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Hey guys, been a long time since I've been active here, but you know what? I've been brewing a car taxation plan in the back of my mind for months, just never sat down to write it out.
We all know the legendary COE and many of us by now have already said it needs a do-over, even the polimakers are starting to say something about giving it a do-over.
But always without reconsidering what classifying cars should be.

Since I'm never gonna get into the "job" of public service, here's my comprehensive... uh... suggestion? You wanna tl;dr? Fine, I'll leave one at the end.

Total COE Restructure

Let's start with the headliner, which is always our iconic certificates (we know our car don't last forever, because of COE).

Since its inception, the COE has, for consumers, been fundamentally separated into categories A and B, which for now I will focus on.
As a reminder; Category A represents passenger vehicles up to 1,600cc or 130hp (97kW), and Category B is just... anything over that, making the assumption that B category vehicles are inherently larger or more luxurious vehicles.
Now, the main proclaimed goal of COE is managing the vehicle population, and ostensibly managing road congestion by limiting the volume of cars.

With that stated intent in mind, who agrees that a car's power output and displacement has any real bearing on its ability to create congestion?
Would ten buses cause more congestion than ten Golf Rs in the same stretch of road? Would ten Cat B Golf Rs cause more congestion than ten Cat A Golf (....what's it called now? 90TSI? Scrap that too)
Ten buses would definitely block more road than ten Golfs, EA888 or not, but of course the counterpoint is that ten buses holds many times more people than ten Golfs, or even the equivalent number of Golfs in terms of length.

Redefining the Categories... on Size.

So my suggestion is, actually, quite simple - let's redefine COE categories based on the physical size of vehicles. This is easily accessible information, I cannot think of any car that you cannot get dimension information for, and if you really can't, there's nothing stopping the homologation department from breaking out a tape measure.

I don't think I want to arbitrarily define numbers I think are suitable for separating Category A and B at the moment, but...
If we consider trends, I'd say a comfortable position for Category A is 4,700mm long and below, as most "compact" sedans today remain in the ~4,650mm long range, and plenty of small hatchbacks are well low that. (Isn't it ridiculous that a 2020 G20 3-series now is longer than the 1994 Mazda Capella/626?)

Anyway, keeping things simple would be using length, because that is usually what really determines how much space a car needs on a road. I consider 4.65m a median of sorts, 4.7~5m the range locals traditionally consider a large family car, and that anything over 5m, nobody is going to call that small. Cars under 4.4m are typically the 'small' ones today, you'd be hard pressed to still find something under 4m.
Again, keeping it simple, if we were to retain a binary classification, Category A could be below 4.7m and Category B anything longer than that.

Alternatively, we can expand it a little to include overall footprint, by taking length x width of the car, but given that lanes are lanes and people aren't supposed to be driving across two lanes, it occurred to me while writing this that that's really a little unnecessary, plus it makes it a tad harder to account for capacities.

Long story short though, is let's just redefine COE categories based on size/length of a car, not its engine power/displacement, which no longer has any real direct bearing on its state of luxury, economy, efficiency, or, most importantly, physical size.

COE Incentive for Family Vehicles

With Singapore's infamously small land area, there's a consistent push for car sharing, reducing the number of individual vehicles, increasing the person per vehicle, and so on, but there's also a consistent and very unhappy demographic of families that for practical purposes need a vehicle on demand for themselves to manage their children.
Yes, you can bring your kids on a bus, but with a stroller and all the like, managing a potentially rambunctious or easily upset child whilst carrying a baby or other nightmare scenarios, you can imagine all of that, and there are plenty of little articles about why families scrounge everything they can to afford a car even with the wide availability of ride hailing and our celebrated public transport. (Simply don't Go aside)

By their nature, a sportscar, two seaters especially, have less capacity for transporting and are traditionally the domain of luxury, and rarely sit in the lower price classes. But at the same time, a tiny convertible like a Daihatsu Copen may be really just a recreational vehicle for two, but it takes up virtually no road at all compared to a Toyota Fortuner.
With this in mind, I'd propose that any vehicle with less than five seats incur a COE multiplier - it should cost more to own a vehicle of this type, but it should still be in accordance with its size. As such, a 7-seater, which has the capacity to hold more people, and is often a choice made to accommodate a growing family, should be incentivized - it should have a COE reduction.

