Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Sneaking out for a drive

Even the homeliest of homebodies need to get out of the house sometimes, and that moment for me was this past weekend. I have the utmost respect for our medical first responders fighting the good fight against the coronavirus, so I’ve been strictly adhering to the shelter-at-home order - it’s been weeks since I’ve put on a proper pair of pants. That said, some essential errands you simply have to leave the house to do, and one such thing for me is to take the Porsche 911 out of a drive.

Mind you it’s not because I desperately need to take the car out for a spin; I’m perfectly okay with letting the 911 sit for the entire duration of however long this lockdown ends up taking. However, for the good of the car, I cannot let it stay stationary for too long, because the battery will die. Where I have it parked, there are no provisions to plug in a tickle charger, so these periodic drives to keep the battery and mechanics in top shape have to done.

The maximum I’ve gone between moving the car is three weeks.

I won’t lie and say it wasn’t nice to be on the road and driving again. In fact, it was absolutely sublime; I’d forgotten what fresh air smelled like. Due to the quarantine conditions, there was far less traffic on my usual mountain routes too, though I kept it at a far slower pace than usual. Last thing I want to do is to bin it off a sharp corner because I was going to fast, and then requiring emergency personnel to mend me - personnel who have way more important things to tend to at the moment.

It was eerie to see the usual parking lots and recreation areas all cordoned off, with signs of no parking and health warnings plastered everywhere. On a good and normal day, the parks in the mountain would be teeming with hikers and outdoorsy people. I guess it’s a testament to how well overall the Bay Area has done to keeping it locked down and at home, patiently waiting out this coronavirus peak.

If the shelter-in-place order is still in effect in three weeks’ time, it’ll be the next opportunity the 911 gets its required exercise.

The 200,000+ miles Type R

As I was browsing the daily Bring a Trailer newsletter yesterday, I noticed a 2001 Acura Integra Type R got sold for a relatively measly $16,000. My first thought was the car must’ve got some miles on it, because clean samples of the legendary Type R machine have ranged from the $30,000s all the way to $70,000s for the absolute best example. Interested, I clicked on the auction, and turns out that particular car has over 200,000 miles on it. That means someone has put that many miles on an Integra Type R, a car more famous for its tendency to get stolen than its fabulous FWD handling prowess.

What an inspiration, and it does bring a smile to my face.

I’ve always advocated for putting miles on our fun cars: they are effectively useless being sat in garages. It’s sad that some people see sports cars as investments, that the best way to preserve a car’s value is to store it and keep it shiny. Therefore I take some schadenfreude glee in seeing the recent trend of Porsche GT cars dipping in value: lots of super low miles, practically brand-nw GT3 and GT2s are being sold on Bring a Trailer for $15,000 to $20,000 in depreciation, instead of the well above MSRP levels they were trading just one year ago.

You thought you were going to make some money on that Cayman GT4, didn’t you Squidward?

Porsche really cratered the secondary market by upping production of GT cars tremendously in recent years, because the brilliant engineers at Weissach want these cars to be driven and used, rather than treated as gold bars to be traded for gains. I have to give the same kudos to McLaren: the company seems bent on making great cars, with zero regard for the resale value of its pass models. Let’s leave the wiping with baby diapers and haggling over the value of options to Ferrari owners. The rest of us will keep on driving.

My own 991 GT3 is about to cross the 30,000 mile mark soon, and I only hope I’ll get to take it through 100,000 miles and beyond.

There might truly be a (coronavirus) emergency soon.

No Porsche until the weekend

The problem with having your weekend car stored many miles from where you live is that you can’t do anything to it during the work week. Even as parts arrive and you’re eager to slap them on or make repairs, you’re prevented from doing so because getting to the car itself is supremely time-consuming (could easily become a two-hour round trip, in my case). So you have to be patient and wait for the weekend to arrive, which is easier said than done no matter how much you love your job.

It’s just another part of the car enthusiast disease.

I don’t really pine for much these days - trying to be anti-materialistic and all, but a place to live with proper garage space to park the 911 is low-key at the very top of the goals list. Indeed there are days I feel frustrated I can’t even lay eyes my car because it’s stored so far away, especially one I paid so much money for. What it must be like for people to take their morning coffee in the garage while starring at their beloved machine and studying the lines. That’s a feeling I rather like to find out for myself in this lifetime.

