Have been looking at buying a 911tt or a Vantage. There are some good deals on the 09 Vantages right now but am undecided which way to go. Any suggestions?

 

What good deals did you find on 09 Vantages if you don't mind?

 

110 K for a couple of very well optioned ones but I think I can do better. Have you seen any good deals and are you happy with your 07?

 

OK, so I have had a 996TT Cab and 997 C2S Cab. My 996 had EVO stage IV tuning to 600HP. If the price was the same I would by my V8 4.3 Roadster over both of them. I owned the 997 for 2 years and read on line that Porsche had produced 100,000 997 variants. My stomach turned. In history, there has only been 20,000 Aston Martins. That's every car ever made, less than 1/5 of the latest 911. The turbo will be faster but it will not feel as nimble and the steering is not as satisfying. Then there is the sound. This may be the most significant difference. I would put the engine note of my car with anything from Italy. The Porsche can't compare. If you are not going to track the car, you probably will not enjoy the difference in the HP. A new exhaust, sports cats, air filters and ECU program will get you about 45HP and costs about $6500. In a NA car, you'll have around 465HP if you get a 4.7L. Trust me, that's plenty. There is nothing you can do to a 911 to get the style in the same category. Having said that, Porsche will still produce millions of cars that look almost exactly the same as yours does. In fact, you will see housewives driving SUV's with your label in malls and grocery stores. Then there is the respect given to the AM driver. For some reason this car does not evoke the resent that the Italian car drivers experience. May be it's the James Bond thing. Anyway from one who knows both brands, there is nothing like an Aston. If you like top down at all, get a roadster. the sound of the engine with the top down will make you forget that you have a radio.

 

i would shoot for the vantage.....i just love the sound and u cant beat the styling...+ its more rare.....though its all up to you both are wonderful cars...

 

You made some very valid points. I think I'll go for a vantage. Now just have to decide whether to go new or slightly used. I know the 09 has some changes, do you think they are worth the money or go for an 07 or 08?

 

It depends on whether you are planning on staying stock. If you are, and you can get an '09 for 110K, I would definitely do that. They made a lot of engine and drive train upgrades that added up to much better performance.

The '06-'08 has more upgrade potential for now anyway...several ECU tuning and supercharger kits. While the '09 has one ECU upgrade I know of (Hamann), there are fewer options and more warranty concerns. For my '07 coming out of warranty, I went all out with a supercharger and it still cost me less than it would have been to upgrade to an '09.

 

I am planning on staying stock. I'm sure after I've had the car for a while, I may look into some mods. My last car was a c6 corvette and have never had an import. I've always wanted one but think I would be a little hesitant to do anything to a 100K car. What is a realistic number on an 07 or 08? You go online and find prices all over the map.

 

Then go with the '09 at 110K. Stock for stock, the '09s are much faster than you'd expect from just 40 hp difference.

Here's a quote from Motor Trend:

"Nonetheless, on its first run the Aston had clocked a 0-to-60-mph time of 4.1 seconds and a quarter mile of 12.5 seconds at 115.0 mph, easily bettering the 4.3-liter car's performance (5.2 seconds; 13.6 seconds at 105.8 mph) and even topping the times of the mighty, 520-horse DBS with six-speed automatic."

 

It really depends on what you want to pay. The '09s provide better performance no doubt, but you'll pay about a $40K premium for that performance (and factory warranty) -- you can pick up an '07 with around 10K miles for around $70k.

 

I'm sorry but I just have a hard time with those numbers. 40 hp can't shave off almost a full second (0.9s) on a vantage unless the new one lost weight with hundreds of lbs.

 

I see this is post under aston, so i guess i will keep shut.....lol :-)
enjoy which ever car you decide to buy, both are very good cars....

 

I agree with you on these numbers being suspect. I read that article too, but have yet to read anything else out there (and I've spent a lot of time looking) where they got similar numbers for the '09 Vantage. Even Aston's web site says 4.7 s for 0-60. I can see them sandbagging a bit so as not to way outshine the DB9 and DBS (and equal the V12), but I don't think they'd sandbag that much.

Having said that, the difference in performance between the 4.3 and the 4.7 is not just due to bhp and torque increases, it's also due to other go-fast changes, like reduced rotational mass.

 

Yeah exactly...there were a lot of changes besides the increase in displacement. They lightened the flywheel and wheels, changed the clutch, changed and lightened the crank, con rods and pistons, increased the valve sizes, and optimized the intake and manifold. I know 40 hp doesn't sound like much, but there is also 40 more ft-lbs of torque and it is present over the entire power band and pushing less rotational mass. And it was more than a full second difference in the 0-60 if you believe the numbers...4.1 vs. 5.2. They even said in the article that they probably could have gone under 4 seconds to 60 but they had a transmission problem and only got one test run.

Now on the other end, I tend to think the 06-08 cars are faster than they were tested. I only saw one test get a 4.7s run to 60...all others were over 5 seconds...pretty slow for a car with 380 hp and 3500 lbs. There were probably a lot of factors there including the clutch, the break-in abuse and wear, and the very heavy stock wheels. Whatever the case, I think the outlier is more the numbers posted by the older cars than it is the newer ones, which seem to fit better with the hp the car makes.

 

Indeed the numbers may be all over the place and I am not sure about the accuracy of those numbers for either 4.3 or 4.7. But at the end of the day, all the improvements together resulted in an additional 40 hp and 40 ft-pounds of torque. A 3500 lbs mass is not going to get a full second faster with some 10% more power, it's just physics.