[BuDDyLeE]

ok, time to consult the jedi council, Dob1-Wan gather your padewan learners....ok yeah i just saw episode II, it OWNS go see it, nuff said. consider the following my esteemed jedi council, and may the force be with you.

would you rather have:
1. 2003 WRX - $26,000 - black, blue, white, or silver
2. 2003 Lexus IS - $32,000 - yellow or blue (loaded, which isnt much over stock but a LSD and HIDs)
3. 99-02 WS6 - $20,000-24,000(used duh :lol: ) - pewter, light gold, silver, or yellow

whatda think?

current rides are a 1978 Dodge lil red express truck and my first car a 1988 IROC-Z 5spd. if i got either of those the IROC would become my SCCA racer, id start restoring the dodge and use the new car as the daily grunt.

what would you pick and why? for extra credit you may write a 50,000 word discertation on the role of thermodynamics in the greenhouse effect.


***BONUS*** why do NO american car companies like HID lights? not even projector beam headlamps like on the new beetle. do the big three own too much stock in the halogen business??? pisses me off b/c my street lights have been off for TWO MONTHS and i live on a blind chician(sp?) on a 6 lane residential street and am a night owl that is never seen by oncoming drunks. they MIGHT put HIDs or at least projector beams on the 03 WRX... even though i prefer the US spec look (let the flaming begin) id love those bright motherfukers. anyone know of a gas other than Xenon that is used? id LOVE some red highbeams for effect, i live in the 'burbs i dont need brights except to ward off the idiots and to awe the GOOKED-OUT-CIVIC(and i dont use that as a racial slur, more as a cultural slur. ie. *****/er = typical thug, not blacks in general so PLEASE dont take it personally, i hate everyone equally) club. well, i guess they are the same group.

 

[ABCDriver]

The gist of it is they're (still) expensive.

fyi: http://www.howstuffworks.com/question387.htm

"Most cars currently use halogen bulbs in their headlights. The new blue-ish headlights are using a different technology called High Intensity Discharge (HID). We normally see HID lamps in the form of mercury vapor and sodium vapor lights used as street lamps and as outdoor lighting for stadiums. These lamps are popular because they are efficient. In the case of sodium vapor, they are twice as efficient as normal fluorescent bulbs.

Mercury and sodium vapor lamps produce light using a technique similar to that used in fluorescent lamps. In fluorescent lamps a low-pressure mercury vapor produces lots of ultraviolet light that excites a phosphor coating the tube. In the case of mercury vapor lamps, it is a high-pressure gas, the distance between the electrodes is very short and the light is produced directly without the need for the phosphor.

In the case of HID headlights, the same high-pressure technology is used. The lamp is similar to a mercury vapor lamp. However, designers of the headlights had to solve one problem with normal mercury vapor lamps -- the fact that they have long start-up times. Xenon helps solve the start-up problem, as does a special controller. All of these tricks mean that these headlights are expensive now, but mass production should bring the cost down eventually."

 

[MKIVSupra]

HID lamps

How are your winters up there? If bad, get the WRX. It really depends on what you want. For a daily driver, the WS6 would be at the bottom of the list due to gas mileage, rwd, not as comfortable, prolly not as reliable, or able to take a daily beating like the other two. I think the WRX would be more fun. The IS300 would be more of a status symbol. I would go with the WRX, but I also have Chicago and Michigan winters to deal with so awd is important. That is why I want an STi so damn bad.

 

[STiWant1]

seriously different beasts...

WRX, duh this is the STi forum, no more need be said about how different this car is from the rest.

Lexus IS, more luxury, status, posh, and $$$

WS6, ???, used ??? well its a muscle car, American, and it has probably been ridden into the ground, unless you personally know the owner.

---> Opinions --->
WRX, the choice for the northener that likes to drive not as much as cruise.

IS, the choice for the more fashion minded that likes to cruise in style.

WS6, the choice for the slightly more testosterone pumped individual living life "1/4 mile at a time".

Extra Credit:
The greenhouse effect refers to circumstances where the short wavelengths of visible light from the sun pass through a transparent medium and are absorbed, but the longer wavelengths of the infrared re-radiation from the heated objects are unable to pass through that medium. The trapping of the long wavelength radiation leads to more heating and a higher resultant temperature. Besides the heating of an automobile by sunlight through the windshield and the namesake example of heating the greenhouse by sunlight passing through sealed, transparent windows, the greenhouse effect has been widely used to describe the trapping of excess heat by the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide strongly absorbs infrared and does not allow as much of it to escape into space...

