General Comments:
What can I say?... I am very impressed, before this car I had a Peugeot 306 which cost me a fortune in repairs, near the end of its life some poor sod ran into the back of me and had to pay up £3500 insurance! that's when I decided on the MR2.
I wanted something fast, with 2 seats and a convertible roof, and the only options in my price range was MX5 or MR2, the MX5 only had about 110 Brake Horse Power maximum! Where as the GTS Mr2 had 235 brake horse power as standard and an after market exhaust, boost valve, dump valve to bring it to nearer 280 Brake Horse Power, there was only one winner!
This car is a flying machine! I have embarressed several cars like Porsches & Audi TTS on the road and people are constantly admiring it! I get "Nice car mate" nearly every day! Its very funny watching Boy racers in there Underpowered Maxed up Saxo VTRS & ASTRA GTES try and show you up!!!
When all polished up it looks fantastic (my baby Ferrari!) I have revision 3 rounded lights on mine too so it actually looks like a ferarri!
Going around corners feels great (in the dry weather!!!) Beware in the wet though, I have spun out several times when slamming on in the wet weather and this takes a bit of getting used to, but I'm getting there!
The ride is extremley comfortable and low to the ground for that racing experience.
For insurance I went with Tesco, I'm 22 years old living in a bad part of Leeds with 1 years No Claims Bonus and Tesco sorted me out a decent deal with £1200 a year, (everyone else was quoting £3000+!)
Theres loads of MODS for the MR2 turbo, to make your flying machine even faster.
One gripe about the GTS turbo is the running costs, I get about only 100 miles out of £20.00 of Shell Optimax, but I only drive short distances each day, and am a bit hard on the turbo :) but I suppose that's to be expected on a car with performance like this!
If your thinking of buying one, I seriously recommend going for the TURBO, these only come as imports, but they usually have far less miles then the standard UK ones and seem to be in better condition (there roads aint as bad as ours!)
If you want something flash, & fast then This is the car for you, don't even think about getting a saxo performance model!!!
SAX performance model = 97BHP MR2 GTS = 235BHP
Well......!
If you have less than £5000 to spend and have no family to cart around then you could do far worse then an MR2 Turbo, they look the business, are very reliable and go like hell!
20th Dec 2006, 07:11
I have now owned this car for 2 years.. and boy is it reliable.. Had the cam belt changed shortly after I bought it along with the aircon belt and alt belt as they were squealing.
The only thing to go wrong in 2 years is the front side light has a loose connection.
Tyre wear is amazing.. I have only just changed the rear tyres after doing 20000 more miles. So don't believe all you hear.
Still have not changed the stereo, but fitted an expander and an MP3 input onto the back.
Car has never missed a beat and was Dyno plotted at 211bhp. not so bad for a 15 year old car, I think it just needs a little tuning to get it back to the full 221bhp as standard.
As for the comfort. I love it.. I was wrong in saying it is cramped, it's an amazingly nice car to drive on long journeys, the center console is great to rest your arm on, all the controls can be adjusted to suit.
All in all I love it.. the only other cars that could tempt me away are an RX7 Type R, Supra 3,0TT, Soarer 2.5tt.. but that's only because they have back seats.
If you get the chance to own a good one.. buy it.. you won't regret it.