However, to bring up housing in San Francisco is to invite despair; buying property anywhere near the city would mean I’d have to sell the 911 - I can’t have both. There may come a time I will have to make that decision, but as of right now I’m keen to hold onto the car for as long as possible. Because selling it means I’d be forsaking amortizing the value of the taxes paid when I bought the car - you don’t recoup that on a sale. I can stomach regular depreciation that any vehicle has, but a five-figure tax bill? I’d like to draw quite a bit more utility out of that than a mere few years of ownership.

I’ve bought my dream car, though it seems I did it backwards because usually you’d want an appropriate living situation first. That said, following the typical is so boring; that’s the story I’m telling myself, anyways.

I don’t often go downtown, but when I do…

Safety recall on the 911

A few days ago, I received a safety recall notice mailer from Porsche Cars North America. My initial reaction was one of mild annoyance, because my favored dealership is some 40 miles away, and having to take my 911 there out of schedule would be a pain in the butt. That’s right, I was more concerned about logistics, rather than what the recall was about. Because I knew that whatever it was, I would not be out of pocket for any costs, and honestly I had some curiosity on exactly what Porsche - the vaunted German automaker - can actually screw up on.

Turns out, it was much to do with nothing: the safety recall was about insufficient documentation in the owner’s manual, particularly the section pertaining to the child safety restraint system - think car seats for kids. Inside the same envelope was the remedy/fix: a new supplement to the manual, printed on solid paper stock, with the freshly printed smell you’d expect. I’m sure to Porsche all of this is but a drop in the bucket cost-wise, but from my decidedly plebeian perspective, spending hundreds of thousands just to print and send out a supplement seems a bit excessive.

Especially considering, and I’m confident in saying this, no GT car owner has ever used the child restraint system in their specialized 911. These are thoroughbred sports cars of the highest order, not a vehicle to ferry the babies around (that would be a Porsche Macan, naturally). Not to say we shouldn’t: I would wholeheartedly salute the GT 911 owner who actually uses a child car-seat regularly. People who uses their cars rather than letting them sit in a heated garage are the true heroes of car enthusiasm, like this guy who takes his GT 911 to the snow.

Now that I think about it, when it’s time for me to have progeny and god-willing I still have my GT3, I’d totally put a child-seat in the front passenger space to shuttle the baby around. It’s never too early to get a kid started on the path to passion for Porsche and cars in general.

Exercising the car

I get my exercise in on the weekends, though it’s not just my own body that receives a bit of work out. Like clockwork, my 911 gets taken out for a drive, rain or shine. Much like how the human body needs movement to stay agile and fit, a car’s mechanicals need to get up to operating temperature periodically to be at its best condition. High-strung sports cars especially aren’t meant to sit stationary for months on end; that’s usually the reason for random gremlins to pop-up. Those cars will be reliable so long as it gets driven.

Besides, I bought the Porsche to drive, and not just a pretty object to admire.

Of course, I don’t commute with the 911, so the only chance to take it for a spin is on the weekends. During the warm Summer months it’s a rather joy to do so, and often times I’d spend both days blasting on the local mountain roads. The darker Autumn and Winter months, however, presents a challenge. My particular 911 is not very fun when the temperatures are low and the skies are raining: the Michelin Cup 2 tires, while magical in fair conditions, are nearly dangerous to drive on in the cold and damp. Indeed, track-focused tires are as good as bald tires if you can’t get heat into them, especially so on sets with considerable mileage (like mine).

So during this time of the year, I only take the 911 out long enough for the mechanicals to get appropriately warm, and for the battery to get recharged. Maybe push the engine out to its redline once or twice to get the secondary cam-profiles involved. Other than that, there isn’t much more to do, especially when it’s raining. Try as I might to find openings in the weather radar, some weekends it’s simply impossible. The 911 still needs to be driven, so I take it as smoothly and gingerly as possible; a quick loop on the local highways does the trick, then it’s parked again for another week.

I won’t have to be so careful once the Cup 2 tires are worn down and I switch to a set of tires that’s friendlier in wet conditions, though the Cup 2s have still got at least 5,000 miles of life left, perhaps more, so I’ll have to suffer through this rainy season with continued trepidation. Unlike my brother who tossed away a perfectly good set of all-season tries for a set of summer tires, I don’t have quite that sort of financial resources. Needless to say, a set of tires for a 911 GT3 is multiples in terms of costs compared to my brother’s Audi A3.

Next year, though; next year we’ll have some fun in the rain.

I got lucky this past weekend with avoiding the rainy weather.

I almost moved out?

One thing I’ve always had in mind is that when I do move out of the house, it has to be some place extremely close to work; close enough to get there in around 15 minutes, whichever the method of transportation. Living in the Bay Area I’m quite familiar with the horrid commutes many people have, and the last thing I want is to join that party. If my living situation is going to change, then decreasing the amount of time it takes to get to work is a must-have criteria. Otherwise, I don’t really see a point: there’s no good to having my own place if I’m miserable from the daily commute.

