davidpingu
Advanced Member
- Messages
- 2,583
As many of you know from one of my previous posts, my DC5 ownership will be coming to an end soon. In fact I plan to have the car advertised for sale at Japfest next weekend.
We currently also own a brand new Jazz. It's a great little car really but as you can imagine it's a real slouch compared with the DC5, especially with the CVT auto box and I know once I start using it as my daily it's going to really depress me.
I decided to start looking for something else with a bit more go but that would also be a better family car. I started looking at Golf Gti's, Skoda Octavia VRS, Audi A4 and a couple BMW's but while they are all very nice they just aren't a Honda and if I'm honest I'd rather stick with something NA if it's a used car, not knowing what sort of a life it's had. At least with a type R you know it's made to be driven hard but I'm sure there are loads of turbo hatches which have been overboosted and have been put under excess strain.
I want something that's as cheap as the DC5 to run. I also didn't want something that was going to heavily depreciate and it was the depreciation thing in particular that kept drawing me back to the FD2 as an option.
The two problems with this car as my choice is that the wife is currently only licenced to drive autos and I thought the ride would be a little too firm. When looking at Golfs and Octavias there are obviously the DSG versions she would have been able to drive.
Anyway, with this niggling feeling that an FD2 would be a sensible choice if I didn't want to see a car become worthless over a period of 4 to 5 years I decided to message a local FD2 owner whose been around on here from the very start really. Rossi was one of the first DC5 owners (which he still has for track days) his FD2 is his daily.
I just asked him would I find the ride too harsh for a family daily and he said there was only one way to find out and that would be to see for myself!
He was very kind, and let me borrow the car, not just for drive down the road and back but he actually told me to take it home, show the family and bring it back later. Top bloke! I got around 30 odd miles of mixed driving in it. Some dual carriageway's which gave me the chance to open it up, some decent roundabouts to test cornering and some round town driving to test every day driveability.
I have to say that all worries about this being too harsh just melted away. Yes, if you came from an everyday car you'd notice it but I run Spoon springs on my DC5 and if anything I found that the FD2 damping was much better!
The cabin was quieter at 70mph than the DC5 and the seat position makes it feel a little more like a daily being sat a little more upright.
Something I couldn't get over was that despite being bigger and heavier it felt so much tighter in the bends. I was very impressed. Rossi say's on a track you can feel the extra weight but on road I certainly didn't get that impression. I kept on looking at how far the rear seemed in the mirror and was astounded how it felt more like a short wheelbase hatch for steering response and grip.
The car is standard other than the Flash pro meaning VTEC cut in at 4.8k and it felt like it had so much more power throughout the range. The thing I liked though was even with standard intake and exhaust, VTEC engagement was much more audible than a standard DC5 is at crossover. The VTEC lighting system is brilliant too.
Overall it just seems like a really good choice of car for a family that's now grown where I don't have to sacrifice anything that the DC5 gives.
Sure some say it isn't as pretty as the DC5 but it gets just as many stares!
So the only issue now is getting the wife to re-sit a manual test but she probably will use the car very little now anyway so I'll leave that with her!
I probably won't be looking to buy til the end of the year where I should hopefully be in the position to put the extra cash towards one but it gives me a few months driving the Jazz to re-affirm that one of these is the right decision.
I still need to think about how much time a car will take to look after so it won't be getting the same treatment as the DC5. Rather, I'll look at getting a low mileage example and keeping everything oem apart from maybe flashpro!
Anyway, enough of my babble. It's all about the pictures! Rossi, if you happen to see this thread. A massive thanks for your kindness bud, it's much appreciated
We currently also own a brand new Jazz. It's a great little car really but as you can imagine it's a real slouch compared with the DC5, especially with the CVT auto box and I know once I start using it as my daily it's going to really depress me.
I decided to start looking for something else with a bit more go but that would also be a better family car. I started looking at Golf Gti's, Skoda Octavia VRS, Audi A4 and a couple BMW's but while they are all very nice they just aren't a Honda and if I'm honest I'd rather stick with something NA if it's a used car, not knowing what sort of a life it's had. At least with a type R you know it's made to be driven hard but I'm sure there are loads of turbo hatches which have been overboosted and have been put under excess strain.
I want something that's as cheap as the DC5 to run. I also didn't want something that was going to heavily depreciate and it was the depreciation thing in particular that kept drawing me back to the FD2 as an option.
The two problems with this car as my choice is that the wife is currently only licenced to drive autos and I thought the ride would be a little too firm. When looking at Golfs and Octavias there are obviously the DSG versions she would have been able to drive.
Anyway, with this niggling feeling that an FD2 would be a sensible choice if I didn't want to see a car become worthless over a period of 4 to 5 years I decided to message a local FD2 owner whose been around on here from the very start really. Rossi was one of the first DC5 owners (which he still has for track days) his FD2 is his daily.
I just asked him would I find the ride too harsh for a family daily and he said there was only one way to find out and that would be to see for myself!
He was very kind, and let me borrow the car, not just for drive down the road and back but he actually told me to take it home, show the family and bring it back later. Top bloke! I got around 30 odd miles of mixed driving in it. Some dual carriageway's which gave me the chance to open it up, some decent roundabouts to test cornering and some round town driving to test every day driveability.
I have to say that all worries about this being too harsh just melted away. Yes, if you came from an everyday car you'd notice it but I run Spoon springs on my DC5 and if anything I found that the FD2 damping was much better!
The cabin was quieter at 70mph than the DC5 and the seat position makes it feel a little more like a daily being sat a little more upright.
Something I couldn't get over was that despite being bigger and heavier it felt so much tighter in the bends. I was very impressed. Rossi say's on a track you can feel the extra weight but on road I certainly didn't get that impression. I kept on looking at how far the rear seemed in the mirror and was astounded how it felt more like a short wheelbase hatch for steering response and grip.
The car is standard other than the Flash pro meaning VTEC cut in at 4.8k and it felt like it had so much more power throughout the range. The thing I liked though was even with standard intake and exhaust, VTEC engagement was much more audible than a standard DC5 is at crossover. The VTEC lighting system is brilliant too.
Overall it just seems like a really good choice of car for a family that's now grown where I don't have to sacrifice anything that the DC5 gives.
Sure some say it isn't as pretty as the DC5 but it gets just as many stares!
So the only issue now is getting the wife to re-sit a manual test but she probably will use the car very little now anyway so I'll leave that with her!
I probably won't be looking to buy til the end of the year where I should hopefully be in the position to put the extra cash towards one but it gives me a few months driving the Jazz to re-affirm that one of these is the right decision.
I still need to think about how much time a car will take to look after so it won't be getting the same treatment as the DC5. Rather, I'll look at getting a low mileage example and keeping everything oem apart from maybe flashpro!
Anyway, enough of my babble. It's all about the pictures! Rossi, if you happen to see this thread. A massive thanks for your kindness bud, it's much appreciated