At long last - my new car.

[ST185]

Well, its been about 1 1/2 years since i sold the GT4. Its also been 1 1/2 years of driving a my wifes hyundai (voted worst car of the year by Top Gear)

Yesturday however i drove away in my new car....
1999 Caldina GT-T

Thanks for those who helped out with my alarm questions.

Has a sunroof too..






Pics were taken with my phone so sorry about the bad quality. Will take more later.

[Dell'Orto]

Nice one, is it manual? Guess we'll be changing your username to ST215 then huh?

[trueno_20v]

nice and tidy

[ST185]

Unfortuantely its tiptronic as my wife will also be driving it and she only can drive automatic.

Its got the gearchange buttons on the steering wheel which ive never used before so i'll have to try that at some stage.

Im going to ask a dumb question now.
If you can change gear using the steering wheel gears then whats the difference betwen that and manual (apart from the clutch) ?

[ST185]

Nice one, is it manual? Guess we'll be changing your username to ST215 then huh?

Yeah ! wheres an admin when you need one.
I'll need to change the pic too at some stage.

[Quint]

Im going to ask a dumb question now.
If you can change gear using the steering wheel gears then whats the difference betwen that and manual (apart from the clutch) ?

My old ladys R34 has this, Basically, you push to change gear, and you wait for it.... wait a little more, and then it changes. It takes getting used too, like you push the button BEFORE you want it to change gears, once bounced it off its limiter because of this.

Its pretty good though, especially for engine brakeing into corners etc. Love the auto round town, manual on long trips, takes a while to get used to going from a 5speed to a 4speed box though, much longer gears.

[rage]

its still an auto box which drains more power from the engine and has slower gear changes. stock auto boxes are also weaker and get angry when more power is put thru them without extras like trans cooling etc. the tiptronic just allows you to control the gear changes instead of the computer. downshifting you will find is the msot annoying part of it, theres a lot of time lag between when you press the button and when it acutally shifts down. and also only the most expensive boxes (usually the auto boxes with actual computer controlled clutches) can match revs when downshifting. so when u hit the downshift on the tiptronic, u get that terrible lunge like when u forcefully downshift without double clutching and matchin revs on a manual box.

[ST185]

Yeah,thats what i thought, idont expect it to be a proper performance wagon without it being manual. Ibought it mainly for thefamily but also for a bit of grunt.

Out of curiousity, does anyone know the 0-100 and 1/4mile times for the auto ?

[snwtoy]

Many GT-T owners will swear black and blue that the tippy/auto versions are on par and may be even quicker than their manual counterparts.

Being a manual owner I naturally have to poo-poo such nonsense.

Welcome to the dub... errr club!

BTW, those are wicked pics for a phone. Better than many with a 'real' camera

[flygt4]

nice choice , they are damn good wagons , comfortable and imo better looking than the mitsi and subies offerings.
they actually suit the auto box well , even my non turbo gt wagon works well with the full auto. you'll be grateful when you get stuck in traffic the first time, and its also nice on long open road drives.

the auto gtt's seem to do mid 14sec 1/4 miles standard as they seem to be a bit iffy to get off the line hard. the only real difference in speed between the manual and auto is getting them started as far as i can tell.

sigh , i sometimes wish i had gone for the gtt version , but there was no way i could justify having two thirsty toys

[matt dunn]

Im going to ask a dumb question now.
If you can change gear using the steering wheel gears then whats the difference betwen that and manual (apart from the clutch) ?

If it's anything like the altezzza tiptronics ( and it probably is)
even in manual mode, if your medium revs and plant doot it will still drop down a gear and rev it's nuts off.

[Emperor]

Glad R34's dont that, wont change gear itself, and the steering wheel buttons are quicker than on the stick

[ST185]

snwtoy; thanks for the reply. Of course being a tiptronic owner myself i will of course beleive the other auto owners totally.
Pics taken on my sony ericson - it has a 2 meg camera in it but the pics can sometimes still come out grainy.

flygt4; I know exatly where you are coming from. I seriously considered the mitsi legnum and the subaru. But at the end of the day, though the toyota was down on power, the styling looks so much better in my opinion.
The subaru is way to common, and no matter what forum i did research on the mitsi aways seems to have problems.

matt; i had a feeling it would be so. I'll give it a go today and see what its like. Having never used it before i will likely forget to change gear or even more likely move my hand down to the gear box looking for the gearstick.

Cheers guys

[Pies]

hey welcome back man! havent seen the old 185 round in a while. used to park next to it at james smiths when i was at tech.

nice choice in new cars maybe we will see ya back at a meet soon!

[ST185]

hey welcome back man! havent seen the old 185 round in a while. used to park next to it at james smiths when i was at tech.

nice choice in new cars maybe we will see ya back at a meet soon!

Ha, yeah i know. Ive been reading the board for a while but had nothing to contribute ....i was driving a hyundai ...
Drove up the gorge today, in the hyundai it woud be screaming its nuts off to stay at 100ks. Effortless in the Caldina.

[WanaGo]

Basically, you push to change gear, and you wait for it.... wait a little more, and then it changes.

Mine GTT changes basically instantly. The auto box is really good in it too, it seems to be quite intelligent in terms of knowing when to change down etc. Realise the quote was not for a GTT.
Floor it in first and you will have no problem reaching redline before it changes if you keep your foot down. Driving open road, just press it down a bit suddenly, and it instantly changes down and before you know it youve past the car infront. I find it great.

The buttons on the steering wheel are interesting though - I would much prefer to have it on the stick and move it front to back. I find with my driving style, my hand isnt on one side of the wheel, so when you go to change up or down in manual, I have to fluff about to find the button. I basically stay with auto mode now - its mint, and you can drive it just like the tiptronic way basically - just have good accelerator control, the car does it all for you.

But yes I am biased. Drove a manual one a few weeks back though, and didnt actually like it as much. I wont enter into a debate, but they both have their pos and negs.

Enjoy it

WanaGo

[sergei]

I think whole tiptronic thing is flawed. Why do you need to control up shift when auto does it better on its own, only good for engine braking. ECU controlling gearbox is way faster than you whatching that rev counter.
While person will think about pressing the button to change the gear, the auto will be finnished changing it.
Tiptronic has disatvantages from both worlds: you have to manually change, and it got typical automatic drive train loss, and bad gearing. Changes on tiptronic are never instant. I have not seen one tiptronic car wich will change manually gears instantly.
Even auto-manuals (manual gearboxes with automatic controlled clutch and semi-auto shift) like ones on MR-S are laggy.

Either complete manual or complete auto. (unless it is the double clutch system, but I have not driven one so I cannot comment)

[MasCam]

The tiptronic thing is not flawed due to the fact that it is a mode of the automatic i.e. you can leave the thing in auto if you want but you can assume more control if you want to. I quite normally switch between auto and tiptronic on a trip.

Chris