Finally! Bought a BRZ
 

Just picked up an 18 BRZ Anniversary. Drove it 800 miles to get it home. Initial impressions: 1) why is the stereo so terrible? 2) why are the gauges so hard to see during the day time? and 3) why is there little thigh support in the lower seat cushion? 800 miles hurt my hamstrings.

Otherwise, seems like a good, fun car. Looking forward to taking it to the track! (Been reading about the pedal dance).

Congratulations! There is a dial to the left of the trunk release that changes the gauge brightness, it might be set very low.

Honestly, the stereo is my sole complaint of my car, it bewildered me how they could put such a poor audio system in the car. They could have put a better system in and upped the msrp by 400$ and nobody would have been the wiser and our speakers would not sound like garbage. Unfortunately, you will get used to how bad they sound, and well not even notice it in a while.

just get a sub and only play mid & high freq from speakers...still, i never found them to be any worse than most compacts. and who cares, easy fix and not the purpose of the car, more focus on driving yo

not sure how the gauges are hard to read during the day? very clear tach and digi speedo.

as far as seat cushioning perhaps a cushion underneath might help otherwise get better posture and maybe lose weight.. I've taken the twins on quite a few 15+ hour drives and for how much canyon carving support they provide, i think comfort is quite acceptable. after 120 K miles over 2 twins I've never had any back problems, and the seats did a great job supporting me when a lady ran a redlight and hit my first twin head on.

Automakers shouldn't even be in the stereo business anymore. It costs consumers thousands when they could just have a hole to stick any aftermarket radio for $200 in that would be 10x better.

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Yeah, cranked it all the way up, but with sunglasses, hard to see clearly. Worse is that at night, the NAV screen is too bright if I want the dash all the way lit up. So, had to turn the NAV to "night" mode - hopefully that will solve part of it.

I'm 150 lbs and 5'6" - I could stand to lose a few, but not sure that will fix my seating position. I typically like my butt way low and my knees at the highest position. Only other car i had this type of an issue with was a BMW Z4 but it was better. Oh well -it is what it is.

Congratulations!! Welcome to the brotherhood.

As far as your questions go -

1) why is the stereo so terrible?

It's a cheap sports car. Sports cars that sell new for under $30k (usually under $25k) generally don't come with fine sound systems.

As you get older and your hearing degenerates, the sound system becomes less important. I used to be a hard-core audiophile. Used to have a deeply wrong but very passionate relationship with a Marantz tube amplifier. I could tell the difference between analog and digital music within 2 seconds. Now, at 60-something, I'm lucky if I hear anything.

Roll down the windows and listen to the sound of the wind rushing by. It's better than most things on the radio.

2) why are the gauges so hard to see during the day time?

As @DarkPira7e suggested, adjust the illumination. Should be fine if turned up.

3) why is there little thigh support in the lower seat cushion? 800 miles hurt my hamstrings.

I don't think the car was really designed or intended for 800 mile trips. This is a cheap sports car for relatively short blasts down twisty country roads. I find that my aging 60-something body is fine in the BRZ for up to about 3, maybe 4 hours at a stretch. If the trip is longer than that, best to take a different kind of car.

Have fun!! The days of pure and inexpensive sports cars are waning. Enjoy it!!

did you adjust the lower seat angle on the side of the seat?


my '16s stock head unit sounds better with an outboard DAC then using the analog in. much better, actually.

Before you change sound system components, do yourself a favor and spend a Saturday afternoon doing some strategic sound deadening. I had changed my head unit but was about to pull the trigger on some fairly high dollar components. My son convinced me to use some strategic dynamat and frankly I was stunned at the improvement. Haven’t changed a thing since then. I’m satisfied with the sound.

I could care less about those things especially the stereo. I bought the car for it’s balanced handling and light weight.

Agree. Sound deadening in a few spots (I used some cheap stuff from Home Depot), fix the rattle in the window switches and add a cheap sub (~$100) in the trunk and it’s night and day. Still kind of sucks but WAY better. I tend to turn off the radio and listen to the car more anyways.

how are you getting an outboard DAC to connect without the analog input?

last time i ran across this, someone broke open the stereo and soldered to the cd audio feed...

LOL. I have about $8000 worth of stereo scattered about me, but you know, I leave the stereo off in the car. It sounds so sweet already.


If I really cared I would get one of these: https://www.crutchfield.com/p_130DXT...-P99RS-80.html

I literally sound deadened my whole car when I did my stereo build. It adds weight, but I'm not trying to be the lightest. See build.