around city/ready to have a blast at the track.
-Tons of tuning options, and responds a lot better than N/A to simple mods. I watched all of Matt Farah's videos, very neat! I'd be happy with 220whp/300wtq at its 2750lbs. My WRX is 2800lbs and has 240hp/230lb-ft at the crank, probably 200/200 even at the wheels (classic Subaru drivetrain loss) and its buckets of fun and plenty fast for me.
-Easy to induce oversteer. Meanwhile my WRX understeers quite bad - but that might be from the stiff coil overs + needing some alignment up front. STi shock tower braces and thicker sway bars would be nice. My Integra felt more balanced by comparison and it had blown shocks in the rear.
-No care for drifting, just want something that feels awesome to put around a track as fast as humanly possible.
Its a couple months away but excited to be here nonetheless. Plenty of time to read and get ideas.![[thumb]](/images/smilies/icon_smile_thumb.gif "Thumbs Up [thumb]")
I love Honda. But they're taking their sweet time. And the promising stuff to come won't be for at least a couple years in North America. I can't be waiting that long. I've had a few Honda's. An Accord, couple Prelude's, and a 2001 Integra. I've tried other cars as well. NA MX-5 Miata, e36 BMW with an e46 3.0L swap, and now a Japanese market RHD 97 WRX. I've considered getting back into the "Honda game" but the ST does everything better. I'd have to Type R the crap out of a usdm EP3 SiR hatch k20 vtec swap and all which is too much work when you can get a shiny new factory car with a warranty.
I was in the market for an FRS, and have a couple hours experience driving in them. I don't like the FA20 motor. I don't like half the people that drive them. I hate the Scion brand, and have had a terrible time at dealers with salespeople that didn't know their product, with one couldn't even tell difference between TC and FRS. Everything else about it is exceptionally brilliant. I'm just not willing to pay what they're going for both used, and new, which they made pretty clear to me is 30k OTD for base, with little to no wiggle room & 4.99% interest. Not to mention base VS base of each, Fi-ST comes with so much more including Recaro's in Canada and I think the only notable options that aren't on the base here are sunroof and nav.
Besides, FRS is out of the question as I now have the opportunity to get employee pricing at-cost with Ford, 0% financing for 72 months, and a grad rebate of 500. 21,000cdn with 0 down and no interest over 72 months, obvious winner is obvious. Might even be able to afford to keep the gas guzzling WRX, or sell it, save a little more on top and import a different JDM to play around with alongside the ST.
And best of all I don't even feel like I'm settling with the Fi-ST which surprises me. I have a LONG list of pros after research and driving one.
-Feels well sorted, balanced, can feel everything under the car working nicely.
-Torque. I've lived with gutless DD's for too long. Frequent gear changing and revs is no fun day in day out.
-Standard options: Recaro's, Sony sound, heated seats, spoiler, block heater, high performance tires (re050a's), decent looking 17" alloys
-Hatch/practical/road trips/reliable. Not sure about my Subaru, but so far so good - hasn't even broken 70k miles, its just old/I need something new.
-Fun to toss around city/ready to have a blast at the track.
-Tons of tuning options, and responds a lot better than N/A to simple mods. I watched all of Matt Farah's videos, very neat! I'd be happy with 220whp/300wtq at its 2750lbs. My WRX is 2800lbs and has 240hp/230lb-ft at the crank, probably 200/200 even at the wheels (classic Subaru drivetrain loss) and its buckets of fun and plenty fast for me.
-Easy to induce oversteer. Meanwhile my WRX understeers quite bad - but that might be from the stiff coil overs + needing some alignment up front. STi shock tower braces and thicker sway bars would be nice. My Integra felt more balanced by comparison and it had blown shocks in the rear.
-No care for drifting, just want something that feels awesome to put around a track as fast as humanly possible.
Its a couple months away but excited to be here nonetheless. Plenty of time to read and get ideas.
haha... 
