Originally Posted by Sennaspirit
I was heading back to the ranch this morning and I passed a Carmax down the street and decided to see what was on the lot. Well, I've always like the Honda S2K and sure enough there was a Red first year S2K there with only 33K miles on it. Obviously not a daily driver on a 6 year old car (almost 7). With all the bad vibes going on with our car (I still enjoy mine immensely) I figured I see what they would offer me for my car and, if it was reasonable, I'd possibly trade it for the S2K.
First, I had to give the Honda a run since it's been about a year since I last drove one. To begin, I'm really not a rag top fan (no offense to my intrepid Roadster buddies, they're just not for me) but still the S2K has an appeal. Given the chill in the air I left the top up, and my first impression is how much smaller and tighter the interior of this car was compared to the XF. The dash and controls are very accessible, and absolutely minimalist in presentation. Honestly, a bit too minimalist after my XF experience. I laughed when I noticed how much smaller the doors are in this car compared to the XF, which are rather long, but entry and exit was not all that bad, once I moved the seat all the way back.
I definitely need some work on my manual driving, you need to rev it a bit more than I recalled in first gear, but once moving the short throws of the gear box are delightful (even in a 6 year old car), but having to go through six gears by the time you get to 60's a tad much. I got it up to 75, and tried to see what the higher end acieration was like. Well, I was definitely disappointed. My XF goes from 70 to 90 much quicker than I experienced in the S2K.
Steering was definitely crisper in the S2K...there's no question about that. Road feel was about the same, and overall the S2K had about the same "stiff" ride that the XF has. Breaking was very good, but then again, nothing significantly different than the XF.
Well, I wasn't all that interested in trading after the ride, the XF wins the comparison in my book (I do my MY book...as in it fits my needs better). But I did ask them to give me a quote anyway. Well, they offered my 20K for my '05, and I had to decline. I think I can get at least 23K for mine with 7K miles on it.
I don't think I'm selling it, but I had to at least see where I stand with the car, and now I am very happy that I went with the XF over the S2K which has been a favorite of mine since they first came out. I'll post a pic of the two soon.