DB9 for the day! What's the thought process on purchasing?
Discussion
I'm going to caveat the following by saying that the example of the DB9 I drove was 5 years old and pretty ropey but having said that what an awful car!
The only good things were the engine and its looks.
I'd been really looking forward to driving this car, it's undeniably gorgeous has a massive V12 engine and fits 2 adults and 2 kids.
However, within a few minutes of being in it, I thought, there's no way I'd have spent £109k on this new and once it got moving things got a whole lot worse.
The suspension had all of the finesse and subtlety of a roller skate (in fact that may be unfair to roller skates). It creaked and squealed for no apparent reason (which some might call "character" but I just think is annoying). The steering was OK but inconsistent and therefore just scary on occasion - just a really poorly resolved car.
I even thought OK, it's a GT, let me try it on a motorway. Sure enough, the engine sounds great under load but at a constant speed it had this cyclical drone that made it sound like somebody was vacuuming in the back, which would really wind me up for a long journey.
And that doesn't even take into account the utterly outrageoulsy poor quality of the interior! The indicator stalks crack like something out of the 80's, in fact the whole car felt like it had come by time warp out of the 80's!
IMHO an utter pile of s**t (but better looking).
Funny thing is, I don't remember seeing any poor reviews, which is somewhat shocking given the ineptitude of the execution! Still maybe I had a poor example but it still made me wonder who buys this thing? It's such an expensive and poor quality product, cars a tenth of the price are better. In all honesty a Fiesta would be better to drive than the car I drove, just not as quick, not as pretty and with no premium badge!
It's a crying shame, Aston Martin has such a great brand, a fantastic heritage, builds amazing engines - if they hired a few people in quality control, they'd have an excellent car.
Hopefully, the brand new ones are a lot better!
The only good things were the engine and its looks.
I'd been really looking forward to driving this car, it's undeniably gorgeous has a massive V12 engine and fits 2 adults and 2 kids.
However, within a few minutes of being in it, I thought, there's no way I'd have spent £109k on this new and once it got moving things got a whole lot worse.
The suspension had all of the finesse and subtlety of a roller skate (in fact that may be unfair to roller skates). It creaked and squealed for no apparent reason (which some might call "character" but I just think is annoying). The steering was OK but inconsistent and therefore just scary on occasion - just a really poorly resolved car.
I even thought OK, it's a GT, let me try it on a motorway. Sure enough, the engine sounds great under load but at a constant speed it had this cyclical drone that made it sound like somebody was vacuuming in the back, which would really wind me up for a long journey.
And that doesn't even take into account the utterly outrageoulsy poor quality of the interior! The indicator stalks crack like something out of the 80's, in fact the whole car felt like it had come by time warp out of the 80's!
IMHO an utter pile of s**t (but better looking).
Funny thing is, I don't remember seeing any poor reviews, which is somewhat shocking given the ineptitude of the execution! Still maybe I had a poor example but it still made me wonder who buys this thing? It's such an expensive and poor quality product, cars a tenth of the price are better. In all honesty a Fiesta would be better to drive than the car I drove, just not as quick, not as pretty and with no premium badge!
It's a crying shame, Aston Martin has such a great brand, a fantastic heritage, builds amazing engines - if they hired a few people in quality control, they'd have an excellent car.
Hopefully, the brand new ones are a lot better!
I presume from your description the reg ended in VUC, If so I know this car and would not judge the rest by this one, And would not blame Aston for the build quality, she has had an extremely hard life with very little love and attention, Thrashed and beaten just about every day of her life,
rick-derby- said:
I presume from your description the reg ended in VUC, If so I know this car and would not judge the rest by this one, And would not blame Aston for the build quality, she has had an extremely hard life with very little love and attention, Thrashed and beaten just about every day of her life,
OP; more info, was it this one?
Shmee said:
OP; more info, was it this one?
