Whoops, totally left this thread unattended 
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So did I.
Where to start...labor. Labor is usually more expensive. The guy I go to used to charge $140 an hour, ouch. It's $170 an hour now, ha. Granted, he bills less hours than other shops do and is probably one of the best BMW mechanics in my area. I feel like with cheaper labor it can be as cheap as $100 an hour. Fortunately parts are in extreme abundance for BMW cars, like really good parts too. You can choose OEM parts, OE parts (same as OEM but they scratch the BMW label off and charge you half the price), and aftermarket parts too. It's pretty great in that regard. There's some jobs that you can do yourself that aren't entirely miserable to handle, and that'll save you a good buck.
I try to do as much as I can myself, unless I think I don't have the tools/skills/space and/or time/opportunity to do it. The Saturn is really easy to work on and there are video tutorials on almost every component that might need replacement on Youtube. I know even the U.S. brands are becoming a nightmare with all of the random crap they keep jamming into the engine bays.
About the RWD thing in the winter, I agree it seems pretty sketchy to me, but RWD is good fun for performance driving and sliding around. If you're really feeling like a goon you can slide around in the snow in the winter. Seems pretty damn risky to me though, but there's some maniacs out there that live for RWD snow drifting. There's a pretty solid video I saw recently, dude is just taking a smoke while drifting with one hand. https://vm.tiktok.com/TTPd63AN3U/ Anyways, I do see most people pack away their sports cars for the winter, even if it's AWD. Probably to preserve it from salted roads and extreme conditions (need different oil under a certain temp for example). And ITBs are great. A lot of Miata guys and high performance cars have them. It makes the car feel really nice so you owe it to yourself to try it sometime when you have a chance. It kind of feels more Tesla like if you happen to have sat in your coworker's Tesla before that you mentioned. It's definitely not like 100% instant power like an EV but the response is just better and you can feel it when you're driving, especially on down shifts.
I can slide around in the snow in the winter with or without RWD, lol. It just isn't as fun without ... when planning to. Stick shift is a godsend for winter driving. I always laugh when somebody brings it up as a negative. Downshifting to control deceleration and starting in a higher gear for lower torque is endlessly useful. I drive on glare ice and through blizzards with bald tires in clown cars at high speed all of the time with careful shifting and preventing sudden changes in direction and inertia. I haven't been driving the Eclipse in the winter and don't plan to if I can help it. Definitely a moot point for people who have a beater winter car to drive.
I may look into ITBs then. I'll guess that there's nothing tailor-made for the 4G Eclipse GT anyway. I don't think they're very common cars to begin with. The hunt is still on to even find a LSD for it.
I think the more I use my leather seats the more I realize I don't love them. They're nice when it's new, but there's a few problems. One main one is that most leather seats wear down pretty poorly. Mine have definitely hardened up and aren't as supple as they should be. Some of them get really saggy which also looks gross. I think there's few leather seats that stay in good condition, one that I can identify being the quilted leather seats in high end Audis, like a 2013 Audi S7. I think the quilting keeps the leather taut but also soft somehow. Seems nice, seems expensive too.
I use Lexol conditioner and cleaner for my Saturn's seats. If I put in the effort to really work the conditioner into the leather, it usually softens it right up. If I have been too lazy to condition it for a while, it takes multiple applications. It has saved it from any further deterioration since I purchased the car more than a decade ago. There's basically no benefit to having leather seats though besides sliding in and out, and the smell (if you like it). Maybe they'll last even longer than fabric if you take care of it ... but you don't have to take care of fabric.
The insulated soft top is nice. It's just a layer on the inside of the soft top with some down fill like material that insulates the car's interior. Definitely seems like a decent innovation to me, no downsides as far as I can tell. Exterior looks the same. My visibility is also trash with the top up but I think most convertibles will suffer from that problem.
Now I'm curious if mine has that or not. I know the top was recently replaced before I bought the car. I did drive it through fall and into the start of winter and I didn't have any trouble keeping the interior warm in bitter Wisconsin weather.
Hmm, what next if not the BMW? Honestly, I'm shopping around for cars and I think it's going to be a BMW. I'm probably going to get an E92 M3 to replace the 135i. Unfortunately, with the rise of all car prices you don't get much bang for your buck anymore with used cars. I think I'm set on the M3 but other great contenders that I would have considered would probably be the Honda S2000, new 2022 Subaru BRZ, NC Miata (Used to think they were super ugly but I'm on board with it these days), 8th gen Civic Si. The problem is that a lot of these cars benefit from power mods that are illegal in California. The NC Miata benefits largely from the 2.5L duratec swap and the 8th gen civic si is much better with a K24/K20 frankenstein swap. They can both be had for reasonably cheap in a complete car but it's all illegal in CA, which is pretty lame. That leaves the car underpowered and it would probably leave me feeling like I downgraded more than anything since my current car is 300hp.
Used cars were nuts even before the pandemic. Now it is totally insane, especially for stick shifts. Wisconsin is
much worse than a lot of neighboring states too, probably in no small part to winter road conditions. Almost makes me wonder if it is even worth buying used anymore, at least here.
People always want a fortune for S2000s here. I always liked the Miata myself, and they're pretty affordable for a reliable and fun convertible. What about LS swapping a Miata?
Also illegal? I have heard they're one of the easiest cars to do it in. I know that's what I would want to do to one.
Rode in a Tesla Model S the other day, what the actual **** is that acceleration? What the hell! You can barely even tell before you are hitting 70 in a parking lot cause the thing glides silently like a 4700lb steel pterodactyl. If anything, I feel exponentially LESS safe as a pedestrian knowing firsthand what these things are capable of.
I haven't ridden in/driven one but there are a lot hanging around where I live. I peaked into one and it gave me the cold sweats. I would absolutely loathe the computerized interface, being a manual-trans owner and lover of buttons, knobs and switches. I'll hear one going in reverse in my parking lot and the thing sounds like a Jetsons mobile! "rrrreeeeEEEEEEEEEEE!" Your safety concerns are warranted because you can barely hear a battery-powered car running, basically just the tires crunching on asphalt.
I agree totally on the interiors of these newer cars. I don't even like anything much past the mid 2000s. You won't help but smile driving or riding in a Model S when there's a lead foot involved. Free on-demand roller coaster rides without having to go to a theme park.
you are living in a crazy place
"Cash for clunkers" subsidized the destruction of thousands of perfectly good used cars, ironically making affordable transportation out-of-reach for a lot of people. I believe the idea was to help people of lesser means to purchase a new car instead of sticking with their beaters. The problem was that even subsidies did not nearly offset the massive investment that a new car is ... and then there's depreciation. I think that literally only people of means who already regularly bought new vehicles really benefited while those who didn't already have comfortable lives could have been priced out of the market entirely. Prices have never been the same since then and the pandemic only made things worse. I'll complain about that nonsense program until the day I die, but I imagine places like Wisconsin where rust takes more cars than mechanical failure were hit much harder by this than others.
Just watching a little footage of what politicians and media networks say about finances, even before breaking down the real-world implications of their policies, shows that they're clearly totally out-of-touch with reality and have way too much disposable income to even be able to empathize with the common man.
I am in love with 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28
Also one of my favorite classic cars. Alas, I am not rich.