Of course, it's always going to be true that cars spend a lot of time with less than their entire capacity filled, but there's really not a whole lot we can do to mitigate that. But the fact is that placing a Polo GTI in the same taxation category as a Nissan X-Trail, or a bus-lane demanding Aventador, is antithetical to the system's intent.
Many of the times a family that really could do with a vehicle are the ones who are suffering the most from sky high COEs, whereas we know by now those who can afford their fifth Porsche don't really care too much about an extra $20k.

Short version:
COE classification based on size of the car
COE Penalty for impractical sports vehicles with less usable seats
COE benefit for practical family vehicles with more usable seats

But hold on, why again do we need to fuss so much?

The COE system has been unfairly cruel to the folks who can arguably need vehicles the most, and at real worst an annoyance to rental/fleet companies and affluent individuals with the means to own multiple cars.
There needs to be a real restructuring to allow more cars to be used by these young families who struggle in many ways because they see cars as a necessity even with all their 'alternatives', while taking more from those who are ordering their third Cayman.
Size is the thing that implicates congestion potential the most, and instead encouraging a population of many small cars, two Jazzes can hold five people (even if in relative discomfort) each compared to four in a standard S-class, while taking up only marginally more effective space on the road.

A Prius makes barely over 130hp and gets shoved into Cat B, but who's gonna say a Prius is appreciably more luxury than a Corolla Altis?
Power and displacement has long been detached from a car's class, but physically larger cars often really do be more inefficient and luxurious - compare, say, again, an Audi A1 to an Audi A6. You can have both with the 1.4TFSI engine, but the A4 is noticeably better built on the inside. Even accounting for the tune increase, the Cat B A4 1.4 is much less efficient because it weighs more.
Then you have the obviously ridiculous Mercedes Benz MFA180 spec, (A180, B180, CLA180, etc.), which previously came with the M270 "RED" engine, RED standing for reduced - that brought the 1.6L engine from MFA200 specs of around 155hp to the Category A 130hp to allow the premium brand to sell Category A vehicles here. The thing that's widely ignored is that the Cat A "RED" engine is not only less powerful, but less efficient, both in the claimed numbers and in real use.
A more recent example is the 2023 Honda Civic Turbo's local exclusive Cat A 129hp tune, a substantial reduction from the engine's normal 180hp variant, without being appreciably more efficient, and even before that KM is one of just 8 territories where the ancient 1.6L engine was recycled one more time for the 2017 Civic tenth gen.
Many hybrids produce over 130hp but are more efficient, but automatically get discouraged by Cat B.

I'll reiterate this point, but to summarise this section;
The current COE structure is outdated, nonsensical even at its inception and does not keep cars affordable for lower income families who need them to better manage their children in their busy lives, an increasingly vocal demographic that we weigh all our hopes on. Managing one kid and one stroller on Bus MRT Walk is tough enough, but our population won't grow when it's so hard to care for your children.
Plus, the absurd choice of metrics of power output and displacement to classify vehicles discourages innovation in powerplants that we seriously need for reducing the gasoline footprint, resulting in a larger population of cars with outdated engines.

The World's Most Expensive Cars... with the lowest specifications

We already know we have the most expensive cars in the world, but have you noticed we have the lowest specced cars in the world too?
Why? ARF. The ARF taxation is why you pay for your car's value, at minimum, twice over - a car's ARF, before "incentives", is 100% of a vehicle's OMV, and gets worse from there.
As such, higher spec vehicles incurring higher OMV incur higher ARF.
This of course makes sense from the standpoint of taxing luxury, but it also means that dealers, with their immense margins, are not willing to bring in vehicles that are well equipped.

