goosegog
02-09-2001, 19:09
After a few weeks at this board I have been enjoying the posts and feel it's time to big up the SX again! I have been a mechanic for an Aston Martin specialist for 10 years and regularly drive and repair all models from 1959 to 1999 which includes the DB7
Take the DB7 and the 200SX. 2 cars which essentially do the same job of being a sleek high performance rear wheel drive car with 2+2 seating. The Nissan sold for about £25,000 5 years ago, the Aston for about £90,000. These days the Aston is worth about 10 times the Nissan's value so it would be good to compare the two to see which really is worth the money (We know really don't we!)
Seeing as we all know what the S14 is like, I will concentrate on the Aston, and here is my opinion.....
The DB7 is a beautiful looking car which has a fairly poor Jaguar cast-off engine and a dated Jaguar cast-off chassis.
The engine in the non-Vantage model is a 3.2 litre supercharged Jaguar unit straight six cylinder unit. It sounds like a tool kit in a washing machine on start-up and throttle response is poor (though not as bad as the Virage!)
The auto gearbox is good however, covering up the engines bad points
Brakes are excellent
Driving position is dreadfull with it's huge, unnecessaryly over-sized steering wheel. The throttle is in the wrong place to heel-and-toe during gear changes. The cabin is cramped. If you do choose to buy a manual, the gear change is OK I guess, but not slick by any standards. The clutch feels dead and is difficult to synchronise with the throttle on hill starts.
Get driving and the car is surprisingly quick for such a small engine. Engine noise is not sporty, more like, erm.. there!
Road noise is excellent and the handling is simply superb
It is surprising what they managed to do with a 1970's Jaguar XJS chassis and 1960's E-Type rear suspension. It is hard to fault the handling, road holding, steering (except the huge wheel!) or brakes.
That is, except for spinning the rear wheels which causes tramping, or bouncing of wheels. This is wrong. A good car would spin it's wheels smoothly.
There are some good and bad points to the electrics
Good:
The windows drop by 1" when the door is opened and goes up again after it is shut. This provides the car with very low wind noise. The dash is clear and easy to read.
Bad:
The switches are all from Ford!
The door handles are from a Mazda MX5!
There is an incessant chime if you open the door with the keys in the ignition.
This tripples as a seat belt warning and lights on warning
The windows cannot be operated with the door open for some strange and annoying reason!
The boot cannot be released unless the automatically arming alarm is unarmed. If you stop the car and take longer than 1 minute to get out, chat etc, the boot WILL NOT OPEN unless you press the alarm button again!
OK, lets check the oil:
In the driving seat. Get out, round the other side, open the passengers door, pull the release in the passengers footwell. Open the bonnet. It wont open as the release catch is round the drivers side!
Walk round to that side. Open the bonnet. Check the oil. Where's the dipstick? Round the passengers side!!! Walk round! Check the oil. It's low. Where's the filler??? You guessed, round the drivers side! How stupid is that.
The air conditioning is also extremely unreliable and costly to fix. I have had new condenser, evapourator AND heater matrix!! That's a lousy life span!
In summary, the DB7 could be forgiven for some quirks like this, but the car is full of these quirks which soon become annoying.
It is a beautiful car with a pretty interior but like most Astons of 1990-1998 era is badly built and full of design (or lack of) flaws and compromises.
So as we can see, we're all happy that we own an SX instead of overpriced poo!
Ferg
------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GOOSEGOG - Daily Updated Webcam!
Car Stuff - Internet Radio - Links - Photos
Website: <A HREF="http://www.goosegog.com
ICQ" TARGET=_blank>www.goosegog.com
ICQ</A> : 53955601
Take the DB7 and the 200SX. 2 cars which essentially do the same job of being a sleek high performance rear wheel drive car with 2+2 seating. The Nissan sold for about £25,000 5 years ago, the Aston for about £90,000. These days the Aston is worth about 10 times the Nissan's value so it would be good to compare the two to see which really is worth the money (We know really don't we!)
Seeing as we all know what the S14 is like, I will concentrate on the Aston, and here is my opinion.....
The DB7 is a beautiful looking car which has a fairly poor Jaguar cast-off engine and a dated Jaguar cast-off chassis.
The engine in the non-Vantage model is a 3.2 litre supercharged Jaguar unit straight six cylinder unit. It sounds like a tool kit in a washing machine on start-up and throttle response is poor (though not as bad as the Virage!)
The auto gearbox is good however, covering up the engines bad points
Brakes are excellent
Driving position is dreadfull with it's huge, unnecessaryly over-sized steering wheel. The throttle is in the wrong place to heel-and-toe during gear changes. The cabin is cramped. If you do choose to buy a manual, the gear change is OK I guess, but not slick by any standards. The clutch feels dead and is difficult to synchronise with the throttle on hill starts.
Get driving and the car is surprisingly quick for such a small engine. Engine noise is not sporty, more like, erm.. there!
Road noise is excellent and the handling is simply superb
It is surprising what they managed to do with a 1970's Jaguar XJS chassis and 1960's E-Type rear suspension. It is hard to fault the handling, road holding, steering (except the huge wheel!) or brakes.
That is, except for spinning the rear wheels which causes tramping, or bouncing of wheels. This is wrong. A good car would spin it's wheels smoothly.
There are some good and bad points to the electrics
Good:
The windows drop by 1" when the door is opened and goes up again after it is shut. This provides the car with very low wind noise. The dash is clear and easy to read.
Bad:
The switches are all from Ford!
The door handles are from a Mazda MX5!
There is an incessant chime if you open the door with the keys in the ignition.
This tripples as a seat belt warning and lights on warning
The windows cannot be operated with the door open for some strange and annoying reason!
The boot cannot be released unless the automatically arming alarm is unarmed. If you stop the car and take longer than 1 minute to get out, chat etc, the boot WILL NOT OPEN unless you press the alarm button again!
OK, lets check the oil:
In the driving seat. Get out, round the other side, open the passengers door, pull the release in the passengers footwell. Open the bonnet. It wont open as the release catch is round the drivers side!
Walk round to that side. Open the bonnet. Check the oil. Where's the dipstick? Round the passengers side!!! Walk round! Check the oil. It's low. Where's the filler??? You guessed, round the drivers side! How stupid is that.
The air conditioning is also extremely unreliable and costly to fix. I have had new condenser, evapourator AND heater matrix!! That's a lousy life span!
In summary, the DB7 could be forgiven for some quirks like this, but the car is full of these quirks which soon become annoying.
It is a beautiful car with a pretty interior but like most Astons of 1990-1998 era is badly built and full of design (or lack of) flaws and compromises.
So as we can see, we're all happy that we own an SX instead of overpriced poo!
Ferg
------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GOOSEGOG - Daily Updated Webcam!
Car Stuff - Internet Radio - Links - Photos
Website: <A HREF="http://www.goosegog.com
ICQ" TARGET=_blank>www.goosegog.com
ICQ</A> : 53955601