Scion FRS to start around $24,200?

I know it's Scion's policy. And I'm telling you, there are multiple Scion dealers that ignore that policy.

..... So like was said earlier.... report them?

I fail to see how this can possibly be spun against the car...

Chris_V, man, I agree with you on a lot of stuff. But me-too posts are annoying and a waste of time and space, so I'll ignore all the stuff i agree with you... with.

Chris_V wrote: Light and small AND low CG vs an upright 4 cyl engine. And yeah, I count a 7500 rpm redline as a screamer. Did when the 4AGE was powering my AE86. Did when it took massive effort to get that sort of RPM out of my 302 Ford V8. How often Do you use 7500 rpm in day to day use? I haven't hit that in my MINI Cooper.

The CG isn't necessarily higher with the inline four. An inline puts the crank and much of the rod weight a lot lower, and the (iron, for 4A-GE) block sits lower than most of the engine in a flat-four arrangement. The flat-fours are light but they sit high up.

And how often do I see 7500? Well, I've been known to hit 8000 on every shift, up to and including the 4-5 shift, in the mornings...

Morning commute is super-happy-fun-time when you have a fun car. I don't get how people can stand driving trucks all the time, or even at all. Might as well just take the bus.

And again, not ever car is supposed to be a high HP car. The point was that enthusiasts have been decrying the loss of cars that are about balance and finesse over brute power, and here you are cliaming that a bigger, fatter, less agile car is BETTER becase it offers a few more hp?

Remember, you're online. No matter what, you can't win.

(And for the money, you could buy a ZX-14R and a -10R, both of which get much better fuel economy and acceleration)

As for comparing it to other cars that may or may not be in it's class:

I care about going FAST. Whatever gets me around the track for a specific price wins. I don't care if it feels like the car is drunk, as long as I can get it around the track as fast as possible, that's what I want when I look at these cars.

So, if (in a brand new vehicle) the Mushtang or Genesis do this over the FRS, guess which one I'd buy?

HiTempguy wrote: I care about going FAST. Whatever gets me around the track for a specific price wins. I don't care if it feels like the car is drunk, as long as I can get it around the track as fast as possible, that's what I want when I look at these cars.

Really? I would much rather have fun then drive something that feels like crap and gets round the track fast.

I think the car is priced correctly. $24k for a 200hp 2600lb rearwheel drive coupe is a fair deal. I am not sure what everyone is expecting but if you look at the price of a 240sx in the late 90's it was around 24k as was a 2.5 RS. A GS-R integra was 20k, and a Prelude was 24k. That was 10 to 15 years ago.

20 years ago in the early 90's the base price for a Probe GT or an Eclipse turbo was 17k which was also the base price for a 1993 z-28. In 20 years the price has only gone up 7k over these cars despite infation etc. Shoot a 1995 M3 was 36k, now they are 60k.

As far as talking about the dealers gouging the price, that is going to happen on any new desirable car. Tell them to suck it and then call around and find a dealer that is willing to sell it with out the mark up, thats what the internet is for. It is the difference between now and when the Miata came out in 1989.

93EXCivic wrote: Really? I would much rather have fun then drive something that feels like crap and gets round the track fast.

Well....

The reviews of the Mustang don't really say anything bad about the fun-to-drive factor except for some murmurings about the steering. But then, power steering of any sort is very hard to get right, especially as a car gets heavier.

That said, what are the maintenance costs? Meaning, the brake and tire expendables. The brakes may be a wash, given the Genesis Coupe that I saw had what looked like 13 or 14" rotors on the front with 6-pots, and the rear brakes looked like the same size as the front brakes on a twin-turbo 3000GT. Large by huge by big, in other words.

But tires? How much does it cost to keep the Mustang shod vs. the Genesis Coupe, both in per-tire costs and events per set?

I thought that was the big deal behind smaller, lighter cars - you have tons of fun, and the expendables don't hurt the wallet so much.

On the street-car driver side of things, one thing that I see every day at wok is people buying the most car they can initially afford, without thinking about the maintenance costs. Yes, you can buy a used Explorer for the same price as a used Taurus. But don't be crying to me when you find out that the cost of maintenance and repair is almost an order of magnitude higher. (Yes, I dealt with another one of these today. And their other vehicle was a thoroughly trashed, clapped-out Suburban.)

In reply to HiTempguy:

You want to buy my dd?