Consider Citroën under C&C, which has for whatever reason decided that the storied French nameplate should be a lower cost brand. Their latest lineups have been exclusively brought in with pretty barebone specifications, lacking even electric seat options. "Premium" Automobiles has been perhaps the most depressing offender to me personally, with their hypocritical name - their cars routinely lack any manner of technology that befits Audi's slogan, just a few of the most obviously visible ones for "wow" factor - Virtual Cockpit for example was hyped early on.
Due to the expensive taxation via ARF, batch homologation and lack of flexibility in bringing in cars of individually customized equipment levels, the dealers are largely discouraged from importing vehicles with full equipment lists - as someone who personally wants a car with all the trimmings, this has been a long running frustration of mine.
Audi's presense active safety/assistance suite is available on...... I don't know, which? Only the A8? The Q8 doesn't even have the sunglasses compartment and lined interior visors, for crying out loud.

You can get all of those on... a Skoda Octavia. For far less.
Why do I care so much about these features? Because many of these are safety technologies that are being exorcised from premium cars, safety technologies I was one of the earliest to adopt. I've a 2015 model year vehicle featuring adaptive cruise, blind spot warnings and lane keeping assist, four years before these features have reached Singapore's mainstream.
And you still struggle to get these as standard on an Audi, a BMW, or a Mercedes. Even though they're widely available from mainstream brands now (Peugeot, Toyota SafetySense, Honda Sensing, Subaru Eyesight, Mazda has it too, so on), the premium marques don't offer adaptive cruise or their full safety suites, at best a cut down variant. PML BMWs have begun to have Driving Assistant across all cars, but this is limited to camera based front active city braking, blind spot warning and lane keeping, you are still denied RADAR based active cruise. And the PA imported Audi S3 in 2019 did not come with a reverse camera.

I want an upgrade, not a downgrade.
There needs to be more emphasis on safety technologies and not "wow" technologies, and dealers need to start offering smaller vehicles with premium equipment lists.

What's a solution?

Obviously this problem also lies with dealers and consumer mindsets, the desires always to cut corners on our already expensive cars, and I think it's fine that we should have to pay more for options like Virtual Cockpit, or Alcantara trim.

But I think we need to stop compromising on safety technology. This is to me, non-negotiable at this point. In other countries across the world, many marques have begun offering these features as standard. Hold on, you might say, why does it matter so much? I don't need this stuff, I drive fine.
So in the eight years I've been driving my beloved Mondeo, I've used Adaptive Cruise nearly every journey... But I've had the emergency brake intervention trigger only twice. I was sleepy. You will never be driving in 100% perfect condition every day of your life.
We already say we've got some of the worst drivers, the most kiasu, the most impolite, and my Mondeo isn't shy about warning me that I'm less than two seconds of following distance to the car in front (I have sensitivity on high for pedestrian detection), but what's to say we can't reduce the number of accidents with these features?
Side anecdote, I'm still baffled by how seven cars can have a chain collision in the middle of the highway, an empty highway during Circuit Breaker, in broad, clear daylight.
What kind of absurd scenario causes that?

Yes, it'll make the cars more expensive, as these aren't without a cost, but can you imagine how much less we'd lose in time and money if we had virtually zero accidents across our roads? Less congestion, less time wasted, less fuel burnt in traffic jams, no need to waste TP resources dispatching to manage the scene, less money spent on EMAS recovery. Less money lost on people idling in a jam.

So I propose that there be a discount incentive for safety technology equipment on cars.
Say, a $500 incentive for forward collision detection.
$500 off for Blind Spot warning.
$250 off for adaptive headlights.
$250 off for seatbelt airbags (my Mondeo didn't come with them, sadly)
Something like that.
I also think, really, we should consider making it possible to fine someone extra if they were involved in an accident while driving with that feature disabled (if equipped, obviously), or at least if I were an insurance officer I would probably increase the person's excess for that incident.

The legislation has long been discouraging advanced technologies and our cars have been routinely some of the worst equipped in the world, while the COE system somehow results in some of the most inefficient powerplants reaching us. 

