Hoping to get one as a first car; very excited! Any advice?
 

Hello everyone, I just wanted to say that I absolutely love this car and I'm really hoping to get one as a first car in the near future. I was wondering if anyone wanted to chime in with some advice or other words, thanks!:)


I just wanted to add that I plan on keeping it stock most likely, If things go as planned I'll get the premium trim aswell.

As much as Forza and Gran Turismo make you think you can drift, you can’t.

-Sincerely someone who grew up playing Forza and Gran Turismo.


But seriously, this isn’t really a joke.

Congrats, this is a very realistic dream car. I’ve seen thousands of posts here from people who bought a BRZ or 86 as their first car. It happens often. I’ve sold BRZ’s to people who were shopping for their first car.

Hello and welcome - :clap:

This would be a fun car for you if you are single or married without children.

Keep in mind it's not going to get any bigger (hauling capacity) after you buy it.

Save up for some good winter tires come fall.

:thumbsup:

Great choice mate. This is a car that can grow with you and take you from a noob driver to a skilled competitor. Tips for younger players:

Keep it stock.

Leave VSC on when on public roads.

Don't bother drag racing. You'll lose.

Join a car club and start competing asap in low risk, low speed events.

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Learn manual.

Find a BIG area where no-one is around and practice donuts :) Joy.

Join a car club.

Try an autocross, and then try a track day.

Hoping to get one as a first car; very excited! Any advice?
 

Can’t stress this enough. The car is wonderful in bone stock form, especially as a learning tool for driving.

As a young driver, resist the urge to put stiff suspension and wide tires on it, learn everything the chassis has to teach you in its stock form for a few years. Many people end up making ‘upgrades’ and then reverting back to stock after a while because they didn’t like what the car became in the end. YMMV, but highly recommend to leave it stock for a while.

Take the first SCCA Starting Line School you can get to. Best intro to driving the new car you can possibly get if you're also new to performance driving.

The best advice so far.

Take a HPDE course, don't modify it. Learn your driving style and technique (it will grow / change over time) and then when you finally hit a point where you're car limited (you will know), then you can whip out the mods.

Take advantage of the NASA deal Toyota USA has you hooked up with as well.

Story time: I kept my S2k stock (even alignment) for basically 1.5 years and I got to a point where I just couldn't crack the top 15 for autocross. I then asked some of the best guys I knew to co-drive and they were running within 0.1 to 0.2s of my time on a 70s course. All complained my car wouldn't turn. That's when I knew I was car limited. Changed my alignment from the factory crap, voila. Extra learning to be had.

The car looks great from the factory. Learn it and congrats on the goal!

But in this car if it's anything like the 1st generation is as easy as it gets. Practice in big parking lots, and maybe you could get the tail out in the occasional roundabout but don't turn traction fully off

People are going to park next to your car. It will get dinged. Birds will crap on your car. You may scrape a wheel on a curb. You will scrape the front bumper on a curb at some point. The underbody or front bumper may scrape on an ingress/egress occasionally. You may get hail damage or have an accident. The windshield may get chipped. Things may not line up perfectly. You might replace a part and might break a fastener or not be able to get to one to secure it perfectly.

Mentally prepare yourself for those things. Learn to enjoy the car in spite of those things. And if you are paying for this vehicle, understand you may be dealing with those things while making a new car payment. Also, price the insurance before you buy.

Not saying it isn't worth it or that you shouldn't buy. Those are just some things that are hard to swallow for some people when they actually do get a new(er) nice car.

I'd say YMMV.

I put a slightly stiffer set of springs / slightly wider, grippier tires on at roughly 2 years of ownership and loved the difference (this was also my first car).

But definitely get your miles in and don't tweak things until you know why you want to tweak them. Don't tweak things just because the internet says to!

Sounds like great advice—I’ll be on my first RWD manual car, so should be pretty exciting to learn high performance driving.

What a great first car, you are so lucky. My first car was a 1984 Nissan Sentra station wagon. This was in 1997.

So it was basically the king of the road, sporty as heck, unbeatable.

If this is your first car I'd highly suggest enrolling in some autocross days. Cheap, super fun, and will help you learn how to drive!

Enjoy!

@MeepSecurity

Cool first car but I hope you can afford the insurance and maintenance costs; it's your first car, the costs can be a bit steep. I say this to a lot of younger drivers who are thinking about getting the car. I'd hope you have a good arrangement for insurance, otherwise you'll have to establish a good driving record.

Tires and tire pressure determine the feel of this car. Make sure you don't lose tire pressure over winter months or the car will feel like a dog. My first year of ownership, I did not pay enough attention to tires, but later learned to keep up with checking my tire pressures and replacing tires on a "regular basis" of about every two years.

Oil changes. The 5000-7000 mile intervals recommended by Subaru and Toyota are made for slow passenger cars, not ones that are driven in severe conditions (like track days). Get a fumoto oil drain valve, a few year's supply of dealership oil filters, and change your oil often.

A few attempts at SCCA Autocross taught me about tire grip, handling the car. I was given an instructor who helped me through a few runs. As well, I had a lot of lessons in loss of traction when my tires went bald and I had to drive on them all winter. Always keep good tires on this car!

