Nearly everyone DESPISES me here because I'm honest to a fault, but I refuse to lie and not call a spade a spade: The FR-S is an AWFUL daily driver, and that punishment doesn't yield enough power & reward even on the very few track days the car will see (by the very few who will track it).
This is TRUTH as much as it hurts the non-objective - please read the articles cited/watch the video AND REALIZE THESE AREN'T MY WORDS, COMMENTS, REVIEWS, PERFORMANCE/COMPARISON TESTS, ETC., THOUGH I AGREE WITH ALMOST EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS:
"A Mustang GT can make the FR-S a small speck in the mirror and keep it there, whether the road is straight or twisty. A Mustang V6 Premium is priced right on top of the FR-S and will whip it, good. Any multitude of ratty used performance cars are truly vehicular methamphetamine capable of deeply embarrassing the guy bringing his $30,000 Scion to track day."
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...14-scion-fr-s/
Can't hang with ANY Mustang.
Maybe it can hang with a Scion TC? In some ways, barely:
"That brings us full circle to the tCs fiercest competitor: its stable mate the FR-S. No matter how you slice it, the tC isn’t as good-looking. It may seat four with relative ease, but the interior isn’t as nice as the FR-S either. It delivers good fuel economy and is plenty of fun on the road, but the appeal of the tC is more pragmatic than emotional. Still, when the numbers are added up the tC delivers 75% of the FR-S’ looks, 85% of the handling and 90% of the performance for 78% of the price. Being the deal hound I am, that makes the tC the better Scion."
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/8-...ison-fr-s.html
And don't dare challenge a Renault Megane, either:
But at least it's a reasonably comfortable, refined driving car. Wait, oops:
"No car is the best car for every situation. The Scion was borderline awful on I75 the previous day, assaulting my ears with tire roar and the rest of me with incessant jiggling. “Steel drum,” I note. My ass grows sore within an hour. The seatbelt cuts into my neck each time I forget to fasten the retaining strap to the left of the headrest. Due to the small windows and lack of a sunroof option, the dark, plasticky interior has the ambiance of a cave, albeit one with red stitching. The needle of the analog speedometer starts off at four o’clock, and even at highway speeds is still pointing towards my left knee. It’s nearly useless, so luckily there’s a digital speedometer in the tach face. One wonders why they didn’t follow Mazda’s example with the RX-8 and drop the analog dial altogether. These endlessly straight highways are not the ideal habitat for an FR-S. Anyone who’ll regularly be driving them is well advised to buy something cushier. Aside from minimal sound insulation and an unyielding suspension, the FR-S includes little beyond the most basic features. There aren’t even audio controls on the steering wheel. Then again, the problem with the audio system’s buttons isn’t that they’re hard to reach. They’re close at hand, but feel cheap and defy logic."
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...06-mazda-rx-8/
But at least it's reliable. Oops. Nope:
"When the car’s owner put the pictures up, noting that he had been in the car when the motor blew and that nothing unusual was happening at the time, he started hearing from other Toyobaru owners and tuners that they’d seen similar issues, often starting with a valvetrain failure. In the case of this particular car, the piston was “in a thousand pieces”, so it’s hard to tell if a valve dropped into it or not.
The engine’s being dissected as we speak for root-cause analysis, but I wasn’t cheered by the number of people who immediately stepped forward to talk about similar issues. As we stood by the smoking car after the failure, the owner started running down all the different ways in which these cars are known to blow up on-track. Apparently, the injector seals wear out, at which point the cylinder “leans” and the motor blows. Or they can have oil pressure issues. And so on.
This is a big deal because much of the GT86’s appeal is based on the idea that you can enjoy it on-track for a long time with low to no running cost."
http://jackbaruth.com/?p=942