The MW Automotive Thread 5.0 GT

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[Stampeed Valkyrie]

Keeping on in my American V8 vein,  my latest new to me toy.   

2009 Dodge Charger R/T AWD.     It has the 5.7 345cu Hemi V8.

Not a real big fan of this body style,  but its growing on me.       I believe this was the last year for AWD on the V8s for the civilian market.   I am the 2nd owner and purchased this from an older couple so very well maintained.   

This is my 2nd Charger..  my first being a 1969 Charger R/T with a 440.    Now I can say I have a Hemi Charger..

 

The original Fog lamps were working but cracked and heavily crazed..  replaced with some PIAA yellow fogs.. 

 

and lastly  a little over 96k on the odo..  very good for a car 15 years old.

Highly doubt this could do 160mph but,  never know.

 

[TangledThorns]

Resurrecting this thread to show off my 2024 Jaguar F-Type some more

Also, the Expel Stealth PPF has held up well after several months and saved my front fender and lights from rock chips too. Recommend PPF if you're worried about paint damage from rocks chips, light scratches and dings for a car you value. Wouldn't put PPF on a much lesser car though. 

And yes, my Jag does get compared to modern Batmobiles a lot.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2024 by TangledThorns

[TangledThorns]

Didn't know William Shatner owned a Jaguar F-Type too.

 

 

[mikeszekely]

Aside from software updates, the Taycan hasn't really changed from the 2020 through 2024 models, right?  I'm shopping used Taycans in my area, and it looks like I can get a base '22, or 2020 4S for around the same price and mileage.  I know the 2020 Taycans had a bunch of problems, but shouldn't they have been addressed through recalls and software updates?

EDIT: Nevermind.  I found a Porsche-certified preowned base '23 with less than 6000 miles, Imma jump on that.  Just have to have it transported from Dallas to Pittsburgh.

Edited March 8 by mikeszekely

[mikeszekely]

My new (used) car arrived today.

[jenius]

Congrats, looks great.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

My new (used) car arrived today.

Like the color on her, congrats!

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said:

Like the color on her, congrats!

Thanks, I had to go to Dallas for it.  All the ones around here (Pittsburgh) are white or black.

[TangledThorns]

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Thanks, I had to go to Dallas for it.  All the ones around here (Pittsburgh) are white or black.

Congrats. Good excuse for a road trip. Last year I looked at the Taycan or other 4 seat sports car before I settled on a 2 seater 2024 Jaguar F-Type because of children, lol. Had a reminder of that this month when my daughter vomited in the back seat of my wife's Subaru Outback 🤮

I'm currently looking at replacing my dadmobile (2013 Nissan Juke) that has over 100K miles this Summer. Looking at something similar in size like a Kia Seltos or maybe a pre-owned Tesla Model Y. It's nice having a smaller AWD transport so it can easily fit in most parking spots.

But yeah, we have 3 cars. 2 for transporting the family and the F-Type for fun and dates nights.

 

 

[mikeszekely]

51 minutes ago, TangledThorns said:

Congrats. Good excuse for a road trip. Last year I looked at the Taycan or other 4 seat sports car before I settled on a 2 seater 2024 Jaguar F-Type because of children, lol. Had a reminder of that this month when my daughter vomited in the back seat of my wife's Subaru Outback 🤮

I'm currently looking at replacing my dadmobile (2013 Nissan Juke) that has over 100K miles this Summer. Looking at something similar in size like a Kia Seltos or maybe a pre-owned Tesla Model Y. It's nice having a smaller AWD transport so it can easily fit in most parking spots.

But yeah, we have 3 cars. 2 for transporting the family and the F-Type for fun and dates nights.

 

 

I think we're eventually going to go with the vehicles, too. My wife's parents stay with us for extended periods, and on the weekends we like to take mine out for lunch. We got a Kia EV9, and it's really nice (like, surprisingly so to someone who learned drive in the '90s and remembers when Kias were cheap crap), but my wife decided it's too big for her daily commute. When the lease is up we're going to turn it back in and maybe get her a Macan EV. Then, because a charger in the garage makes EVs great for local driving but the public charging infrastructure is somehow both expensive and terrible I was thinking maybe a Chrysler Pacifica for hauling extra people/cargo. 

