Well said.I got the GR86 because its limits aren't too high and with the well-balanced chassis there's fun to be had at lower speeds. maybe I'm a lunatic
Be careful what you wish forThere aren't many cars on the market that can provide the same amount of reasonable-speed fun. Especially if it's RWD fun you're after.
GR86 Having a bit of an ownership wobble - talk some sense into me perhaps?
- Thread starter Silver Fox
- Start date
Why? An Indy for the first years seems like a good plan, but 10 years warranty also seems good
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Plus, the monthly payments stay the same for 10 years. What will an Indy charge in 10 years? You also have th MOTs and a warranty included. Worthwhile in the long run and transferable.
cuddles
Obsessed member
- Feb 6, 2022
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My GRY is on a 9 year plan including MOTs. Yes, the servicing is important and could be done at an Indy in the next town but for me the warranty that goes with a dealers service is very important to me. I hope I never use it but all of my past new toyotas have had expensive repairs done - Celica new set of alloys at 6 months old, RAV4 new sensors and complete steering column. CHR both electric mirrors and massive problem with cracking windscreen due to factory fault. The way I drive mine (steady, normal mostly) means if it has lots of problems then everyone should be worried.
To be fair though, Toyota's servicing cost is extortionate in the first place.
Abbey Motorsport charged me £220 inc. VAT - expensive, but still £95 cheaper than Toyota. And they also gave me a loan car with no hassle - always costs me extra from Toyota, and usually adds a delay to the booking. Oh, and they had an oil filter
They would have to raise their prices hugely in order to no longer be competitive, even accounting for the inclusion of the MOT - and that would only come into the equation after 3 years anyway.
I may return to Toyota after 3 years to maintain the 10 year warranty, but I'm going to do so with gritted teeth. Ever visit to the dealer has been a poor experience so far, and I baulk at being charged a fixed price which has obviously been set with the requirements of the 3-litre 6-cyclinder Supra in mind. Imagine how Yaris owners must feel!
Probably going to upset some people here but after a year and 9 thousand miles i would say the gr is a brilliant daily / do everything car (mines just off to the tip then taking the dog to the forest via some country lanes ) but I would look elsewhere for a weekend car, there’s better things to be had if you don’t need to rely on it on a frosty Wednesday morning in January / won’t need back seats
I don't think that's a controversial opinion at all...to be honest, I'd say its pretty accurate. Felt the same about the predecessor too; it's great if you're like me and want a fun car that you can comfortably live with. But if I could afford (and had space for) two cars, and one of them was truly just for the weekend that I didn't have to rely on, I would probably be tempted by something a bit sillier.
Such as?
Personally i’d buy a caterham or Westfield, i was palnning to before the gr, I’m still planning too when the kids are old enough to use public transport by themselves and the school run car can go
Yeah, that really is quite a different car.
I test drove 3 and was ready to buy one when the gr got launched and i had a moment of sensible
Elise or Caterham spring to mind. Nice for a weekend blast, but I imagine a bit of a pain day to day.
But the GR/GT is great because it's pretty much as fun as those cars, but you can get into it without being double jointed.
The Elise is twice the price, and the Caterham (good fun) is barely a car. Both good choices, but not really comparable. My brother had an early Elise which I borrowed. The price now is a bit much though. If you can afford one, plus another car, I think that's a pretty nice alternative to the GR, but we're talking whole other levels of money.
That is entire the point that Swizzle is making though, no? That if you discount those compromises (price, storage, practicality, etc) then there are some cars which serve better purely as a "toy".
The only comparison being drawn between the cars is the experience of using them as a weekend toy. The other cars mentioned are technically more capable and much more raw and direct; but they are more expensive, require storage (ideally), and are a pain in the arse to live with day to day - hence, they only really make sense as an alternative if you have another car you can use day to day, so they are only used for that weekend fun.
That's why the GR shines though - it's a single car package that's probably 90% as fun as those cars, but keeps you dry and warm and carries your shopping. I think we're on the same page with that. I'm just saying that I, too, would probably consider something a little more raw if I had the means to be able to discount the costs of running two cars, having space to store them, etc.
EDIT: Also, are Elise's really twice the price? I had a quick squizz at Autotrader and can see only a few north of £30K. Granted, as we said, you'd need th consider the cost of a second car though.
If you're going to discount all those things, then it becomes a bit of a moot point. You might as well say you'd rather a Maserati MC20. No one ever suggested the GR is the most fun car with money no object, and saying that there are more fun cars if you've got the cash is not really going to upset people.
How old are the ones near £30k? They need to be fairly young to be comparable.
By "discount" I didn't mean "disregard entirely". Bad wording by me. Perhaps a better way of putting it is if you're willing to shift the balance of those compromises, and consider having a second car, then there are some cars which serve better as a toy, regardless of their age. If I'd made the choice to go for a daily driver and a weekend toy, then I'd be willing to have the toy be older and cheaper anyway. But it's still a balance of what I can practically store, or what reliability I expect, the effort expended in running two cars, etc.
I wasn't suggesting a "money no object" scenario, because as you rightly say, that would be silly. I'd have a Bentley and a McLaren or something for the weekend
But they don't. They don't need to be directly comparable, that's my point.
If I was in the position to be able to have a boring daily driver, and then run an Elise as a pure weekend toy, then I wouldn't be shopping for the newest example I could find anyway. I'd only have made that choice if I had somewhere I could store such a car, garage or at least off road, and not have to rely on it, so therefore I'd be happy to own an older, cheaper example. And there seem to be quite a few ~20 year old examples for around the £15K mark. That wouldn't bother me, as people aren't buying these to rack up miles anyway.
So for the £30K I spend on my GR86, I could have spent ~£10K on a boring hatchback as my daily driver and then spent the rest on an Elise purely as the weekend toy which, as Swizzle alluded to, is probably a better pure driving experience than a GR86. But I can't make all those other compromises easily - I can't easily store two cars, I don't want to tax/insure them, I don't have a garage in which I could easily maintain an aging Elise - so owning just the GR86 is still the best option for me (and many others, I'd wager) and gets us 90% of the driving experience offered by more hardcore cars anyway.
Should point out that all of this is just musing, but really it's heaping praise on the GR86. I can't think of another car which offers the same blend of fun and practicality, other than perhaps the MX5.
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By "discount" I didn't mean "disregard entirely". Bad wording by me. Perhaps a better way of putting it is if you're willing to shift the balance of those compromises, and consider having a second car, then there are some cars which serve better as a toy, regardless of their age. If I'd made the choice to go for a daily driver and a weekend toy, then I'd be willing to have the toy be older and cheaper anyway. But it's still a balance of what I can practically store, or what reliability I expect, the effort expended in running two cars, etc.
I wasn't suggesting a "money no object" scenario, because as you rightly say, that would be silly. I'd have a Bentley and a McLaren or something for the weekend
Yep.
Then it's a money thing again though isn't it. Someone who can spend £30k on a new car with a 10 year warranty, knowing it should last them well and not cost too much, can't necessarily spend £30k on something older that will require more maintenance etc, and is already part way through it's life.
But I do agree that an Elise is a fun weekend car.
Yep, makes sense.
Apart from an mx5, a couple of hot hatches or a 7 type kit car there isn’t much you could get at 30k new to comapre to a gr, if however you go used (as you can when reliability isn’t 100% essential) it opens up a lot more choice, sensible head will put a few £ks away for disasters (call it a warranty) so from an entry price gr you could easily be at 20-25k of 10 - 15 year old weekend weapon
Also don’t forget that new car smell and 10 year factory warranty come with the bonus of depreciation, which the old car has probably passed by now, may even start to appreciate