 

[91TB78]

BuddyLee,
Personally, for the money the WRX..hands down.

But, if I were to get a great car that did everything just a touch nicer.....no doubt would be the IS.

OK, the resale is MUCH, MUCH higher than the other two, the durability is the BEST in the business AND for you performance buffs (I think that's all of us) it now comes in 5-spd and TRD (Toyota Racing Development) is coming out with a factory backed turbo charger for the IS300..like in JDM. The transmission in the IS300 is the same as the Toyota Supra turbo which can handle 300hp easily without excess wear. If you have the money...the Lexus. Sure, its not as fast, but driving isn't all about racing through the streets since that's too dangerous...its about everything else in the car!!

Oh yeah, a lot of it depends on the weather where you live too...snow and lots of rain..WRX, decent weather Lexus!

 

[BuDDyLeE]

cool, everyone agrees with my list. first the WRX then the IS (if there is a IS300 Turbo, id pay the extra $3,000 for it). im considering the IS300 instead of the STi because of the Lexus reliability record and the fact that it is a NICE ass car also its an I6 RWD w/ a torsen LSD. its like the WRX for the white collar people. ill have to wait 6-8 months longer to afford an IS monthly, and longer for the turbo, but man. i wouldnt EVER be jealous of that dude in the STi, not that it matters. status symbols aside, the IS is a freggin GREAT car.


sooo hard this decision is.
ill probably get the WRX b/c about the same time my girlfriend is getting either a 330ci or a IS300. but if we got the ISs at the same time we'd save a lot of $$$. her mom went to school with the manager of the lexus dealership and got an ES300 $4000 off MSRP. and its about the same cost as a IS300 so i figured about the same markdown.

 

[Agent Chobos]

***BONUS*** why do NO american car companies like HID lights?

I think the new '03 Viper will have HIDs for both low & high beams. But on NORMAL cars, yeah I think you're right. I can't think of any.

<Homer> Mmmmm..... Viper... </Homer>

500 hp, 500 lb-ft, 500 watt stereo. Est. 0-60 in 3.75.

Also, if you're looking for a good SCCA racer, I think a good one will be the Dodge Razor. If they don't water it down for production of course. It's supposed to be VERY light, RWD, 6-speed, no frills interior (no AC, no radio, no power everything), 4-point harnesses, & a 250 hp 2.4L turbo. Plus they're aiming for a MSRP under $15k!

 

[91TB78]

BuddyLee,
One thing to think of though is how the car handles. The STi will beat pretty much any thing out there unless you are a professional driver. It never feels wreckless or uncomposed. The car goes where you want it to and it doesn't lose itself. The IS300 w/ LSD or any other car for that matter may be great, but when push comes to shove the STi will far out manuever any car without the AWD.

Like I said when I had taken the test drive/ride...CONTROLLED. :wink:
I am in my dilemma now too since being over in Germany we are considering a 330i or the STi first. Not sure which. At one point I thought the STi would be the first new car we would get, ship it over here, then buy the BMW. I dunno anymore though. I'll have to see I think. Seems like there are gonna be a lot of other performance cars coming out, so the decision is tough. I think about the new Type-R, the IS300 turbo, the possibility of the Skyline coming out, etc, etc, etc. I do think that the STi will be the best of everything, but there are just a few things I am considering versus the 325/330:
everyday livability, paint/bodywork duration (STi is great, but I have heard the paint is fairly thin), STi depreciating really, really quickly, and also I have been told that once I take the car out of country (even temporarily for 1.5 years) the warranty is void. Now, I think I can handle the warranty, b/c they won't know, but the what IFs pop up and I think about recalls or things like that...there will be now way I can get that stuff taken care of.

Tough choices though....but really these decisions don't matter THAT much b/c they are just material items. :wink:

 

[TiTaNiuM sAMuRai]

You can't just pick up some second-hand VW or something for a while?

If the STi isn't out here by the time you leave, then I'd buy one there and make the sacrifices to bring it over here. Of course, there was someone on this board some time ago who was in touch with a small company that was bringing over JDM-spec units, legitimately.

But, if the STi IS already here when you return, then there'd by no problem.

Another thing to bear in mind: in Europe, there are grey import service places (see IWOC.co.uk for listings), so I wouldn't doubt there being quite a number over here also.