I love your Jag, but my wife works way too much and I'm usually the one driving my kid around during the week so I really couldn't go with a two-seater or 2+2... yet. After my daughter's grown, if we get to that three-car point, I could see myself swapping the Taycan for a 911.

[mikeszekely]

Well... I'm enjoying my Porsche, and my wife still has a little over a year left on her Kia's lease.  But I'm becoming sorely tempted to buy a Dodge Charger Daytona as a spare (wife can drive it sometimes to keep the mileage down on her lease, I can drive it sometimes when the weather gets kind of crappy and I'd prefer a heavier car with AWD).  I'd been curious about them since they first came out (how do you get an EV to behave like a pony car?), but with a price in "gently used" Taycan territory I'd rather go German.  Dealerships keep dropping the prices, though, and now I have a dealership offering to sell me an R/T (bummer, no scat pack) for $35k.  That's just over half the MSRP.

And a third car would come in handy right now... my wife's EV9 has been in the shop since Easter due to a BMS issue.  Normally I think they're just supposed to replace a fuse and the 12v battery, but Kia wants the dealer to replace the main battery too.  Took a week and half to even get them to give us a loaner, and my wife's mad that the loaner is a base-model ICE Sportage.  She misses the bells and whistles on her GT-Line trim, not to mention her 75-mile round-trip commute is the reason we started buying electric cars in the first place.

[mikeszekely]

On 5/12/2025 at 2:08 AM, mikeszekely said:

Well... I'm enjoying my Porsche, and my wife still has a little over a year left on her Kia's lease.  But I'm becoming sorely tempted to buy a Dodge Charger Daytona as a spare (wife can drive it sometimes to keep the mileage down on her lease, I can drive it sometimes when the weather gets kind of crappy and I'd prefer a heavier car with AWD).  I'd been curious about them since they first came out (how do you get an EV to behave like a pony car?), but with a price in "gently used" Taycan territory I'd rather go German.  Dealerships keep dropping the prices, though, and now I have a dealership offering to sell me an R/T (bummer, no scat pack) for $35k.  That's just over half the MSRP.

And a third car would come in handy right now... my wife's EV9 has been in the shop since Easter due to a BMS issue.  Normally I think they're just supposed to replace a fuse and the 12v battery, but Kia wants the dealer to replace the main battery too.  Took a week and half to even get them to give us a loaner, and my wife's mad that the loaner is a base-model ICE Sportage.  She misses the bells and whistles on her GT-Line trim, not to mention her 75-mile round-trip commute is the reason we started buying electric cars in the first place.

Following up on this... wife's car is STILL in the shop.  The order the dealer placed for a replacement battery was cancelled (Hyundai makes them, and apparently they're hording them for new vehicles).  We're obviously NOT happy.

Thinking about buying the wife another car, then putting off an "everyone can use it, especially me when the weather is bad and I don't want to drive the Porsche" until the lease for the Kia is over.  Must be electric, wife prefers SUVs, and riding in my Porsche has given her a taste for luxury.  Thinking the BMW iX might be a good fit.  Thoughts?  Edmund's really liked their long-term fleet car as it was fast, comfortable, has a great interior, and it was one of the most reliable EVs in their fleet.  Only downside seems to be the exterior, which the wife and I agree is kind of fugly (but fugly is kind of BMW's MO, I think).

[TangledThorns]

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Following up on this... wife's car is STILL in the shop.  The order the dealer placed for a replacement battery was cancelled (Hyundai makes them, and apparently they're hording them for new vehicles).  We're obviously NOT happy.

Thinking about buying the wife another car, then putting off an "everyone can use it, especially me when the weather is bad and I don't want to drive the Porsche" until the lease for the Kia is over.  Must be electric, wife prefers SUVs, and riding in my Porsche has given her a taste for luxury.  Thinking the BMW iX might be a good fit.  Thoughts?  Edmund's really liked their long-term fleet car as it was fast, comfortable, has a great interior, and it was one of the most reliable EVs in their fleet.  Only downside seems to be the exterior, which the wife and I agree is kind of fugly (but fugly is kind of BMW's MO, I think).

Sucks about your wife's Kia. I was looking at a Kia Seltos but holding off as my current dadmobile (2013 Nissan Juke) with 103K miles is still working fine. BMW and Audi EVs are popular in my area but nowhere near as popular as Tesla still. Rivian R1S perhaps? Agree that BMW's EVs are ugly too, lol. 

