I thought I would share my opinion of the MSP. It has been just shy of 5 months since I put my deposit down and I finally took delivery on my Orange MSP.
They rolled it off the showroom floor last night with 15 miles on it and I took it out for the test drive. It was rainy and traffic wasn't that great, so I didn't get to test it that extensively, but I was impressed when it was over.
After getting rapped on my trade in and about 2 hours of paper work I was on my way home with it. It cruises very smooth on good road in my opinion. The suspension is a little stiff on some of the bumps, but not too bad.
I am happy with the power of 1st and 2nd, but wish it had a little more torque for the upper gears. It is going to take me ahwile to get used to the short throw shirt and the clutch release point. I thought the car would seem a little faster, but I think it is just the fact that my old car sucked and had so many vibrations and such and this one is so smooth that I don't realized how fast it is accelerating. Considering it is still a 4 banger attached to that turbo, it does quite well.
The handling is simply put as awesome, I have never experienced anything like it. It is so tight and precise and the body roll is so minimal. It doesn't defy gravity, but I think it comes close some times
Any little extra stiffness in a few bumps that come as a result of the suspension setup, I will gladly accept.
The seats were a lot better looking then I thought they would be. I wasn't expecting much after reading the car and driver review. I will disagree with they don't seem to low rent to me. They don't hold as well as the racaro's I had in my my VW but they are not bad. They seemed more comfortable then the what is in the P5 I rented this summer, but I haven't really driven it long enough period of time to accurately judge.. maybe they are the same seat with a different covering I don't remember the P5 seats that well, just they sucked sitting in them after a couple hours straight.
The audio system is pretty decent... and something to work with. I haven't read up on the deck yet so I have to get it tuned up still to hear the best of it. Altough it does pump out some good bass, I don't think that single 8 in. is going to hit deep enough for my liking though, I might have to add a bigger woofer or two down the road. It is definitly pretty nice for a semi-stock system. I do have a problem with the blue ring around the volume knob of the radio. It just seems insanely brighter then all the other lights in the radio & dash and is very distracting from the corner of your eye while driving. I will have to read the manual and see if there is a way to crank down the intensity of it a bit.
I am still a little up in the air on the Orange color. I figure it will grow on me. Orange cars are just so rare it seems kinda freaky right now. I wasn't sure what to expect on the shade because in every picture the color varies so much. When I looked at it in the showroom under the lights the metallic was barely noticeable. Then it was dark outside so it looked more orange. After the test drive I drove it into the service garage under the shop lights which were much brighter then the show rooms and the shade lightened up a bit and reflected more. Today it was really overcast and things were looking a bright orange, I am really looking forward to seeing it under the strong sunlight and see those little specks shine gold. I was torn between getting an Orange or Black, but didn't have any option if I didn't want to wait for another to come in. I am pretty sure I will get used to the orange in no time and like it. It certainly doesn't get lost in the parking lot.
They were charging the MSRP $20500. I was able to get them to up my trade in from the salvage $500 price to $650, and had put $500 deposit down in Aug. then got the $500 recent college graduate discount. So after the 0.06% sales tax and title/registration and the rest of the jive, I drove it off the lot after writing a check for $20400. Taxes suck, but I guess they could have been even higher.
I have to give some props to the dealership they were pretty good about everything but the trade & I honestly believe they did what they could with that because it wasn't the car it once was. As I requested, they didn't put any dealer stickers, no front licese plate bracket, no shaft you extras. And the sales manager said numerous people wanted to test drive it and he has a list of 14 serious buyers that want to test drive before they will put any money down, but they wuldn't allow it. The car sat there in the showroom for over a week while I was out of town for Christmas.
Originally when looking for a car I wanted to buy, I wasn't out to get the best and fastest car on the market. I just wanted something that was pretty zippy and handled well for a decent price. I know it is still early with just turning over 200 miles, but I think I found that and more with the MSP.
They rolled it off the showroom floor last night with 15 miles on it and I took it out for the test drive. It was rainy and traffic wasn't that great, so I didn't get to test it that extensively, but I was impressed when it was over.
After getting rapped on my trade in and about 2 hours of paper work I was on my way home with it. It cruises very smooth on good road in my opinion. The suspension is a little stiff on some of the bumps, but not too bad.
I am happy with the power of 1st and 2nd, but wish it had a little more torque for the upper gears. It is going to take me ahwile to get used to the short throw shirt and the clutch release point. I thought the car would seem a little faster, but I think it is just the fact that my old car sucked and had so many vibrations and such and this one is so smooth that I don't realized how fast it is accelerating. Considering it is still a 4 banger attached to that turbo, it does quite well.
The handling is simply put as awesome, I have never experienced anything like it. It is so tight and precise and the body roll is so minimal. It doesn't defy gravity, but I think it comes close some times
Any little extra stiffness in a few bumps that come as a result of the suspension setup, I will gladly accept.The seats were a lot better looking then I thought they would be. I wasn't expecting much after reading the car and driver review. I will disagree with they don't seem to low rent to me. They don't hold as well as the racaro's I had in my my VW but they are not bad. They seemed more comfortable then the what is in the P5 I rented this summer, but I haven't really driven it long enough period of time to accurately judge.. maybe they are the same seat with a different covering I don't remember the P5 seats that well, just they sucked sitting in them after a couple hours straight.
The audio system is pretty decent... and something to work with. I haven't read up on the deck yet so I have to get it tuned up still to hear the best of it. Altough it does pump out some good bass, I don't think that single 8 in. is going to hit deep enough for my liking though, I might have to add a bigger woofer or two down the road. It is definitly pretty nice for a semi-stock system. I do have a problem with the blue ring around the volume knob of the radio. It just seems insanely brighter then all the other lights in the radio & dash and is very distracting from the corner of your eye while driving. I will have to read the manual and see if there is a way to crank down the intensity of it a bit.
I am still a little up in the air on the Orange color. I figure it will grow on me. Orange cars are just so rare it seems kinda freaky right now. I wasn't sure what to expect on the shade because in every picture the color varies so much. When I looked at it in the showroom under the lights the metallic was barely noticeable. Then it was dark outside so it looked more orange. After the test drive I drove it into the service garage under the shop lights which were much brighter then the show rooms and the shade lightened up a bit and reflected more. Today it was really overcast and things were looking a bright orange, I am really looking forward to seeing it under the strong sunlight and see those little specks shine gold. I was torn between getting an Orange or Black, but didn't have any option if I didn't want to wait for another to come in. I am pretty sure I will get used to the orange in no time and like it. It certainly doesn't get lost in the parking lot.
They were charging the MSRP $20500. I was able to get them to up my trade in from the salvage $500 price to $650, and had put $500 deposit down in Aug. then got the $500 recent college graduate discount. So after the 0.06% sales tax and title/registration and the rest of the jive, I drove it off the lot after writing a check for $20400. Taxes suck, but I guess they could have been even higher.
I have to give some props to the dealership they were pretty good about everything but the trade & I honestly believe they did what they could with that because it wasn't the car it once was. As I requested, they didn't put any dealer stickers, no front licese plate bracket, no shaft you extras. And the sales manager said numerous people wanted to test drive it and he has a list of 14 serious buyers that want to test drive before they will put any money down, but they wuldn't allow it. The car sat there in the showroom for over a week while I was out of town for Christmas.
Originally when looking for a car I wanted to buy, I wasn't out to get the best and fastest car on the market. I just wanted something that was pretty zippy and handled well for a decent price. I know it is still early with just turning over 200 miles, but I think I found that and more with the MSP.
What were you trading in?
