General Comments:
I am 34 and have owned many cars. From Corvettes to Porsche, and from Trans-Ams to Mustangs, but I can't get over how unique this little Tiburon is. I bought this car 3 months ago for my wife, she is from Moscow and this is her first car. I wanted to get her something cute but affordable.
Stumbling upon this Tiburon was pure luck. I was looking at cheap cars, like the Accent, Ford Focus, etc. But the salesman told me he would sell this cute little red Tiburon for 13,495. After looking at ugly Ford Focuses I couldn't resist the price and warranty, so I bought it.
My wife has driven the car only a little, most of the time I have been driving it, we have 3,100 miles on the car and I have probably driven 2000 miles of that.
I have tested the car a fair amount. It's best attribute certainly is in it's handling. This car handles better than any car I have ever driven except for the Porsche 944 Turbo. I can't get over how well this car handles, all for 13,495 dollars, unbelievable!
This car has the words sports car written all over it. I got the automatic for my wife; I have never driven the manual. I find the automatic to be just fine though for power, certainly you can't call this car slow, it's pretty fast, it's just not real fast. Bump the horses up to 200 though and you would have one incredible car. I would love to drive the stick and do a little performance driving, because even the auto is fun to drive.
The cars second best attribute is its brakes. At only 2600 pounds, this car stops on a dime, and leaves you nine cents change. I had thought that my Firebird Formula stops fast with ABS brakes, but this little Tiburon at only 2600 lbs with all wheel disc brakes stops faster.
The third best feature of this car is its ergonomics, including its comfort level. Everything in this car is just where it should be, it is perfect.
In my opinion, the Tiburon is one of the very best looking cars on the road, I can say absolutely nothing bad about this car, except perhaps that I only get about 21 miles per gallon out of it, my Formula got the same, but that was with a 5.7 liter engine producing 285 horsepower.
As far as reliability goes, I don't know, I only have 3,100 miles on the car, so time will tell. But so far, the car is awesome. Quality is everywhere, from the seats to the dash to the solid slam of the car doors. It's solid, rock solid.
I've heard the rattle in the dash, but only once or twice, I even heard the rattle in the back hatch, but only one time. The brakes make a very slight almost un-hearable noise, but as they are breaking in the noise is going away. But other than those very minor problems, this car is phenomenal, I really love it.
4th Feb 2003, 00:32
Try using full synthetic oil for the engine so it will start very well even on a cold morning.