Check out Reddit for more personal reviews on cars. 

[Big s]

Not saying Kia makes a bad car or anything, just that I’ve stayed away from them due to the KIA acronym due to unfounded superstition 

[TangledThorns]

22 minutes ago, Big s said:

Not saying Kia makes a bad car or anything, just that I’ve stayed away from them due to the KIA acronym due to unfounded superstition 

 

KIA = Know It All? lol

[Test_Pilot_2]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Following up on this... wife's car is STILL in the shop.  The order the dealer placed for a replacement battery was cancelled (Hyundai makes them, and apparently they're hording them for new vehicles).  We're obviously NOT happy.

Thinking about buying the wife another car, then putting off an "everyone can use it, especially me when the weather is bad and I don't want to drive the Porsche" until the lease for the Kia is over.  Must be electric, wife prefers SUVs, and riding in my Porsche has given her a taste for luxury.  Thinking the BMW iX might be a good fit.  Thoughts?  Edmund's really liked their long-term fleet car as it was fast, comfortable, has a great interior, and it was one of the most reliable EVs in their fleet.  Only downside seems to be the exterior, which the wife and I agree is kind of fugly (but fugly is kind of BMW's MO, I think).

This experience and many others like it are why I'm debating parting with my EV6 GT and moving to either a Cadillac Lyriq or Optiq...

Lyriq already has a V and the Optiq V is around the corner. If you haven't checked those out they're worth a look.

Edit* which reminds me, the local Cadillac dealer reached out to me about a special going through end of June, I think. Timing doesn't work for me, but it's there.

Edited 8 hours ago by Test_Pilot_2

[Big s]

2 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

 

KIA = Know It All? lol

Yeah, I’m worried that it might act like it knows everything and all the great shortcuts, but we end up lost and it gets dark and we don’t see that cliff and then we get listed as K.I.A., and then the worst part is that everyone blames me when we all know it was Kia’s fault 

[mikeszekely]

4 hours ago, Test_Pilot_2 said:

This experience and many others like it are why I'm debating parting with my EV6 GT and moving to either a Cadillac Lyriq or Optiq...

Lyriq already has a V and the Optiq V is around the corner. If you haven't checked those out they're worth a look.

 

I was compiling a list of cars I wanted to check out with her when the lease was originally up next summer, and the Lyriq was on my shortlist.  I haven't looked at the Optiq yet.

What's attracting me to the iX though are the number of people who are saying how reliable it's been.  Seriously, the only complaints I'm hearing (aside from the exterior aesthetics) is that the public charging speeds are a little slower than the competitors (something I think they addressed for the 2025 model?), but we charge at home so it's kind of irrelevant to us.

One thing to note, I'm mostly shopping used.  Over the last few years a TON of EVs were leased out on a mix of manufacturers running some crazy lease deals and dealerships pushing them for tax credits, so the used market is full of 1-3 year old cars with relatively low mileage going for like half the price of a new one.  There's a dealership nearby with a CPO '22 iX xdrive50 with around 25k miles for $48k.  Closest CPO Lyriq is 170 miles away (though, if I don't care so much about CPO, Carvana's got some of both).

4 hours ago, Big s said:

Yeah, I’m worried that it might act like it knows everything and all the great shortcuts, but we end up lost and it gets dark and we don’t see that cliff and then we get listed as K.I.A., and then the worst part is that everyone blames me when we all know it was Kia’s fault 

So here's a story... I was driving with my wife, my kid, and my parents in the EV9.  The road curves toward a light, and I was stopped in the left lane because I was planning to drive straight through but turn left at the following light.  The light turned green, and I start going forward... as does the traffic in the right lane.  Because of the curve, I guess, the Kia thought the car behind us to the right, despite not leaving its lane, was coming at us.  And whatever smart features Kia baked in decided to drive to avoid the accident by steering itself into the turning lane.  It was thankfully empty, otherwise the car would have jerked control from me and caused an accident to avoid an accident that wasn't going to happen in the first place.  So, yeah, our Know It All could have left us K.I.A.

(I leave those "safety" features alone in my wife's car, but I turned off everything but the parking sensors in the Porsche.)

Edited 4 hours ago by mikeszekely