Which new car to lease?

[DuckThor Evil]

on such a light car with front wheel drive, 160 hp is just wasted.

What do you mean by this? FWD can handle much more than that. My car has about 290hp and it could handle more. Power is little problematic on FWD cars if you try fast standing starts, but there's more to driving than just going fast of the line.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Ostepop, how little you can actually lease over here for under 30k.

You can hardly buy a new car for 30k euro in norway.

I thought the prices in NL where similar to german prices, where i think 30k euro would land you a A4 .. Oh well..

 

[Cheezdoodles]

I don't like the looks. And on such a light car with front wheel drive, 160 hp is just wasted.

FWD in general = hp wasted

If your going to have FWD you might aswell buy the tiniest engine avaliable, your not going to get much fun out of the car anyway

 

[Mize]

FWD in general = hp wasted

If your going to have FWD you might aswell buy the tiniest engine avaliable, your not going to get much fun out of the car anyway

Not true at all. My wife's FWD A3 (2.0T, 200 bhp) is almost as fun to drive as my weekender (Miata) and MUCH faster even though the bhp/weight on the Miata is better and it has RWD. That double-clutch A3 with S tuning is fast as hell for a 30 mpg car. Yes, FWD does waste energy on from stop starts, but who over the age of 16 cares so much about street drag racing? I'd rate that A3 as more fun than quite a few RWD and AWD drives I've owned.

 

[Frank]

What do you mean by this? FWD can handle much more than that. My car has about 290hp and it could handle more. Power is little problematic on FWD cars if you try fast standing starts, but there's more to driving than just going fast of the line.

Not only fast starts, but corners as well. But it's fine for overtaking.

 

[Mize]

One other note, the 2.0T FWD A3 *beats* the 3.2 Quattro (AWD) at 0-60 in spite of a substantial bhp deficit and FWD...funny that, eh?

 

[Frank]

Not true at all. My wife's FWD A3 (2.0T, 200 bhp) is almost as fun to drive as my weekender (Miata) and MUCH faster even though the bhp/weight on the Miata is better and it has RWD. That double-clutch A3 with S tuning is fast as hell for a 30 mpg car. Yes, FWD does waste energy on from stop starts, but who over the age of 16 cares so much about street drag racing? I'd rate that A3 as more fun than quite a few RWD and AWD drives I've owned.

I think it depends on what you consider 'fun to drive'.

I think driving on the highway is pretty boring, except for the German ones where there is no speed limit. But even that is only fun every once in a while.

But off-road and cornering never gets old.

 

[Mize]

I think it depends on what you consider 'fun to drive'.

I think driving on the highway is pretty boring, except for the German ones where there is no speed limit. But even that is only fun every once in a while.

But off-road and cornering never gets old.

Of course not - hence my Miata (and 4Runner for real off road and CX-9 for taking the whole family). You left out intentional drifting and fishtailing

 

[Frank]

Of course not - hence my Miata (and 4Runner for real off road and CX-9 for taking the whole family). You left out intentional drifting and fishtailing

Well, if you can pick and choose a different car for each situation, it's a different picture. I'm not as rich as that, so I have to be satisfied with only one car.

And yes, the drifting is definitely the best bit. Off-road and cornering implied that.

 

[paUlYnsTraviSm]

if you want fun on the road RWD is surely the best option. Go for a 2nd hand M3. They have lost a lot of their value due to the poor sales.

 

[Mize]

if you want fun on the road RWD is surely the best option. Go for a 2nd hand M3. They have lost a lot of their value due to the poor sales.

Can you lease used cars in Norway? I would definitely say the M3 is an amazingly fun car (or that new 1 series).

 

[Mize]

Well, if you can pick and choose a different car for each situation, it's a different picture. I'm not as rich as that, so I have to be satisfied with only one car.

Two are company cars, two are personal cars. It would be tough to go to one car with two kids and two dogs...I'd have to settle on something hulking and inefficient like my CX-9...ew.

 

[paUlYnsTraviSm]

Can you lease used cars in Norway? I would definitely say the M3 is an amazingly fun car (or that new 1 series).

Good point. I suppose you are limited to looking at new cars? What about the mx-5?

 

[Mize]

What sucks for Frank is that a new, loaded A3 3.2L Quattro would be about $36k USD or 28,500 Euros if he could get US pricing.

 

[Frank]

What sucks for Frank is that a new, loaded A3 3.2L Quattro would be about $36k USD or 28,500 Euros if he could get US pricing.

That would be a great car, yes. But at 50,000+ Euro here (basic model is 48,000), a bit expensive...

 

[paUlYnsTraviSm]

A friend of mine has just bought the new model A3 quattro S-Line 2.0L turbo. (200bhp) It was £28,500.

How much would that work out at in Euros?

 

[Frank]

A friend of mine has just bought the new model A3 quattro S-Line 2.0L turbo. (200bhp) It was £28,500.

How much would that work out at in Euros?

36,163 Euro, which is about what the cheapest version would cost over here as well.

Next to VAT, we have an extra car tax that is somewhere between 0-80% of the price of the car, depending on the efficiency and emissions. Very efficient and low emission is almost 0% tax.

Edit: the A3 quattro S-tronic 200 hp is 40,580 over here for the basic model.

 

[paUlYnsTraviSm]

WOW! Thats crazy!

company car tax over here would be around £2000/year for a car like that.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Not true at all. My wife's FWD A3 (2.0T, 200 bhp) is almost as fun to drive as my weekender (Miata) and MUCH faster even though the bhp/weight on the Miata is better and it has RWD. That double-clutch A3 with S tuning is fast as hell for a 30 mpg car. Yes, FWD does waste energy on from stop starts, but who over the age of 16 cares so much about street drag racing? I'd rate that A3 as more fun than quite a few RWD and AWD drives I've owned.

Try driving that FWD car on the edge of traction limits in corners and experience the understeer, thats when you learn that FWD cars are rubbish for anything but getting from point A to B.

 

[Frank]

WOW! Thats crazy!

company car tax over here would be around £2000/year for a car like that.

It's added to the sales price, for a company car they add 25% of that price including vat and car tax to your yearly income before taxes.

Well, it's actually quite hard to calculate exactly how much car tax is added, because there's a separate scale for efficiency, emissions, fuel type, size, etc. But in general it amounts to somewhere between 0 and 80%. So, a hybrid (even that big and expensive Lexus) gets almost nothing added, while a hummer would get about 100% tax added (including vat).