Yes I think so - and as stated appreciate not the best example but even so, there were some things that were surprisingly crap for £110k and not the sort of thing you'd expect, like naff graphics on the radio and instrument panel, the steering column stalks (seriously, the ones on our Mini are better although this is an understatement of such an extreme nature that I'm not sure that it's fair to describe them as the same thing!).The gear change is rubbish (not so much the actual quality of the shift, which isn't great) but the way you access it. The light switch is in an impossible position, the seat mechanism is straight out of a Volvo and obviosuly so. The lever to fold the seat forward is utterly s
te, like it's designed to fall apart. So I accept that I drove a ratty example, poorly cared for, which is probably unrepresentative of how they drive but the actual quality of the interior is still useless and is presumably the same no matter how well it's been cared for?
TheForceV4 said:
Blimey!? Really that bad?
Sadly yes - totally, utterly crap beyond belief. The thing is I do spend money on expensive things but there needs to be both a perceived and actual quality for me to justify paying over the odds for said item. Aston probably succeeds on the perception piece but not on the actual, lots of tacky plasticky bits in the car, nothing to surprise and delight as they say - a Golf of the same vintage is light years ahead in terms of interior quality, let alone a current one - god a Subaru runs it close!!!The light switch is in exactly the same position as on every BMW. The seat is tipped forward by pressing a button, not pulling a lever.
The other thing I have to say is that my first experience of an Aston was exactly the opposite. After a succession of BMWs (and I still have two), the interiors of which I have always liked, my first and lasting impression of sitting in an Aston was of class and quality (with the exception of a few Ford Group switches).
The other thing I have to say is that my first experience of an Aston was exactly the opposite. After a succession of BMWs (and I still have two), the interiors of which I have always liked, my first and lasting impression of sitting in an Aston was of class and quality (with the exception of a few Ford Group switches).
Zod said:
The only negative bit I'm familiar with is the poor quality of the Ford stalks.
The interior is very high quality in my judgement, coming from long experience of BMWs.
Suspension has improved enormously from the original versions.
Sorry Zod, can't agree with you there - The headlining is nice (alcantara) and the actual dials themselves look quite nice but the main console is a huge shiny, plastic veneer with small buttons (they could have made it our of metal for that much cash!) E92 M3 has i-drive which is made out of metal, with higher quality plastic panel and more simple interface (which is surprising considering the ribbing that i-drive gets).The interior is very high quality in my judgement, coming from long experience of BMWs.
Suspension has improved enormously from the original versions.
The switches for the heating were like those from a 1980's radio - My E92 M3 had a metal finish and was therefore much nicer to touch and all buttons are damped, so feel good on a BMW, not so the Aston.
Then there's the electric seat switches, which are obviously from a Volvo - if the car was about £40k, then fine but for £110k I'd want it to feel and look much higher quality than it does.
The switches for seat heating, window heating etc look like they were designed (and built) by my 3 year old son, actually that's unfair, he'd have done a much better job! And ergonomically, what a joke! The funniest irony was a button labelled "READ" that you guessed it; you can't actually read!
Sorry to be so harsh but seriously you can't call it a high quality interior and that's in fact proven by the fact that it looks so shabby in spite of the fact that it's been treated roughly. I've driven ropey 996 turbos, that live exclusively on the track and although the interior looks dated, the general qualilty of the car's materials is far superior, proven by the fact that they've lasted well in spite of rough treatment!
I can call it what I like, given it was my impression. The horizontal part of the centre console is a flat sheet of metal. The vertical bit is indeed plastic. It has also changed since the car you drove was built. The heater control knobs are milled aluminium. I've never had that on a BMW. The seat buttons and stalks on the other hand are terrible Ford parts bin bits. In just about every car on the road, I can find buttons and trim parts that are dreadful. In a 996, the buttons might be OK in themselves, but the whole interior design is an awful dog's breakfast.
You haven't acknowledged that the car you drove was an utter dog. Drive a different one and then post again.
You haven't acknowledged that the car you drove was an utter dog. Drive a different one and then post again.
Zod said:
The light switch is in exactly the same position as on every BMW. The seat is tipped forward by pressing a button, not pulling a lever.