You might have noticed I didn't specify a discount on ARF, which has long been the typical means of providing incentives, notably through the EV early adopters incentive and the CEVS rebate. That's because anyone who knows ARF knows that ARF is what determines your PARF rebate, more commonly known as scrap value. The PARF rebate depreciates linearly from 100% ARF to 50% over the ten years of the car's original COE, which means that every $1,000 discount on ARF is really a $500 loss to your PARF rebate.
Which is why cars, particularly EVs, that have high CEVS rebates, have spectacularly poor depreciation rates. (See, for example, SGCM's BMW iX3 vs X3 faceoff)

Incentives need to be serious, and to be really serious about being an incentive they need to not take from the consumer's back pocket.
I also suggest we start incentivizing real hybrids, and plug-in hybrids. In a meaningful way. Tons of dealers have started offering mild hybrids, which just include a small booster battery that helps start from a standstill. These do not confer any real efficiency benefit overall. Plug-in Hybrids are expensive now, but deserve to have more penetration. I asked many a dealer, why are you not offering PHEVs? The answer? Nobody wants them. My response; nobody I've asked knows they exist.
Dear dealers, you make the markets, not the consumers, in Singapore. Do us better.

I suddenly got really sleepy at this point, so I'll maybe elaborate in another post. All the essential info's above.
But what else do I think I want to throw in?
The diesel duty raise. That was dumb - commercial vehicles are the most frequent user of diesel, and increasing their cost to run has undoubtedly lead to delivery and freight costs rising and reaching the consumer.
Rental companies propping up COEs with their indifference to high COE prices? Supposedly doesn't happen, but I doubt that. Almost definitely has to be happening, and then those cheap grade low spec cars get dumped on the preowned market exacerbating the problems I described. Not to mention that expensive COEs lead to more use of rental vehicles, which the rental companies can price up to recover their costs...? Makes for a self-sustaining cycle.

Anyway, as promised, tl;dr;

COE current system of displacement/power is dumb (and was dumb in 1990), change classification system to be based on length.
Discount COE for more than 5 seats, penalty for less than 5 seats
Revise ARF/add incentives for safety technology to encourage safer cars
Revise incentives to encourage more efficient gasoline cars, not just EVs, because EVs are still not ready

Bruh... that's really diluting the details down... 😓

1 hour ago, BanCoe said:

its a good car - my 10 year experience - no major costs apart small ones below $200-$300 range, used to buy the parts from a Veerasamy Road shop fella and just sent to some Ah Beng workshop in Redhill area cost about $200-$300 only (only serviced with Regent for 3 or 5 years - cant remember now, always got silly charges), Last went to their showroom about 8 years to see the Mondeo again to give support ........ damn teruk lah the car .....lousy overtrade ... ... no rear AC also when even 1.5-1.6L korean cars had them already back then; Even the showroom like damn dingy apart from the  Mustang's

I think they have even outsouced the servicing to a private company.... Vantage something...... which also does Peugeots (back then ....... dunno the latest now)   

Back then about 10 years plus Regent also got quite a big contract to supply MINDEF with the jeep like ATR vehicles and they used to lease out lots of thier cars to rental companies

   

Regent is a Division of Vantage Automotive which is in turn a part of the Sime Darby Group, hence why some BMW services (such as grooming) go to the Vantage Automotive Centre. Peugeot's AD is Autofrance, which, bing bing, is a division of Vantage Automotive, hence why RM/Af all operate in the same building and basically you might as well just consider the whole thing "Vantage Automotive" instead of distinguishing between RM/Af/VA.
So servicing is under RM which is under VA and so on.
Currently now the former RM showroom on the ground floor left side of the entrance is now Vantage Preowned (I'm guessing mostly cars traded in... especially to BMW... that didn't wind up at PPSL select). The Ford showroom, if it's even still actually there, is now on the upper floor, which was once a collection area or occasionally an event room, though if they have anything on display it would only be Ranger and Mustang.

Which Mondeo did you see at the time? I have rear air-con vents in the Mk5 and I believe Mk4 would have had rear air-con vents.

To my awareness, RM/Vantage ops for Ford are now focusing on fleet/B2B, including government/civil service vehicles since the civil services still use a number of Ford special-utility vehicles as well as the small squad of civil defense Focus wagons.