 

[super_bean21]

Agent Chobos- you forgot 500 cu in. BuDDyLee- one of the first cars that i ever saw with HID's was an american car. It was a lincoln mark VIII, and they haven't made those for a while. I think it was like back in '97.

 

[Growl]

Just to be objective:

There is huge controversy over the so-called "greenhouse effect". It is only a theory (when applied to the earth's atmosphere), and there exists plausible evidence to suggest that it is NOT occurring.

It clearly occurs in large metro areas, and is known as 'temperature inversion', where the accumulation of smog is enough to be noticeable. However, on a large scale, it is VERY spurious to suggest that the earth's atmosphere is warming.

I know it's off topic, but I'm very tired of theories like greenhouse effect, global warming, overpopulation, species destruction, and the like being treated like facts.

 

[STiWant1]

greenhouse effect

Now that we are totally off topic I will interject a bit of wisdom. First of all you don't mean the greenhouse effect, you mean global warming. The greenhouse effect is occurring on the earth just as it is on Venus. Although Venus is an extremely hot planet because of an extremely dense atmosphere. As far as global warming you must also be clear in what you mean by global warming. Human's causing global warming through increased discharge of carbon mono- and dioxides and other gasses that accumulate in the atmosphere is what you mean. Do I believe that this is taking place? I don't know but I don't think so. There is probably as much evidence to prove that the global temperature trends we see today are based on normal cyclical patterns in warming and cooling on the planets surface as is demonstrated by ice ages, etc (ie on the scale of 10's of thousands of years).

The temperature inversion that you speak of that is involved in certain cities is a totally different effect. Thermal inversion occurs when warm air is trapped under a layer of colder air. From some pretty simple science we know that warm rises and cold air settles in to take its place (based on gas density at various temperatures). In the case of the thermal inversion we have hot air trapped below a layer of cold air that wants to sink. I live in Cincinnati, a city that like LA is no stranger to thermal inversion. This mostly occurs during the summer when a cool night is followed by a very warm day. As the surface temperature heats up the cool air in the atmosphere, along with some special geo/topographic features, traps this warm air. You end up with a hazy, humid and many times a polluted layer of air that can't disperse. So it sucks, especially if you have asthma.

Overpopulation and species destruction are wholly different topics altogether, and if you want some info on those feel free to let me know. Do I believe that they are occurring? That is a conversion that would take many, many hours. :wink: -J

Again, sorry to go off topic, but there was some info I needed to see clarified.

 

[BuDDyLeE]

Wow. philisophical conversations? what are we, a bunch of pocket protector wearing nerds?, poem reading beatniks?, enviromental conservationists? ah the debate worth our lives, literally.

Global warming. happening, guaranteed... i can no longer go to my favorite beach b/c the water has covered it, not washed it away. last year a polar ice shelf 4 million years old and the size of america fell into the ocean and melted, and thats a sign of global warming when something that big and that old dissapears. that additional water created additional humidity which has warmed the earth 2 degrees on avg. the chinese reported that the cherry blossoms that bloom the same time every year bloomed 3 weeks earlier this year signifying a drastic ecological change over a short period of time. the world is decaying people, its already way to late to stop it. we can merely slow it at best. but thats only if WWIII doesnt kill us all first.


only my .o2. please no flaming unless you just hate me.

 

[STiWant1]

I don't hate you, but do some research, in most of the places they actually measure the shoreline and "oceans rising", they can actually attribute most if not all of the change to tectonic shift and settling. I think that we as humans tend to give ourselves more credit than we deserve. The world is bigger than we are and we are but the last second of time. Lets not lose sight of the magnitude of our abilities compared to those of the planet itself. Ice melts, it happens all the time.

 

[BuDDyLeE]

again, said ice shelf was 4 million years old and the size of the US.

and i dont think we feel bigger than we are. we are a major problem on this planet. just beacuse some of us feel that we should deny the problem until its too bad to put off to another generation doesnt mean its not there now. explain the outburst of wildfires in the US and aus lately. merely an ecological quirk? yeah right. what about the pollution of the oceans, they're big too, does that mean that they have to be teaming with retarded fish before people will see this? care about deforrestation? no, not yet? wait until your childrens childrens children cant breath natural ambient air. i suppose all the animals we have wiped off the planet were part of some twisted darwinian ideal? as for tetonic shift i assume cities like NY have never moved b/c it is an island loaded down by billions of tons of crap that wasnt naturally there. how about venice... higher than avg flooding has appeared there over the last 25-30 years, in some cases 10 feet higher than the previous highwater line. this is a city that has been here and had recorded history for over 1000 years and only recently have such things occured.

as for my research, bah-humbug. gimme cash and youll get research, be my professor and youll get research. you will get my opinion and youll like it, the facts i use to support my thoughts are just that. not angry, but humanity has ALREADY fuked the planet.