Problem is, obviously, it’s extremely expensive to rent a spot in San Francisco, much less on the west side of the city where the university is. And let’s not even speak of actually buying a house in the area, a downright impossibility, unless the housing situation changes dramatically, or I hit the lottery. That being said, I browse the rental ads on Craigslist periodically to gauge the market, and to see if anything will pop up that’s reasonably affordable, with superb proximity to work.

Last week, one such place did materialize. A mere 10 minute walk from campus, it was a newly refurbished in-law studio renting for $1,600 a month, all inclusive. Squeaking in at just under the 1/3 of income rule for a lease, the place was eminently affordable, somewhat to my surprise (I guess the market has soften a bit). Of course, the most alluring attribute is the closeness to campus; to be able to simply walk to work is an absolute dream. There’s a mall with a Target and Trader Joe’s only two blocks away, so it could not be more convenience in terms of living necessities, too.

Later that week I went and saw the place (it was indeed lovely), and then started on viability calculations before I officially apply. Unfortunately, the math did not rule in the favor of leasing: I can afford the place, but due to rental costs, I’d be saving very little every month (if at all) - house poor, as they say. The problem is the big financial purchase I made this January: my Porsche 911 GT3. Had I bought a way more sensible sports car, one that doesn’t cost four-figures to keep every month, I think I would have handed in the application this past weekend.

I did think about selling the 911, though that has its own conundrums and difficulties. I unconditionally adore the car, and letting it go would leave a huge gaping spot in my car enthusiasm. The GT3 is suppose to be the ‘forever car’, so selling it after only one year of ownership would be devastatingly irresponsible. Porsche cars hold their values well, but that doesn’t mean they don’t depreciate: my 911 have loss about $20,000 in value since January, a real, tangible decrease if I actually sell the car. Not to mention I’ll never get the five-figure in taxes I paid when I purchase the car back. Some States let you offset the tax if you trade for another car; communist California sadly doesn’t.

It seems I have to see that process through with the 911 until I can make another huge financial move. I wouldn’t call the car an albatross, but I think it would be wise to accelerate paying off the rest of it so I can have some flexibility. New years resolution for 2020, perhaps?

SF Auto Show musings

One of my Thanksgiving traditions is attending the annual SF Auto Show at the Moscone Center, and this year was no different. Being traditionally Asian, Thanksgiving is not really a celebratory holiday for us - I didn’t even know what a turkey is until our family emigrated here - so there’s no big feast at our house. We simply take the few days off to relax, and because the auto show always happens during the last week of November, I take the opportunity to go outside for a bit and look at cars.

The San Francisco show isn’t one of the biggest, and it seems the scale has been shrinking the past few years. It doesn’t help that the major auto show in Los Angeles is around the same time, so some manufacturers aren’t keen to split their resources like that; LA will always get the nod when decisions have to be made. It’s a down year for the overall car market as well, so surely marketing budgets have shrunken down commensurately. This year, there was almost zero presence from European automarkers, though the Jaguar Land Rover group had a sizable display.

Back in my childhood, I would make it a point to see every single car on display at the show, which I’m sure my parents were very happy about. These days I only look at the models that interest me, of which there are a scarce few. Of primary interest this year was to see the new Porsche 911 - 992 generation - for the first time in the flesh, and thanks to Porsche Livermore, there was one on display at the show even though Porsche itself was not an official participant.

So a quick appearance-only verdict on the 992: it’s rather bulbous, but far less offensive than in photographs. It’s smaller in the metal, too. The rear light-bar design language remains polarizing, and for now I still hate it (the rear spoiler in the up position helps it a little). 21-inch wheels are far too big for the car, and the classic 911 “pontoon” front fender shape is largely gone now; the front is nearly flat like the 911 RSR racing car. The 992 is still quintessentially 911, but I wouldn’t put it high on the list amongst its lineage.

It seems it’s not just me who’s keen for the enthusiast cars: even in a time full of SUV popularity, the brands’ more sporting models still get the most crowds. The aforementioned 992 was mobbed by people the entire time I was there, and the same at the Honda Civic Type R and the Hyundai Veloster N displays. This is what a “halo car” is all about: to create excitement and positive association with a brand, even if the customer ends up buying an SUV instead, because that SUV will be of the same marque as the enthusiast car.

It gives me hope that manufacturers aren’t going to abandon the fun cars any time soon. It’s a great marketing strategy.