Personally I can't recommend the Mk5 Mondeo enough, it's still a premium experience for merely a middle class price and packing many goodies that have taken half a decade to stop being scarce. I'll try to answer whatever question you might have about the car itself. @Mercur1al
The deal I got from RM was... subpar, but the car itself was worth it, I think. Naturally though the rarity and lack of recognition for the nameplate though means that value mostly sits with me 😂

On 8/17/2021 at 2:19 PM, Mercur1al said:

Hi guys, not seen an update in this chat recently.

For the 2.0 Ecoboost MK5 Mondeo owners, any updates on how the car has been holding up? I'm a little tired of my existing car so thought i'd take a look at the market. Came across the Mondeo that's quite reasonably priced and ticks a fair bit of my checklist so thought i'd check it out.

Any notes on the reliability and quirks? Regent was doing fairly well previously in 2016/2017 but from 2018 onwards seems to dropped off the radar completely? Hardly bring in reasonable cars that will appeal to the market. What has happened to them?

Oh hey, long time since I've been here. I forgot about everything. 😅

Mine has been reliable, practically flawless. Only problems off the top of my head have been:
Musty smell in air-conditioning within the first few months, but could be attributed to extreme haze conditions
Short lifespan of the OEM battery (~15 months at best, but I got around 22~26 months with a larger capacity Varta silver)
Brake pedal detection switch got busted at some point and left the car stuck in brakes on state
Brake hose got broken during a trip up north. Could have been due to something striking undercarriage however.
Just had the left D-pad on the steering wheel replaced. It was having difficulty pressing >

Nothing I've had with it has been "ruined the experience" or meant complete downtime, apart from the brake hose and pedal switch. The engine, suspension, etc., are all reliable and there have been no electronic failures.

I'm in a rush right now so here's the most obvious quirks I can think of:
SYNC 2 is very outdated right now and has no support for latest phone features. But it'll take phone calls, display messages and etc. perfectly fine, but you can't accept/reject VoIP calls (e.g. whatsapp, LINE) from the car buttons, the Bluetooth connection can sometimes fail to connect, but could be a bug with my devices
Auto air-con mode seems to not really have tunnel detection.
Wipers have opposing directions. I like this. But the blades are larger (26~28 inches)
Rear brake pads wore down faster for me. In all my years with it I've finally replaced the pads for the first time, but the rear pads went faster, surprisingly.
On occasion the warning tone for the forward collision detection will glitch - the alarm occurs for the sound is broken up.
When the battery is low or on other random occasions the car will fallback to its "basic" sound set for alert tones instead of the "pleasant" version you're supposed to hear.
The Trip Computer has an overflow bug or other sort of problem for Trip 1/2 records, it spills over after a certain point (I guesstimate around 4800km) and restarts the distance display. Very weird.
The car has a battery state awareness of some kind and will vary/limit the sleep-time for the 12V sockets accordingly. However there is no way to control the timer yourself and if you have things permanently plugged into them they will stay on for at least a certain amount of time if your battery is healthy
The headlights are aimed relatively high. I think they're fine personally but you might not. The Left/Right hand drive mode for the adaptive headlights has a level angle difference as well for some weird reason.
On occasion the parking sensors get triggered when there doesn't seem to be anything there. Maybe they even react to exhaust from buses. Haha.

I'll be back shortly with more thoughts when I can.

In regards to Regent Motors they've been the worst part of the experience. Service is just "adequate" at best despite their premium pricing and their work is nothing to write home about. They've never been able to give me any software updates either despite me demanding and paying for one.
I just want the improved trip computer fuel economy display, gosh darn it.
The repairs for the brake hose took thrice as long as expected, and the job wasn't done properly three times, and I was given no courtesy car.
I love the car. I hate the dealer.

I've asked about their future a few times but the last I'd heard was they had been trying to negotiate the newer models but they don't pass local emissions tests and will be placed in a worse CEVS band. I suspect it's due to non-carbon emissions. Ford engines aren't the best in terms of that.
It's a pity since the latest Focus, Kuga and Puma are all excellent cars.
 

