This is my first post, but I've been reading since Feb. (never had anything to add.) I got a black tC on July 3, so it has been well over a month of owning the car, and although I mostly love it, I thought I'd mention a couple of things.

1. This car cannot take inclines of any sort. I'm talking about the most innocent looking driveways that you wouldn't think twice about... SCRAPE! I came out of a drive thru ATM today at granny speed and still scraped up the entire underside of the front. (Which means if I wash it with a high pressure spray, I could peel off alot of paint.)
Everytime I pull out of my parking area I have to try and angle to get one wheel off at a time or it scrapes loudly.
Also, some speed bumps, no matter how slow you take them, seem to knock something toward the rear.

Now I live in New Orleans, and the curbs here are probably higher than a lot of cities, but I have never experienced this with another car. It makes me wonder how anyone could even think of lowering this thing when it can't even enter the grocery store parking lot without losing paint.

2. It seems to scratch incredibly easy. I know this might be because it's black, but any debris that hits the bumper seems to go right through to the primer.

3. The CD door takes alot of poking before it opens, making me feel like i'm gonna break it oneday. Is this just mine?

4. The loud knocking sound from the sunroof is unnerving, but i know people have already talked that one to death, so I'm just mentioning it.

These are just some things I wanted to share with other owners/prospective owners and see what your thoughts are. One last thing I wanted to mention is that my windshield was cracked when the car was less than 3 weeks old, and the glass has to be ordered from the dealer ($632.20!) and installed somewhere else (total=$780). This is, of course, not a defect, but quite an expensive repair compared to other cars, should you have to do it.

Thanks for your time and opinions!

 

First off, is your car lowered at all? I have yet to scrape my tC on anything....and I have been in driveways were my friend cannot go, since he has Ground Effects and what not on his 300Z.

My stereo door works just fine....no problems at all.

Sunroof is fine for me too...no popping ever. I must be lucky.

 

Nope, the car is factory height.

 

Well my car, which I've owned just over a month, has 3000+ miles and this is what I have:

1 small crack in windshield from a rock kicked up by those big semis
1 squeaky head unit panel
3 scrapes after I got the TRD springs
1 loud glass roof
0 braking problems
0 transmission problems
1 too many parking permit stickers on my windshield :?

So, it's working out to be pretty much like most cars people used to commute to work. BTW, my last mpg check was pretty good, 350 miles and 12 gal fillup = 29 mpg.

 

Hi Ellis,
I got my tC on July 2nd so I've had it almost exactly the same amount of time as yours.

1. I have yet to scrape on anything. I have the TRD springs (1.25" drop) and stock wheels. I go over speed bumps and driveways carefully but have not scraped on anything (unlike my last car which scraped on almost everything).
2. Yes, the paint does seem to scratch very easily. My car is BCP and I don't know if the scratches are just more noticeable on the dark colors or if the tC does really scratch easier than most cars.
3. My cd door is pretty easy to open and close.
4. I had the moonroof noise fixed by the dealership but after about a month, it started up again (but possibly in a different spot). I am going to have them check it out when I get my oil changed next week.
Let me know if you have any questions. -Jayme

 

I've had the car for more than a month now, too, but only 200+ miles on it so far. No problems at all ... not even the sunroof problem. People can't get over how nice the car is for the price, especially when they take it for a drive. My car is a stock 5sp IIP with side airbags. I am thinking about the springs, but yeah I don't want to deal with the speed bumps and driveways and curbs like I did with my previous car (5th gen Prelude).

 

Give it time :twisted:

 

EllisD25 - Is there anything you LIKE about your alleged crapmobile?

 

I've had mine for about as long.
Now that's just weird. I have had to navigate some inclines myself (my g/f's driveway is very steep) and haven't scraped anything at all. In fact, I'm inclined to lower it. Do you have the TRD springs?
Oh, guess you don't.
I haven't experienced this myself just yet, but I've been *really* careful about driving super slow over gravel or dirt, whether that's the primary surface, or if it's just scattered on the asphalt. Also, I keep my distance from trucks and SUVs on the highway. But I have heard other reports that the paint on these cars seems like it's dying to come off the car.
For me it just took practice. There are actually a lot of posts on here about the CD door, and the best way people have found to operate it. I find that opening it works best if I really do push *right* on the little dots that indicate the push-point. Not even a tiny bit above. Right on those dots. And you have to push it decently far in to get it to work. I haven't decided yet whether a quick "mouse-click" tap works best, or a longer press.
Yeah, it's annoying. I'm not too upset about it. People have reported success at getting it fixed, so once I know there's a TSB out about it, I'll take it in. No biggie.
Weird. A *lot* of people seem to be having windshield problems with these cars. It's as if the windshields just can't take even the smallest pebbles. My windshield hasn't been tested yet, but my '98 Ford Escort more than once took some large pebbles to the windshield, on the highway, at about 80mph and never cracked.

 

Month old here, 1500 miles, lowered on TRD springs - no underside scrapes, no problems with speedbumps, curbs, driveways. But I used to drive a lowered Matrix, which is extremely close to the ground stock due to the factory bodykit.