As easy as a car may be to drift, it’s still difficult. Practicing is great in a big empty space, but don’t try your first drift on the streets.

I’d almost always advocate for a used car as a first car, but as new cars go I think it’s going to be tough to beat a Twin. Hope it works out for you!

I am planning on keeping it bone stock for at least 50k miles so I can learn the dynamics of the car. If I do decide to do anything to it, I don't plan on changing much. It already seems perfect stock for my needs. I really don't plan on drag racing either, I just want to enjoy the handling dynamics and learn rwd more than anything else. I definetly plan on signing up for track/ autocross events to learn.

Would you recommend not lowering the car using coilovers shortly after getting the car? I've driven for about 15 years now, and despite having my license for so long, I've only had my first car after moving out to California and haven't done any high performance driving or modding, so I was looking forward to getting into a platform that would allow me to do both relatively early.

If it’s new I wouldn’t, any issues with suspension, rear drivetrain, or interior likely won’t be covered by the warranty if you find any issues.

Depends on your goals.
If you want nice looking fender gaps and fitment coilovers is the way to go. If you want the best performance and widest tires to maximize grip — again, coilovers.

If your priority is handling and learning, stock suspension with minor tweaks such as camber bolts will be more than enough for a while, especially if you have the Sachs dampers.

So I really do want to better the fitment primarily and the performance gain is definitely nice, which was why I was thinking coilovers.

But I'm wondering if going that route in the beginning would possibly negatively affect my learning/figuring out the car's behavior, given that it'll be my first manual car and first RWD platform.

One can definitely ruin the handling of a car with bad coilovers.
Or even good coilovers when not set up properly. :bonk:

I think if this is your first RWD car it will be useful to tackle problems one at a time, rather than putting all of them on your plate and then hoping that there's one solution to them all.

If you keep the car mostly stock, with camber adjustments, you'll be better able to focus on improving your skills.

Lowering the car will give it camber, which can result in less grip with 215 or 225 street tyres, especially with stiff springs.


We're getting in to a whole other discussion here folks :)





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^^

I don't want to tell you what to do @phyz1ks, but remember you're an inexperienced modder thats going in as a first adopter on an _almost_ a new car platform.

When you get the car definitely hang out here whatever you do - there will be very capable and experienced people deep diving into what makes the car better.

1- At the very minimum you can get away with an LS swap and a tune for an amazing daily.

2- Don't take wooden nickels

This is probably the input I was looking for--appreciate your thought!

Sounds good. I'll probably hold off and learn more about the car as stock for a while. Once I get used to the platform and driving a RWD car spiritedly, I'll look into doing some mods :thanks:

For some tech articles on suspension...ranging from fairly basic to slightly more advanced...check out our instagram here:
www.instagram.com/theapexfiles

It's not really focused on what brands are good and that type of thing, just terminology and some of the basics so you understand what you're looking at (and can identify what even popular suspension companies get wrong).

Here's a good one to start:
http://www.instagram.com/p/CFzNtLPHq..._web_copy_link

- Andrew

Too much "do as I say, but not as I do"-type of suggestions.

You're only young once.

I'm a firm believer that advice from experience (whether good or bad) can be very helpful, even if it's "do as I say, but not as I do," in nature.


I'm 32, and I wouldn't recommend young kids to smoke. Doesn't change the fact that I smoked from 14-28, but that doesn't make the advice any less valuable/credible.

Like what?

Go full blast and change whatever bothers you, or even what doesn’t. Power adders, suspension mods, aero bits, wheels, tires, exhaust, aesthetics. Just do it, and if you doesn’t like, remove and sell it.also, you can buy used parts in near future. You can take notes to keep you at bay whenever changing, do some research, talk to people, have fun.

Like me in a track orientated daily telling him to keep it stock [emoji16]. Point taken.

But...it wasn't my first car, and all my mods were systematic and to solve specific track-related problems.

And... The car is now awful to drive on wet roads on street tyres, and it has less lateral grip than stock, on street tyres, and it sucks to start in winter, and it wears out tyres really fast, and it's buzzy on the highway... Ya dig?

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Good for you. In 1985, my first car was a 75 Dodge Dart that I paid $600 for with borrowed money. Enjoy it and be safe. AWD for DD and RWD for fun.

You're gonna crash it
 

Sorry to be a downer, but did anyone warn you yet that you're gonna crash it?

In case not... you're gonna crash it.

Sorry.

The only guys that don't crash their early cars are guys that aren't car enthusiasts and just don't care about driving. But most of them crash in the first few years also.

So, I wouldn't advise it, unless your's or your parent's income is high enough that this is an inconsequential purchase and replacement or higher insurance after a claim isn't a concern.

I mean, an older FRS or BRZ is a great choice... but do you realize you're in the 2022+ section?

But I don't like being a downer. So... GET A BRAND NEW ONE! Rock on! :party0030:

Keep VSC on, almost impossible to crash. It pulls the car straight and simply will not allow a spin.

Drive at 7/10 on the road and save your 10/10 for when there's a trophy on offer.

You'll be fine.



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I don't think he's talking about a used older one, he is probably referring to getting a new 2022.