Aston Martin V8 Vantage after one year
- Thread starter olv
- Start date
Soldato
tl;dr.
Jk- best car.
Jk- best car.
Soldato
I thought it was your uncles?
Soldato
These are gorgeous machines. I perhaps should have looked a bit more seriously at them when buying my 911. The running costs do seem expensive in comparison to a 911 which is why I guess I didn’t look in more detail.
50 / 50 as seems quite a safe investment and I take it on some weekends when I am maybe not in the mood for SVR, M3 or Clio.
Yeah changing oil on a 911 piece of cake, likewise on M3 too.
The V8 Vantage due to the dry sump is a much bigger job but found an Aston Specialist in Macclesfield which is my hometown and they are much cheaper for servicing.
Also had them change gear box oil because as per OP the gearbox is very notchy and this made a great improvement to gear change.
They looked after the car before I got it and looking at previous invoices it’s more like £400-500 for a service so I’ll be taking it up to them next year when it needs it’s next one.
Soldato
What are the autos like? Prices seem similar, and would it not solve the clutch issue?
The autos still have a clutch (automated manual rather than proper auto).
Caporegime
I think he means the heaviness of it, now your left leg don’t have the workout.
Soldato
This. I love the Aston, living where I do, a few miles from the factory, and in a village with an AM logistics facility the new ones are very common.
The N400 I had was a flappy paddle manual, which I think is what they offer rather than a true auto.
It was fine on the road, but when parking or similar, it was a right pain. It really struggled to decide what to do with the clutch when manoeuvring.
I've often wondered if a car company offered a flappy paddle which had an 'auxiliary' clutch pedal that the driver could use in situations like that, whether it'd be a popular option. Call me a child, but in my C63 one thing that I miss is the ability to feather the clutch and give it a few revs without necessarily disappearing up the road at Mach 1.
I'll have to do one on the DB9 soon. When I've owned it a year. In March
Not a chicken's chance in Thailand you've still got any same car for any 12 month period
Caporegime
Nice write up, interesting! 
Same principle behind nearly every automatic HGV these days except the ‘box operates the clutch as it should be which makes previously very common failure a real thing of the past, we’ve got a couple of million KM tractors at my employers that are still on the factory clutches for this very reason.
Oh right. I guess if you have to commute to work in it, it might be annoying. Most people have them as 2nd cars though.
Nice write up, interesting!
Same principle behind nearly every automatic HGV these days except the ‘box operates the clutch as it should be which makes previously very common failure a real thing of the past, we’ve got a couple of million KM tractors at my employers that are still on the factory clutches for this very reason.
It’s similar to the system I had in my e46 M3. The reason that they don’t break on lorries is because they can be configured with mechanically sympathetic (slow) changes and because they sit ok motorways for 95% of their lives.