[rick100]

This is going to be a long review / comparison , so if you are bored read on

First of all , I want to say that I ve been in the market for a used " fun" car for roughly 6 months . I set my budget at 30 k canadian all in which is roughly 25k us . I was all over the place for a while but I set myself for a 2015 + car , manual transmission , 300 + HP . 2 or 4 door do not really matter to much but I do want something that looks aggressive and its fun to drive

So what I have now , 2014 cadillac srx , 2008 buick enclave , 2011 328xi sedan. I m planning on keeping all these cars , the enclave was going to go but what they offered for the car and what i can get out of the car is not really worth selling , may as well drive until it dies . The 328xi has been my toy for the past 4 years, i ve done ceramic coating , lighter rims , coil overs, headers, 3 stage intake , charcoal delete, air intake , tune , front splitters , rear mtech bumper , m3 spoilers , and all preventive maintenance was done on time . I bought the car at 10 000 miles and it currently sits at 100 000 miles , no major issues , has been rock solid , knock on wood . It made 233whp, so no worth selling it , I know the history , and i can keep it as a daily , winter car , etc etc. No word of a lie , I have people coming up to me to tell me how nice it looks many times .

Now to my search for a used fun car. I have been to all the dealers around my area test driving the cars that i considered " contenders" , I feel embarrass to go back as all these guys probably know me by now. i ve probably watch way too many reviews on youtube , read enough reviews on forums , reddit , magazines that I feel I know a little too much about these cars. I will try to make my comparison somewhat short, I wont comment on track or drag times , or specs . I will solely focus on what I felt driving them on the street , I may compare it to what I have now

370z - I really like the looks of these car. I was not convince on a 2 seater , but I still went to test drive it. The car did not feel faster than my 328 , it was about the same , it also felt as heavy as my car . All the power was up top . I did not feel like this was an upgrade , it almost felt like a downgrade if we considered my car is a 4 seater

2015 camaro ss - Fast , this car makes good power everywhere. Its big though , like it feels big outside , but small inside . It handles pretty good for a big car. The manual tranny is also heavy , I had a hard time shifting into gear . Very different than the 328i , not worth comparing it

2015 mustang gt - Same as the camaro , the only difference is that this car does not feel small inside. I was not a big fan of the looks of the car

2015 challenger R/T - I really wanted to love this car. I turned the car on and the exhaust just sounds mean . Unfortunately this car just felt too big , no power up top , the manual tranny was heavy , the clutch was heavy. Everything about this car just felt so big . The outside looks nice though. I feel like this is a cool car to have around your buddies , you will feel like the alpha male , but that's about it. I m sure the hellcat is a different story

2016 435i - This car just looks so good , spacious , fast , usable back seat. But I just felt so disconnected with this car on the road. Zero steering feel , the hood just feels so long that I do not know where the car is. Also I just couldn't adjust the steering wheel to where I felt in control of the car , I tried adjusting the seat but I determine that the steering wheel is just not position correctly.

2016 228i - What I disappointment, I ve read everywhere that this car was fast. I honestly felt this car as fast as my car .
However the steering wheel feel is also very numb . The handling is nice though

2014 m235i - Fast, agile . I felt in love with this car, is everything I wanted except for a small backseat ( still usable) and the steering wheel again felt a little disconnected. This will probably be my next car

2015 wrx STI- I ll 100% honest here, I had the most fun in this car . Like , old sometimes is better . I said that because this car feels outdated , analog per say , but that makes it fun , its hard to explain. The short gearing in this car makes it that much fun , you are force to drive it in high rpms , and this is where it shines. I honestly did not feel the turbo lag people talk about , the car felt nice from low rpms to high rpms. Smooth . The suspension did not feel any different than my current car, its not harsh for me at least , and my wife was in the car and she felt the same way.The exhaust sound even at idle is just amazing . The handling is nice. I felt in love with this car and it is a serious competitor to the m235i .

2017 wrx - Rough , thats the best description . Its so hard to drive this car for some reason . It has all the power down low , nothing up top . I just feel like the stock tune is shit , the rev hang that everyone talks about is there. My wife hated this car so much . I just felt like this car will be such a pain in the butt to drive nice on the street. I ve read that a tune helps this issue but in stock form I did not like the wrx .

2017 charger SRT scatpack - I know, this car is out of my budget. But my good friend at work bought one and he let me have it for a day. Fast does not describe this car, crazy fast is a better description. Too fast may be a better one, I was scare to drive this car fast on the street lol. I was actually forced to drive it slow . I would not dare taking a corner fast on this car , that is for sure. Even on a straight line at full throttle the back of the car felt like it was going to get loose.


In all honesty I would say that the only 2 cars for me that are an upgrade to what I have now are the M235i and the STI. I m not saying that my car is faster . I m just doing an overall comparison . What I ve learn from test driving all these cars is that there is more to just HP . I started looking at just HP and I ended having more fun in the cars with not so much HP ... I find balance is better than more HP in the street. I actually prefer driving a car with less hp hard than driving a car with a lot of HP easy...