On 8/18/2021 at 7:29 AM, teomingern said:

Ford stopped making sedans... that's what happened... and decided to sell only cross-overs and trucks...

That's true of the American division of Ford, Ford Europe, which is where our cars come from, still markets the Focus, but as with everyone else they have shifted focus to "utility" vehicles. The Mondeo has no future for now, apart from perhaps returning as yet another plastic-clad family crossover. Take the wagon, jack it up a little, put some black trim and there you go. Mondeo Active. The Focus Active exists, so... yeah.

7 hours ago, inlinesix said:

 

That's the very one I saw

Some word came out about the turbo 3, still expected to be the 2.5L engine making about 227hp; dunno how well will compete with those figures compared to european cars doing 210~265hp from 2.0L

Any news on SkyActiv X in SG anot?

I think main thing I don't like about the new 3 is the half-ars instrument cluster and the big rear pillars

Here we go now but Cat E still no movement

Edit: GG liao

Cat B started moving, but haven't reach 4 figures

Hit F5... now $1,002

The fun's started 

Watched a few, can't say I feel like I learn much, and there's very little comparison to anything else that really helps establish what the baseline is. Like the review for new 3-series should have clear comparison to C-class, for example.

Then the information also seems light, maybe even inaccurate, or plain no research. I don't remember the exact detail, but I got this feeling when watching the V60 Recharge review.

Humor falls flat for me, but I don't expect good and fun writing out of our local press since not British.

1:43pm and Cat B/E still under quota

Usually the fun happens in the last hour, but, we all know what time it is...

On 1/15/2020 at 10:47 AM, Xenor said:

I am driving the X3 30i Msport now and I love the handling of the car. I think there is always a comprise between comfort and handling. Softer suspension is more comfortable but cause the car to lean more on hard cornering and affect the handling and vice versa. 
 

Thus, if you are ordering new then it would be great to have option in Dynamic Damper Control. Else you may have to look for aftermarket. 
 

The alternate option as you have the ride now is consider changing to non-run flat tyres as suggested by many in this forum. Non-run flat are softer and thus provide better comfort. You should carry a tyre repair kit for this in case there is a flat tyre. 

How do you find the non-adaptive M Sport suspension? Is it a bit too firm for comfort, or still OK?

Anyone with the 330i on M Adaptive Suspension? How does that feel?

Also it seems like 330i M Sport models have some sort of active exhaust enhancement, because if you put them into Sport+ mode they'll go cracklepop...

And here I thought Toyota cars were supposed to be of superlative quality and reliability.

4 hours ago, Rickster said:

Actually, I haven't sat in this car before. Only seen it in the flesh.The thing that struck me is that it looks so much like the passat of which I already find the interior design lacking for a car at this price point - personal opinion of course.

But it's good news hearing from you the car's got the high quality feel factor. 

The interior is almost identical to the Passat visually, which is indeed a negative, but to begin with for most the Passat interior was quite classy and well made, if perhaps ... understated, to be euphemistic.

Anyway, Arteon right now is going at a practically fire sale price from VCS.

On 1/12/2020 at 6:47 AM, Dinosaur33 said:

Prices and deals aside. I must say that the service provided by the product advisor - ladies in black attire (pardon my ignorance, if I address your corporate title incorrectly) is really excellent. They were really detailed in their explanation in the vehicle interior and virtual cockpit as well as some basic fundamental specification of the vehicle.

 

They were able to provide some basic and brief introduction on the space of the boots of the vehicle and some of the special features. Also, they were also able to explain some of the premium upgrade (e.g. size of the rim upgrade etc)

 

Kudos to Audi Singapore for such wonderful and awesome customer experience (CX). Keep up the good and excellent work. Really appreciate the wonderful experience with your staffs at Singapore Motorshow 2020

They had trained one-time models (assuming you mean those in black dresses) at the Motorshow last year, spoke to one of them for a while back then.
They're hired just to be there for the motorshow, perhaps you can call them 'ambassadors'. 