For bumper paint protection I use a scion full front end mask (for long highway trips only).

 

Whoa there. Easy. I believe his words were "although I mostly love it, I thought I'd mention a couple of things."

 

thanks, aneis, for clearing that up. i love the car, thats why it hurts to see it get messed up. this is the first brand new car i've ever had, and every time i walk up to it i think "god this car is hot." there is nothing even close to it for the price... however, since it is my baby, i recoil at every bit of damage, especially since its only 1 1/2 months old, and it seems to damage easily. it makes me worry what it's going to look like in 2 years.

also, i only mention the problems so that we can figure out what problems are unique, and what appear to be common issues with the TC. i'm just trying to exchange information, not trash the car. it helps to know what other people are experiencing so that when you go to the dealer he won't give you a "you're crazy" look when you mention something.

 

hmn...I have also not experienced any problems with my tC and I have 1952 miles as of 1 hour ago.

no sunroof problems (other than some wind noise, normal)
no scrapes
no scratches
no trasmission problems
no brake problems
the cd player door sucks ___ (but i just leave it open anyways)
no windshield problems
had spots on my back window, but the tint job took care of it.

So, in total, I am very happy with my purchase

*for gods sake, get some wheel locks!

 

my car was a show room demo car, which there is higher chance for my car to go wrong. so far, i am happy with it.

moonroof poping noise is the first thing i check when i was test driving, i heard the noise, so did my saleslady. but it's rather small noise that i can live. after a month of driving, my car has about 3.5k miles now. i don't get much moonroof poping noise now as i did before. not because it "heal" itself, just because my driving skills improved to adapt to this car, my friend told me that my driving is much smoother now compare to the time when i was driving my old corolla.

never get a single scrach on the car, but a lot of scraches on the rim. these things tend to happen when you have lowprofile tires, can's avoid. even i turn my siide mirror down to look at the curb, that still happen. I had 7 different scraches on the rim now. again, I parked very carefully, tried my best to avoid rim scraches. pulling in/out of driveway seems ok, never have a problem with speed bumps.

the bigest problem that i have is keeping the car clean. i don't have grage, always park my car on street and alwasy use machine wash at those gas station. my dust bulid up is horrible, now i can see the dust build up on my car and can't remove them by normal washing. need to find a better way to keep the car clean.

 

Coming up on 1000 miles in 8 days.

No sunroof noises
No problems with the stereo door
No shifting (5-speed) or brake issues
No scraping issues


What I do percieve as problems:

A loud whistling sound anywhere from 60+ mph occasionally (seem to depend on the wind) coming through the driver's side dash/winshield/visor in front of me. Can't pinpoint an exact location which is frustrating.

Lots of sunroof wind noisewhen the cover is open, but from what I can tell, it's not a problem per se, but just something to deal with.

Moving air vents when they are on full blast

driver's side fabric is coming off the seat on the rear, where the lever to pull the seat forward is.

Overall, I'm loving it. Not so much the gas mileage (308 miles on 13.5 gallons = 22mpg) 50/50 mixed, so I guess that's the price to pay for the nice engine.

 

Hey haihengh,
I would recommend you try out a California Duster (carried at autozone, pepboys, etc). The C.D. was the best $20 I have spent on my car! Before I got it, my car would be covered with dust and look dirty about two days after I washed it (I have a BCP which is a really dark color). Now, I do a quick dust every morning and it looks spotless for about two weeks (unless it rains or something)! The C.D. won't harm your cars finish and you never have to wash it. The only thing to be aware of is that you should air it out for 48 hours on newspapers before you first use it (as mentioned in the instructions). Hope this helps. -Jayme

 

Owned my flint mica for a month and a half.....going strong, love it to death! No problems with anything..TRD springs installed and fits in my inclined driveway quite well which i didn't think i was gonna make..I just drive right in it no speacial techniques to prevent from scraping..I plan to do lots with my baby!!!!

 

thanks for the info, i will buy that thing when i stop by pepboys today. $20 to protect my 18k car is well worth it.

 

I have about 1600 miles right now, got mine a little over a month ago.

Haven't noticed any new issues besides what you guys already mentioned. I did get my sunroof fixed so that's not a problem (knock on wood). I don't have any problems with going into any driveways or anything, actually it feels really high-up stock. It is scratched in a bunch of places (not too deep but still very annoying).

The only thing I did want to add that was bothering me was the rolling back on hills. I was leaving my friend's driveway one day and it's a good incline. I was backing up actually and i had to be realllly careful. It kept rolling forward as soon as I let go of the brake just a little bit. Took me a good 5 minutes to get out! Also it rolls back much more then my previous car on hills. I have AT by the way. So yeah, besides that everything's perfect.

 

Yeah, out here on the east coast we get rain all the time. I don't think the duster would do me much good. You Californians are spoiled.

I do want to try out the Mr. Clean thing, though. Water spots are a bigger concern for me than dust.