#dad I love you but we are from stl the highs are high and lows are comical and absurd here what do you WANT

[north-wilkesboro-moonshine-cave]

Under appreciated side effect of me binging dts and analyzing the editing bc I’m a reality tv nerd before all else is my dad watching with me despite being a notorious hater of race car related sports and also deciding he likes Lewis and Fernando Alonso a lot on pure vibes (he appreciates my fun trivia about both of them)

[smoothshift]

Bought a new (to me) car 3 weeks ago and I love it! via /r/cars

Bought a new (to me) car 3 weeks ago and I love it!

After searching for about a year now, many test drives and much contemplation (or as some would call it, obsessing) I finally pulled the trigger and bought a 2016 Mercedes Benz C450 (///AMG?)

https://imgur.com/a/9Yj0lHT

I searched for quite a while to find this car and was glad to find one a couple states over that had a low price and only 33k miles on for that sweet sweet warranty. It felt like quite a risk to pretty much buy a car sight unseen, especially a Mercedes from a small town Chevy dealership in rural Indiana, but my dad and I loaded up and made the 10 hour round trip. The drive back was a blast because the car is great and nothing seemed blatantly wrong, which came as a huge relief.

The car is everything I have wanted, I personally love the styling of the exterior and interior. The red stitching and alcantara is a great interior combo along with the sleek black exterior. Most of all, the car is very fun to drive. I test drove quite a few cars before buying this one (I'll talk about those as well) and to me, this was just the most fun, by far. I look forward to driving to and from work every day.

The car did have 4 recalls to catch up on, an oil change, the passenger doors did not close properly on the right side (a latch issue apparently) and the panoramic roof was very rattly, but this was all fixed under warranty and the maintenance was not as expensive as I was expecting from a German car.

In the week that all of the updates, repairs and maintenance was being done on my car after getting it back home to St. Louis, I had a GLC300 loaner, I was quite excited about this because I have never had an SUV before. At first I enjoyed the visibility and smooth ride, but by the end of the week in it I was itching to get back in my car. Turns out luxury SUV's are BORING, definitely not the choice for me right now.

Here is a list of top contenders, as well as other cars I test drove that I felt just did not measure up. First, there were 3 other cars that were finalists in my consideration:

Alfa Romeo Giulia

This car was great. Its gorgeous and stand out styling really drew me in initially, especially because they are an incredibly rare sight here in St. Louis. Upon test driving the car, the handling was amazing and the car was fun to drive. This is the sedan that I drove that had the best steering. On the down side, the car did lack some power, the brakes took a bit of getting used to and the interior was decent, but visibility was not excellent (the b pillar was in the way for me where I found a comfortable seating position). Overall though, this is really nit-picking and I was actually all in on leasing one until I had to deal with the people at the local Maserati/Alfa dealership. They were totally disorganized and felt like skeezy car salesmen, definitely not a luxury car buying experience and by far the worst interaction I had at any dealership. After sitting for about an hour in a salesman's office with no negotiating, the sales manager finally came in. The specific car I wanted had a 52k msrp with a 7k dealership mark down to 45k because, like I said, no one in stl buys Alfas. Turns out the other reason they do not buy them is because when we tried to negotiate from there, the manager immediately got offended saying we were just making demands on the price and not negotiating (asked for 39k... maybe a tad low but not a completely obscene first number). After being treated horribly, I decided I did not want to give them my business or have to deal with them ever again and walked out. Big bummer, the car was great.

Dodge Challenger (Scat Pack)

I actually was about to sign a lease on this vehicle, but 2 days before I did, I found my C450 online and made up my mind then. The car was LOUD, and fun to drive. The interior was much nicer than I expected from a dodge and I personally love the styling of the front with the headlights. Not a huge fan of the Kylo Ren taillights though. The car rode rough and the handling was a bit terrifying with so much horsepower under the hood, but the NA V8 was intoxicating. In retrospect, I'm glad to not have gotten this though due to the prospect of such a high horsepower car with RWD in bad weather as my DD, plus the terrible mpgs.

Porsche Boxster (2014)

So I actually turo'd this car (a 2016) for a day back in March while I was living in San Diego. It was red with black interior and had the beautiful hum of a 6 cylinder, not that 4 cylinder abomination they have now (I half kid). The mid engine RWD was unique and nice. I was actually a bit underwhelmed though. The seats were not that comfortable and the ride was a bit rough for a DD. The steering feel did not feel any better than the Giulia's or my C450's, although I did not push this car hard. It also felt a bit pokey on the throttle. I make the car sound bad, but there is just something about a Porsche that made it impossible to get the car out of my mind. I just wanted to get behind the wheel again so badly after driving it. If I lived in SD instead of STL I would probably have gone with this car. Back in reality land though, a sports car convertible with no back seat and no obvious advantages over the Giulia or C450 made this car take a back seat (pun intended).

Quick synopsis of other cars I drove:

-Jaguar F-type- So I drove the 4-cylinder one that was new for 2018. Gorgeous car and nice interior, but it just feels wayyyy too heavy, has bad visibility and its seriously slow. Do not buy this car with the 4-cylinder, it just does not match the car and feels terrible in combination with it.

-BMW M240i- It was fast. It was gorgeous in blue. It also was disappointingly boring. I'm sure it's a great handling car, but it just was not exciting and did not do it for me. The interior was terrible too, some call it spartan, I call it lazy. Plus I am not huge into the 24 year old with a BMW image.

-Audi S5 (2015)- I actually prefer the older ones without the glued on tablet in the middle. This car was faster than I expected and a real looker, nice interior. The steering was loose and I just did not like it as much as the C450.

-Mazda CX-5- Drove just as well as the GLC300. The ones with the interior upgrades were actually quite nice inside and I love the styling. In my opinion, this is the best buy in the SUV market, but that is not the market I was in. I would rate it like 1 point on a 10 point scale below the GLC300 and for 15k less, it's a no-brainer.

-Miata- FUUUNNNN, but I don't wanna die.

-Volkswagen GTI- Actually really fun and peppy. Nice interior, way above its class. Could use more power, the Golf R is probably great, but I never drove it. IMO really ugly cars though.

-Jetta (2019 remodeled ones)- My dad actually bought this a week before I bought my car. These things are seriously nice. He bought an R-Line and it looks really good. The interiors are really nice and the car is surprisingly quick until it runs out of power at about 45 mph. If you just want a good mpg DD that can get to the next stoplight fast with a good interior, I would highly recommend this.

-Lexus IS300 F-Sport (2016)- These are some good looking cars. The interiors are seriously nice, very underrated and offers a very smooth ride. Horrible mpgs though and just a bit boring for my taste.

-Mercedes Benz C300- This car may look like a C450, but if you just drove both without looking at them and all the other stuff, it would blow your mind that it is sorta the same car. Totally different rides.

I really wish I had gotten to test drive a Corvette because that seems like it would have been doable, but it was not in the cards. Also, the Genesis G70, too bad it did not come to America sooner.