Brain Koester

I like everyone else here am entranced by a car. Clearly this car isn’t just a car. If it was I wouldn’t be checking this board 3 times a day to read what someone else feels about it. <p>I currently own a 1990 Honda Accord 4 door. Not exactly a sporty car but that wasn’t my criteria at the time I bought it. I was in college and I needed a practical car that could haul me and all my stuff around. But I’ve always secretly lusted after something that would fall into the sports car category. A lot of cars have come and gone over the years in my head - 300Z, Porsche, 3rd gen RX-7, Z3 to name a few. But when I learned of the TT it was different. The obsession began as it had before with other sports cars, but my thoughts progressed much further with the TT. I was hooked. And so the saving began. Which in my case is hard because I just bought my first house in May. But come hell or high water I’m going to save every penny I can. <p>Then I had to convince my somewhat practical wife that it was a good idea. That’s been a bit of a roller coaster but as of today she’s for it. Thank god she finds it as sexy a car as I do.<p>So what’s left? Drive it. And since I don’t feel like you can decide if a car is right for you on a dealership test drive in 15 minutes, I decided to rent the car for a day. Besides, once you go to a dealer and want to test drive something you’re in for a couple of hours of paperwork and conversations like “What do I have to do to get you to buy this car today?” And since I don’t have enough money to buy it, renting was my best option. <p>There’s a place called PTS in Santa Monica, Ca that has a blue/blue car (which is exactly the way I want it) for rent for $175/day with 50 free miles and $.50/mile after that. So last Sunday my wife, me and a blue TT spent the whole day together.<p>First of all, for the record, their transmission died and was replaced and the instrument panel also died and was replaced. But that was it. He didn’t know about what other problems were happening so I referred him to this site and said he should read it so he can be more informed.<p>The first thing we did was go to the local Santa Monica mountains and drive an eightish mile long windy mountain road called Latigo. It has almost no cars on it and it’s constantly turning. A good place to see how the car handles. All I can say is never a tire squeal and not for the lack of trying. Of course, I wasn’t exactly pushing the envelope on a rented car I was unfamiliar driving. But the car is better than anything I’d been in before.<p>Next we ran an errand in Beverly Hills which unlike Latigo is actually something I do on a regular basis. You know “real world testing”. Then came the ultimate test. Pick up our dog at home and drive to my parents house about 50 miles away by freeway. My dog is 40 pounds and, through training, knows to stays in the back seat. Transporting our dog by car is something we do a lot so this is an important test. Unfortunately, the TT failed. This is a word of caution to all those who own dogs; dogs get NO traction on the leather seats. My dog slipped every time I touched the brake too hard or quickly which by the way on this car is easy to do for the uninitiated. Compounding this is the fact that the seat is short which puts her front paws on the edge. And I don’t have a big dog! So my wife gave me evil looks every time I hit the brakes too hard and our dog went flailing into the center console. Which, of course, was immediately followed by “I’m sorry, I’m trying, you know, these brakes are really grabby.”<p>We all survived the trip to my parents where we hung out for a couple of hours. My brother was there and he wanted to drive it so we took a short trip out and found this very small traffic circle which was put in the area of an old residential intersection. The perfect place to test the cornering and tire slip. We ran out of comfortable speed before the cars tires even made a peep. Wow!<p>Then my wife finally decided she wanted to drive it. You see I’d been encouraging her the whole time to drive it herself but she didn’t feel comfortable yet. She drove to the grocery store and back and had what I would call a neutral experience. Which is better than bad. And bad would be well...bad for me.<p>We drove home and hung out for a while until dark so I could experience the car at night. I decided since I’d spent about 5 hours in the car already that I would just make one trip back to PTS to return the car. But since I was finally alone in the car I could have some more fun testing the cars limits. I had fun accelerating off the line at lights and seeing just how powerful the brakes were. As I was almost to PTS and I was entering the 10 freeway onramp another black TT got in right in front of me. He or she was more familiar with the car and drove like Mario Andretti so I got dumped before we even hit the end of the onramp. <p>For a moment I felt a kinship. A kinship that will come for me after the first of the year when I will have the necessary funds to officially be a part of the club. Until then I’ll read this board three times a day.<br>

Denny

Sounds like &quot;true love.&quot; (nt)

tks

After todays postings, it would appear that the common thread that holds everyone together on this board is passion. Owning or desiring a TT for reasons that cannot really be fully explained simply by technical or performance data is why I love this car over others. I was a breath away from buying Boxster, when I came upon a TT in a showroom last May. I was hooked, nothing seemed to matter (I was certainly out of focus at work) until I acquired one. To me, a member of this "club" does not require ownership, but a simply passion for a TT.

Reason

That's kind of a dick move to put your dog in a car you've rented for a day. You could've at least put a towel down on the leather seats. I mean, if I were kind enough to let you borrow my TT and you returned it with dog claw marks on the back seat... well, let's just say we wouldn't be friendly anymore...<p>I'd expect people who rent these types of cars to treat them better than, say, a Mustang rental. And if I were the owner of the rental company, I'd charge you $$$ to have the leather fixed too.

Stephen

nt

Manly Man

HAHAHAHAAH!!!! NOW THAT'S GODDAMN FUNNY!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!

brian koester

If my dog had done damage to the seats then I unquestionably would have had to pay for it. No free rides. But since my dogs nails are cut the only thing she left was a few dog hairs.<p>If I had borrowed your car, I never would have put my dog in it because that would have been rude. But it wasn't your car. It was a rental car. And rental cars get harsher treatment than personal cars. I'll bet money that the first people to drive it didn't stay under 55 mph because the engine isn't broken in yet. That's far worse than dog claws on the seat. And if I'm going to spend 35k on a car, I want to know if it fits my lifestyle. And the dog is a part of my lifestyle.<p>My wife and I talked about putting a towel on the seat but that would have done nothing. Since the towel isn't attached to anything, it would have slid across the leather sending my dog into the console anyway.<p>And as far as how I treated the car, I probably did better than the rental company does. If anyone would have scratched it, I would have to pay for it. So I had a vested interest in keeping it unmarred.<p>And by the way the rental company guy was really a nice guy. We chatted about the car for a long time. He was a as much a TT enthusiast as any of us are.

This must be Jack Geogg under a pseudo name...stil

nt

Joe

Hmmm.... You allege that the TT helped restore focus? Sounds like just what I need! The more I read/participate in this forum, the more I realize its definitely the car for me! Now, if I can just learn to cope with the wait!...

Collective Whole

Wake up TT owners - The TRUTH has been spoken !