Thinking of getting a new ride

Love the 320i. I wish a few had survived the rust apocalypse and wannabe Jacques Villeneuves of Montreal:(

Well, correct I had a Z4 Coupe as a long term loaner from my brother in law a while back. But the e30 has
been to this board before, also. Technically I don’t own a car for years now, since the Audi is a company car
and the papers of the E30 are signed in my wifes name, even If I became the sole caretaker and main driver for nearly
the last decade.

Yo,congrats, great color on the A3.

Are these fotos realistic or did you play with some kind of filter? The blue is supernatural.

mo-i

The E30 is a great car. I love the simplicity of it and the size.

The blue is really vibrant. It is called Seapang Blue. Not quiet as bright as their classic Nagaro Blue which was on the original S4 (and you can special order that Negaro Blue for a small fortune) but it is still really nice. I’ve never had a car that want a neutral color before. I’ve had black, silver, grey, then white. I like having the bright color.

e30 is a great car. I learned to drive on one and then had as my first car my dad’s hand me down 1984 318i. I drove it into the ground through university… RIP.

Small, quick, agile and a simple design elegance that is neither overly aggressive or over styled. It’s what I wish more cars were like now.

R

Trying to find a decent E30 these days is impossible if you aren’t willing to give up your first born. It makes a great racing platform too so any bodies without rust get scooped up very quickly.

Well, to all the demons out there:

As I am not willing to make that sacriface I ll happily live with some rust in edges of the underbody of the E30.
Thanks.

mo-i

Had a funny deja-vu feeling, finally remembered why:

http://dev.core77.discourse.group/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=24141#p170617

Made me miss my old blue A3 too… :cry:

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nice shot!

Over 6 months in and I feel like I made the right choice. Loving this little car.

Hey Michael, have you found any good mobile phone holder to use in that?
I just got my 2016 a3 sportsback a few weeks back (3rd a3 in a row now!), on the hunt for a good phone holder…

Hmm, I don’t use one. I just throw it in the center console cup holder. i use the car’s GPS (Nav) even though inputing the address is harder than using my phone… is that why you want the holder?

Yeah, I want it for sat nav mostly - didn’t go for the built in option since google maps works so well. In the previous model there was a perfect spot to place the phone right between the dials and it would sit firmly, so I never had any holder. In this a3 gen, the best spot is behind the cupholder which works fine, unless I have a cup or bootle in there. Which unfortunately always seems to be the case on the trips when I actually need GPS :bulb:

Previous gen dash. The phone sat perfectly between those pegs.

The “hardware” behind the dials must be the same in all Golf based models, as this is the exact same spot where my Samsung S5 is nestled when going on a trip in the wifes Touran. “Between the pegs.”

engineering by pure coincidence.

mo-i

As the saying goes “even a blind squirrel gets a nut sometimes” sometimes a happy coincidence happens. In general though I’m surprised how little they design for phones in cars. My last Audi had the phone connection in the passenger glove box. Not really an ergonomic solution. This one has the connector in the center armrest, much better, but it is a proprietary cord (dumb) that is 10cm to short I’d say and it is an older iPhone 30pin in a 2015 model. A connector Apple has not used for several years. Now when they did the product planning for the car the 30pin was used but if they just used an USBa instead of the proprietary connector it would have been an easy swap out.

Other than that, love it :slight_smile:

Phones have changed in size rapidly too. It must be hard to forsee that in another industry.

I don’t understand how I’ve had cheap aftermarket car radios for 10 years that have USB and my '09 Jetta doesn’t (just the aux jack). File this under more stuff that offends me about the supposed invisible hand of capitalism.

I think it has to do with very long product cycles, mass purchasing, and industry only thinking. When I was at frog we worked with a lot of automakers on HMI (Human Machine Interface) and I was surprised at the level of awareness on what was going on in mobile technology. This was 5 years ago now and I know a lot of automakers have invested in Silicon Valley think tank groups so hopefully we should be seeing the benefits of that now.

I think they are just milking the cow while they can and tend to have the impression that the cows are completely blind and dumb. The German “premium brands” seem to be a mile behind Ford and Chrysler if we are talking about the seamless integration of digital services. What is standard in a Fiat costs a “fortune” in a Beamer.

It is a different story for a different thread. But actually we got a 5series on order right now. IF you want seamless integration of all your gadgets you need to order the “big” navigation pack, plus internet, plus online streaming services. On a car like that it jacks up the price by 5 percent, but on a 1-Series it would have been prohibitive. Thus our second car does not have navigation at all and the phone integration was aftermarket. Both solutions work reasonably well.-> Your bad VW.

“best” thing about the BMW base configuration is the “stereo”. You actually get 3 speakers (German market.) More speakers = Markup for
“HiFi”. Real Hifi = Markup for Harman Kardon, Brilliant system = Markup for Bose.

Does this read like a rant? Well I still ordered and I will be taxed for it, but I don’t have to pay for it…

mo-i

mo-i: Everyone in Canada thinks Germany is paved with gold bricks, so you must be wrong. hehe

It does surprise me that Ford had Sync in 2007 in quite inexpensive cars and we don’t see that dedication from other makes.

On the other hand, I don’t want any of it. I’ll call someone back when I get to where I’m going. Nice to have internet radio in the car though.

New Ride! After 9 years of trusty service, I got rid of my wife’s Yellow Mini Clubman and switched her out for A Golf R… which she immediately named “The Black Panther”. I brought it home for her today. At first she cried because she loved that dang Mini to death. Then she started The R and giggled… then she laid the hammer down on the R and loudly laughed like an evil villain in a movie… 292 horsepower will do that. Three stressful days of negotiating with two different dealers… worth it for the husband brownie points… and now we will trade cars more :wink:




but…