In this first year of ownership, I must say this car still makes me smile every time i drive it. And it's my daily driver 365: winter and summer. The FSS had me change my oil for only the second time in 19000 miles and the gas mileage keeps getting better. Now at 26.3 overall (mostly highway, I'll admit.)

I even found an independant Mecedes shop that does the oil change with fleece filter and M1 0-40 for $80! And the OEM Contis are holding up great!

I do think the 3rd member is slightly noiser than it should be, particularly on turns. But I have 2 more years on the bumper-to-bumper, so I'll keep me ears open. Other than that, no complaints.

So if you are reading this and tempted to buy one, do it. You too can have a perma-grin!

 

I just bought mine in Nov. of 2007 after my '98 BMW 328iS got front ended at an intersection, the lady decided to try and turn in front of me when I was going 60 mph and i just smacked right into her. She was in a 2008 toyota minivan, and I gotta say my lil sports couple bimmer just crushed her van :P she went spinning and stopped maybe 100 feet back from the intersection.

I walked away with a sore neck, big deal. Long story short, they gave me $6k to buy a new car with. I spent 1500 down on my base model 05 and it was a 12k price tag with 13k miles when i bought it !

I love it, I too drive all year round, I think we are some of the only people that do. I ended up buying a second set of rims/tires (17 inch by 7 inch all around) with straight winter Blizzak's on them.

That combined with 100 pounds of plate weights in the trunk, I was plowing my way easily through 7 + inches of snow, and was going up hills passing pickups who were stuck, I love it !! :P

This car has sex appeal but i think the base model seats are a bit un comfy after awhile. One of the things that I am going to upgrade first after i've had the car for a bit, is upgraded seats... base model seats are pretty bad if you drive for more than 20 minutes at a time.

I have been in limited models and they are much more comfy, but for the price I paid with the mileage it had... I couldn't see myself spending $15k on a limited with 45k miles on it when I could get a basically brand new base model with only visual differences for the most part.

I am just about to put the summer tires back on, whoever owned it up until when i bought evidently never rotated the tires unfortunately

The inside of the tires were almost 100% worn down, whereas the outsides were almost brand new looking. So I am going to rotate them and put the good side in, and put maybe 1k more miles on them and buy me some very nice ultra high performance all seasons.

I plan on owning this car for a very long time, so I am going to extend the warranty when it comes due (June 30 of this year, 2008) Maybe a bit beforehand, but I just want to make sure I have bumper to bumper ocverage because I don't have the time anymore to work on cars as much as I used to when I was in college (just graduated like 2 weeks ago).

I used to do all the work on my car except major mechanical like rebuilding a tranny or cyl. head :P Anyways, thanks for giving me this thread to talk about my car ! I am alost fairly new to the forum.

-Chris

 

You can pick up a pair of Limited leather seats for +/-400 at LKQ. They're located all over the US. They list them on ebay all the time.

Glad you like the car. One good thing is you don't have the silly cupholder. I envy you that...

 

You might have a problem with air bag lights after that. We have a bladder type seat weight sensors, and they are programed of the weight of cloth seats. Seen it before when a salesman sold a leather add on.

 

heh, yea i was posting in another thread how much the cupholder would be useless ! I am actually drawing up designs for the interior (my father does interior upholstery work in his spare time as a money making hobby) so I usually draw up plans and work with him to fix flaws in the interior

I am planning to actually get rid of the slot that is there (in place of the cupholder mine has a holding slot to put stuff in) However, when I'm shifting and resting my arm there it starts to hurt after awhile and it would just be much better if it wasn't there.

I was also planning on having all the plastic parts from the "armrest" be converted to upholstered to have padding etc which will make the entire driving more enjoyable for me (I almost ALWAYS have my arm on that spot right where the hole is and the plastic from the storage armrest just gets annoying). I will attempt to keep it silver as it is right now, I am going for a Black/Silver with blue highlighted areas and so far my plans look pretty nice (only drawn up about half of it)

Anyways, thanks for the seat tip, I'll check them out !

And sorry for the long story :P I'm sitting at work bored so I just started typing and out it came heh

-Chris

 

Welcome tour forum and enjoy your XFire. I've had mine for 1 1/2 years, pretty much a daily driver and I grin ear-to-ear everytime I drive it or even look at it!

 

Sounds like an interesting project. Post the pics when your project is complete.

Congratulations...