All the reviews say the car is pretty awesome. Price is pretty low--not as low as I wanted, but about what I expected. It is also extremely different in at least one way from all of its competitors. I definitely could see myself in one in the next few years.

pimpm3 wrote: I think the car is priced correctly. $24k for a 200hp 2600lb rearwheel drive coupe is a fair deal. I am not sure what everyone is expecting but if you look at the price of a 240sx in the late 90's it was around 24k as was a 2.5 RS. A GS-R integra was 20k, and a Prelude was 24k. That was 10 to 15 years ago. 20 years ago in the early 90's the base price for a Probe GT or an Eclipse turbo was 17k which was also the base price for a 1993 z-28. In 20 years the price has only gone up 7k over these cars despite infation etc. Shoot a 1995 M3 was 36k, now they are 60k. As far as talking about the dealers gouging the price, that is going to happen on any new desirable car. Tell them to suck it and then call around and find a dealer that is willing to sell it with out the mark up, thats what the internet is for. It is the difference between now and when the Miata came out in 1989.

well.. how is this for a comparison. The 318ti.. a beloved car here on GRM.. in 1998 is was a $25,000 car. It weighed about 2750 pounds and only had 140hp... at the very least the toybaru already beats the ti in the power and weight... if it equals the handling, it will be a great car

Javelin wrote: Well, Toyota dealers are adding $6,995 to the Prius C: Plus $1,000 worth of wheel-lip moldings, door-edge guards, and mudflaps. So, by extrapolation, the first FRS's should sticker in the $32,000 range. I know Scion is supposed to be the "no-haggle" dealer model, but I've seen plenty of mark-ups there, too.

I know they can, so before someone blasts me for my next comment go ahead and know you are only typing it for yourself and not me.

I wish manufacturers would pull the dealerships from E36 M3ty berkeleying shiny happy people like that.

BTW, I love the GRM censor programming.

MG Bryan wrote:

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: The Toyobaru can rape me any day.

I like to start the morning off that way. It's better than coffee.

This reminds me of the old Emo Philips joke..."Nothing gets me going in the morning like a hot pot of coffee...Oh...I've tried other enemas..."

and people wonder why car dealers have such bad reputations.

The way I was cheated on my last new car purchase really makes me hesitant to buy a new car

As far as the weight is concerned this is from the local BRZ release here in Jacksonville. This was for a limited I believe...

Everyone who's complaining about market adjustments: Have patience. Those don't last forever. You've lived your whole life without the car; you can last a few more moths.

I'm patiently awaiting checking it out. I would gladly bid farewell to my Focus if the FT-86 was its replacement; I would prefer to buy it new and keep it for a long while.

Mitchell wrote: Everyone who's complaining about market adjustments: Have patience. Those don't last forever. You've lived your whole life without the car; you can last a few more moths. I'm patiently awaiting checking it out. I would gladly bid farewell to my Focus if the FT-86 was its replacement; I would prefer to buy it new and keep it for a long while.

It's nothing about patience with me. I won't buy a new car anyway. So it's a moot point.

It's just these berkeleytarded stealerships have completely sucked the enjoyment of the automobile out. If it's not the mis-informed environmentalists it's the damn retailers that are killing us.

No wonder the love affair with the car is ending.

Knurled wrote:

Chris_V wrote: Light and small AND low CG vs an upright 4 cyl engine. And yeah, I count a 7500 rpm redline as a screamer. Did when the 4AGE was powering my AE86. Did when it took massive effort to get that sort of RPM out of my 302 Ford V8. How often Do you use 7500 rpm in day to day use? I haven't hit that in my MINI Cooper.

The CG isn't necessarily higher with the inline four. An inline puts the crank and much of the rod weight a lot lower, and the (iron, for 4A-GE) block sits lower than most of the engine in a flat-four arrangement. The flat-fours are light but they sit high up.

Remember, you're online. No matter what, you can't win.

Your right online you can't win.

About that CG, do me a favor and do a free body diagram of the system and re-evaluate your post.

Bet you, you change your position...

FlightService wrote: About that CG, do me a favor and do a free body diagram of the system and re-evaluate your post. Bet you, you change your position...

Bet it's so close that it's a wash, once the manifolds are taken into account.

...but once you take into account the transmission, the inliner wins. Boxers are like rotaries, they force the transmission to sit high because the engine can't be very low, unless you do crazy things with dry-sumps and/or side exiting exhausts.

Of course, a vehicle is an entire package, not just one simple point of trivia. Subaru have engines that sit with the crank pulley higher than the bumper, and they seem to work just fine. They turned this problem into an advantage and put the steering mechanism under the drivetrain, instead of sticking it up on the firewall where it has to telegraph steering motion through the tops of the struts, allowing you get to feel all of the slop in the strut shaft and top mount, with all of the steering vagueness that comes with that. Subaru also were able to get a RC height somewhere above floor level without having to worry about axle plunge problems, thanks to the trans sitting high up, so they can have longish travel AND decent geometry.

In short, cars are systems, I'm not going to worry about what one point of data is until I've driven the whole thing.