The other thing I have to say is that my first experience of an Aston was exactly the opposite. After a succession of BMWs (and I still have two), the interiors of which I have always liked, my first and lasting impression of sitting in an Aston was of class and quality (with the exception of a few Ford Group switches).
hmmm, no - the light switch on a bmw is directly to the right of the wheel. On the Aston it's sort of below right and kind of facing (down) away from you. And to be honest if you feel the interior has lots of class and quality, that's great; let's agree to disagree.The other thing I have to say is that my first experience of an Aston was exactly the opposite. After a succession of BMWs (and I still have two), the interiors of which I have always liked, my first and lasting impression of sitting in an Aston was of class and quality (with the exception of a few Ford Group switches).
Are your BMWs new by the way?
J-P said:
hmmm, no - the light switch on a bmw is directly to the right of the wheel. On the Aston it's sort of below right and kind of facing (down) away from you. And to be honest if you feel the interior has lots of class and quality, that's great; let's agree to disagree.
Are your BMWs new by the way?
The switch is in exactly the same place - down to the right of the steering wheel, a three position rotary switch. Are your BMWs new by the way?
I bought my M5 new in March 2006 and the X5 new six weeks ago.
I'm happy to agree to disagree on interior quality, but on how the cars are to drive, you cannot base your view on this one ropey example.
J-P said:
Sadly yes - totally, utterly crap beyond belief. The thing is I do spend money on expensive things but there needs to be both a perceived and actual quality for me to justify paying over the odds for said item. Aston probably succeeds on the perception piece but not on the actual, lots of tacky plasticky bits in the car, nothing to surprise and delight as they say - a Golf of the same vintage is light years ahead in terms of interior quality, let alone a current one - god a Subaru runs it close!!!
i have driven a fair amount of exotic metal in my time and would say your opinions are in the vast minority.i would suggest that the car you drove was a pig as rick said because it goes against what most people(owners and none owners alike)think.i most recently drove a ferrari f430 and while it was a fantastic drive i didn't feel the interior was as nice a place (from a tactile point of view)to be as my aston.whatever floats your boat i suppose but to say the interior of a db9 is tacky and plasticky is somewhat over egging the pudding i feel to possibly get a reaction from the aston forum???Zod said:
I can call it what I like, given it was my impression. The horizontal part of the centre console is a flat sheet of metal. The vertical bit is indeed plastic. It has also changed since the car you drove was built. The heater control knobs are milled aluminium. I've never had that on a BMW. The seat buttons and stalks on the other hand are terrible Ford parts bin bits. In just about every car on the road, I can find buttons and trim parts that are dreadful. In a 996, the buttons might be OK in themselves, but the whole interior design is an awful dog's breakfast.
You haven't acknowledged that the car you drove was an utter dog. Drive a different one and then post again.
Sorry I didn't mean "you" as in Zod can't call it high quality but more "you" in general terms, so please don't take offence. And I also mentioned the car I drove's age and at the end hoped that it had improved. The heater controls on your car are clearly different to the one I drove - the one's on my 3 series were aluminium around the outside too! And yes, I do agree that lots of cars have crappy, poorly designed bits on them and I concede that a 996 doesn't have a well-designed interior but this car would have cost about £40k more than a 996 when new (if not more), so should exude quality at every touch point IMHO.You haven't acknowledged that the car you drove was an utter dog. Drive a different one and then post again.
And I thought I'd made it clear in my original post with the initial caveat that the car my not be representative? perhaps not given your final line
michael gould said:
I dont really understand your post or what you hope to achive by it........I asume your intention is to wind up Aston Martin owners ?
Not at all, I don't like winding people up, it was just my opinion - I was interested in how they get bought (I'd assumed looks and engine) but it appears that not only was the car an acknowledged dog but that people have very different views on quality, which is understandable - the world would be a very boring place if we were all the same!Maybe I'll try a new one and then post again as per Zod's earlier comment.
tuscaneer said:
i think that your best bet is to not buy one then
Or at least not one that's 5 years old And I can't afford a new DB9, so good advice!I guess I just really wanted to love it, so was massively disappointed when I didn't - bit like pulling the best-looking girl at school and realising that she's not what you expected or wanted!
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