 

[STiWant1]

You need to spend more time reading journals and less time reading Newsweek and watching the Discovery Channel(s). I have both a Bachelors Degree and a Masters Degree in Environmental Engineering. I am more concerned about the environment than many liberal democrats, and, I work for a government agency that protects the water in the Ohio River Watershed. The problem is that the general public doesn't read the HARD science. They get the watered down pop news stories from the media. Flame me for blaming the media if you want but they don't report hard science. Ask any university professor that hasn't slutted out to TV themselves.

The oceans are rediculous and its our fault. Period.
The rainforests are destroyed and its our fault. Period.
Species extinction, sometimes our fault.
Venice is built on a flood plain. Too bad, but I don't believe in flood insurance. There is a reason the Dutch build flood dikes for 10,000 and 100,000 year flood events.
Air pollution? Stop driving and ride a bike, yeah I thought so. :roll:

One more thing. One thousant or even five thousand years of really good, well documented, history is not enough when you consider the change that has occured on the planet in Billions of years, and the lack of the same detailed record of that period. Humans have a hard time thinking of themselves as small.


"What the American Public doesn't know, is what makes them the American Public." -Zalinski (Tommy Boy)

 

[BuDDyLeE]

man, we seem to be having a schizm. i agree with you. i blame the media, i only take the actual fact from the buttload of misinformation that is presented to us to make us feel at ease. i have NO problem admiting that i alone mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. i know also that i have very little knowledge about the goings on of earth, as does every human.

i merely am pointing out the fact taht the planet is fuked b/c of yours and previous generations and you have left the problems for mine and later genrations to deal with. yeah, you may work for the government agency that protects the water and may be managing the problems, but alas, the problems are still there and the burden is only shifted to a later generation(and i could easily be wrong, i dont know these things are inferred from what i was told). you may, and i am in NO WAY saying that this is what you think, think that you have done your job, and may have done more than required, but your job wasnt to fix the problem, but merely manage it. if im wrong please dont flame. the point i am making isnt whether or not we are fuking the planet, or even if it is fuked, but rather that the problems that we are expereincing arent even close to what is going to come and connot be stopped, but only slowed. and yes i am quite aware that we have only 5000 years of well documented history but that means little because even 200 years ago the world was still pristine. only the midas touch of man has scared the earth, we have everything and want more, this is mankinds downfall.... you can quote me on that. industry will kill the planet, elitists will kill the planet. even greenpeace will kill the planet, they still drive their cars at home. conservationism in america is a weekend event or something we observe during arbor day, not a way of life. "you can clean the planet but if it means i cant have my cell phone and TV then screw that." is the way americans seem to see things. or in the futile ideal, the world is fuked already so why not fuk it more.

to this i say, where is my WRX. WWIII will kill us all before then anyway.

 

[STiWant1]

Re: Without making anyone any more upset,

Its cool, we agree and disagree, I think thats good. Glad we got this worked out, at least in my mind. BTW I am only 28, do you think we are a generation apart, necessarily? Take it easy and see ya round the boards.

 

[BuDDyLeE]

Its cool, we agree and disagree, I think thats good. Glad we got this worked out, at least in my mind. BTW I am only 28, do you think we are a generation apart, necessarily? Take it easy and see ya round the boards.

ok sorry, i thought you were older. yeah we agree, i just get INSANELY pissed when it comes to this topic. even if people like you and i number in the millions, the rest of the world outnumbers us by a few billion. by this i mean that no matter how hard we try, eventually the world is going down.


JJ needs to put a chatroom here.....

 

[danc]

Just to add my two cents...

Scientists can and do disagree, so, although you do have degrees, and an informed opinion, yours is by no means the only intelligent and informed one out there. Nothing against you.

The fact of the matter is, many informed scientists looking specifically at this issue have come to the conclusion that global warming is happening, and is being exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels (among other human activities). I would venture to say an opinion that global warming is not happening, or that it is happening but that it is only happening within historical levels, is the minority opinion among serious (not on some industry's payroll) scientists looking at this problem.

Here are some scientists who feel global warming is a looming threat.
http://www.ucsusa.org/warming/