FlightService wrote:

It's nothing about patience with me. I won't buy a new car anyway. So it's a moot point.

So why participate in a tread about a new car. Makes you look like the Pope preaching about birth control; if you don't play the game, why the hell are you writting the rules?

I am willing to settle this right now.

Give me a Mustang V6 track pack, a GC 2.0T R-Spec, a Miata, and an FRS and I will flog the piss out of them all in both my daily commute and recreational driving and I will get back to you all with my verdict.

I can take delivery of the Ford and Hyundai at Simmons-Rockwell, the Miata through Mathews and FRS through Gault.

Knurled wrote:

FlightService wrote: About that CG, do me a favor and do a free body diagram of the system and re-evaluate your post. Bet you, you change your position...

Bet it's so close that it's a wash, once the manifolds are taken into account. ...but once you take into account the transmission, the inliner wins. Boxers are like rotaries, they force the transmission to sit high because the engine can't be very low, unless you do crazy things with dry-sumps and/or side exiting exhausts. Of course, a vehicle is an entire package, not just one simple point of trivia. Subaru have engines that sit with the crank pulley higher than the bumper, and they seem to work just fine. They turned this problem into an advantage and put the steering mechanism under the drivetrain, instead of sticking it up on the firewall where it has to telegraph steering motion through the tops of the struts, allowing you get to feel all of the slop in the strut shaft and top mount, with all of the steering vagueness that comes with that. Subaru also were able to get a RC height somewhere above floor level without having to worry about axle plunge problems, thanks to the trans sitting high up, so they can have longish travel AND decent geometry. In short, cars are systems, I'm not going to worry about what one point of data is until I've driven the whole thing.

I am confused... why can't a boxer engine sit low? I can see why in a typical AWD system it can't... it sits infront of the suspension and needs to be higher to allow the car to have some "angles" for crossing irregular terrain.

But look at Porsche.. yes, the 911 is dry sumped, but that is because hauling around 11 quarts of oil would lead to an oilpan bigger than the engine, but the air cooled beetle, and the 914 all had fairly low engines.

you mentioned manifold weight.. honestly, I have not hefted one that weighed 100 pounds.. even the big v8 manifolds are fairly light and subaru's are very light as they are mostly aluminum piping. Where the weight is.. crank, rods, case, and heads.. is all on a single plane and probably low enough to be below the tops of the front tyres.

mad_machine wrote: I am confused... why can't a boxer engine sit low? I can see why in a typical AWD system it can't... it sits infront of the suspension and needs to be higher to allow the car to have some "angles" for crossing irregular terrain. But look at Porsche.. yes, the 911 is dry sumped, but that is because hauling around 11 quarts of oil would lead to an oilpan bigger than the engine, but the air cooled beetle, and the 914 all had fairly low engines. you mentioned manifold weight.. honestly, I have not hefted one that weighed 100 pounds.. even the big v8 manifolds are fairly light and subaru's are very light as they are mostly aluminum piping. Where the weight is.. crank, rods, case, and heads.. is all on a single plane and probably low enough to be below the tops of the front tyres.

For what it's worth, the 911 isn't dry-sumped these days. Porsche calls it a "semi-wet" sump, but even that is just marketing.

I think the argument in regards to CG is that factors like the exhaust exiting from the bottom of the engine and the accessory placement generally counter out any benefits of the the boxer configuration.

Inside Line got their hands on a BRZ:

http://www.insideline.com/subaru/brz/2013/2013-subaru-brz-full-test-and-video.html

Cliff Notes:

"At 7.3 seconds, its 0-60 time (7.0 seconds using a 1-foot rollout like on a drag strip) isn't going to win over many drag racers. But this time comes with an explanation. The rev limiter in 2nd gear kicks in at 59.2 mph, requiring a second shift to achieve the milestone and slowing the time considerably. The quarter-mile passes in 15.3 seconds at 92.1 mph."

"BRZ's respectable 69.1-mph slalom speed and striking 0.92g on the skid pad are more definitive of its character than is its acceleration. Those numbers are better than both the 2013 Hyundai Genesis Coupe (67.4 mph slalom, 0.89g skid pad) and the 2011 Ford Mustang GT (67.3 mph slalom, 0.91g skid pad)."

"Braking, too, is solid. The BRZ required 114 feet to stop from 60 and it did so consistently with a firm, confident pedal. The Genesis Coupe needed 116 feet to make it happen and the Mustang got the job done in only 109 feet."

And remember, this car is delivered on the same horseE36 M3 eco tires as the Prius. Plop a set of Hankook R-S3's on there and...

I'm liking the car more.

Pretty impressive, I'm still kind of disappointed by the HWY MPG's though.

ALthough I'm guessing that's down to how it's geared?