In fact actually they're probably a little bit happier if you want to sit in the car and look things over for a while; gives them a chance to sit too.

I wouldn't say it's a huge contributor to "customer experience" though. It's just a way of attracting you. When you want to actually buy the car you're handed over to one of the permanent staff who are sales executives and out to get your money.

On 1/9/2020 at 7:44 PM, Wolfverine said:

It was good enuf for me but best is for you to ask for a test drive!

I was told at the motorshow that M models including M Sport, and as such the X4 xD30i MSport, are on indent basis. Has anyone else been told the same thing?

3 hours ago, Wolfverine said:

Not sure about the 30i but when I drove the M40i, it didn't at all drive like a SUV and that is a good thing! The adaptive M suspension really did a good job making this baby SUV very enjoyable to drive.

Good to know it's still sporty. With the adaptive suspension I take it's able to soak up bumps really comfortably too?

Anyone here familiar with the X4 30i? I'm looking to consider that

33 minutes ago, SZ_ford said:

ahh i used to drive mondeo too....is it coupe-like? it's tall with a hatchback

a5 sits a lot lower, i guess to give that sporty feel

The Mk V has a very sporty roofline and silhouette, but in terms of height it is still relatively normal. 

It still looks very sleek, in my opinion better than a CLA, it's akin to the Arteon.

The Mk IV, if that was the one you drove, is a little bit more ungainly, but still has a sleek roofline.

Of course, the big difference is that it is not marketed as a coupe. The foreign ads paint it as a highly stylish car (and I wholeheartedly agree), but it has never been officially referred to as a coupe. So it is not as low as those that are.

2 hours ago, SZ_ford said:

some ppl drool over those coupe-like looks haha

but i agree, if u ferry elderly or has to put kid in child seat, ingress and egress can be tough

it's on sports suspension, so ride is firmer than a4

I have a Mondeo, so I can tell you that coupe-like styling does not have to be that compromised.

Yes, the lowered firmer sport suspension is a bit too firm for my taste. But it cushions impacts reasonably well, similar to the S3 I drove a few months ago. You will feel things, but without being painful.

Basic cost of the A5SB TFSI 40 looks around $130k. So if they're willing to drop their margin to $35k, that's already "good" for a car from PA.

Compared to the C180, remember that the A5 is a hatchback and has more power. And PI cars have iffier aftersupport.

Anyhow, after driving and looking at the A5 in the showroom, I personally think I won't go for it. Although the ~$160k price range makes it a decent deal, it feels too compromised for me. It's not as comfortable compared to what I'm used to and I have no doubt my passengers will complain about the low roof. It's fine when you're sitting inside but getting in and out of it is a bit of a chore, plus I find the front window and mirrors too small, among other things.

To increase the efficacy of no-straw policies it'd be better if they stopped automatically putting covers on cups in dine-in. Because then it gets removed or encourages the diner to use a straw anyway.

On 1/4/2020 at 4:59 AM, mel1888 said:

A5 at 155k? If thats true i must been out of touch. Last time it was going for 190 ish range. Just wait for car show or PA promos. Better deals. Get woman SA, i feel they fight harder for u because they more "hungry".

The current promo. The pricelist still shows it at around 200k. In the newspaper it's $169k as a motorshow special.

I gave it a try yesterday, but didn't have enough time to get a good feel of it. A little firm, so you feel bumps but it cushions it out decently. Engine is definitely a gutsy performer but doesn't make much of an enjoyable sound.

I was told you can pay $5,000 for warranted MTM tuning to uprate the power to match the Sport TFSI 45 model, which doesn't seem too bad compared to the extra $70k for the Sport model. At $270k you are only getting the extra stock power, quattro, multicolor ambient lighting and the heads up display as extra, which is outrageous.

20 years ago i was definitely doodling cars that would not make sense to adult me.

Just browsing SGCM, logged in and saw I was pinged. (WAH BRO YOU REMEMBER ME! 😂) Well... stuff looks different around here.

Man, I've been forgetting to check in on MCF for so long and even missed a few events. Whoah.