Hello everyone,

My dad seems willing to buy me a car for college and he said he liked the Celica. I told him the Celica was discontinued and was replaced w/ the Scion TC. I was reluctant to get a tC but yeah..... He said to test drive it and long story short, I test drove one a couple days ago.

Everything was great, the only cons i could think of were....
1) The interior looked very plain. Not a bad thing, but a little more would have been nice
2) the trunk space was pretty bad.... very shallow but wide
3) The CLUTCH.... the grabbing point seemed a bit high compared to most other cars
4) The shift **** was loose and the shifter didn't feel 100% solid: When I was sitting in the car waiting for the dealer, i pressed in the clutch and shifted thru the gears, it didn't feel as solid as the e90's gears but i guess it's not a fair comparison considering the price differences.
5) The Steering wheel was very thin, I like slightly thicker steering wheels such as the ones found on 05+ WRXs and the 3Series. the tC steering wheel felt like I was grabbing onto a slim jim (exaggeration but u get the point)

Other than those things, the Scion TC seemed great and I was definitely impressed. I am now very seriously considering getting one and will hopefully become a fellow owner.

any advice on pricing/mods/anything at all is welcome because it will help me with my final decision. As of right now, the tC is my number 1 choice =)

 

I cant say I see your point ont the wheel.. it is as thick or thicker than most cars I have driven.

And the clutch will be different on almost all cars. That is something you have to get used to.

Interior.. well, for the price I havent seen many as nice. I dont like them too overdone. The amber lighting sucks though. But you can look up my write ups on how to fix that

For mods, if you want to get a noticeable gain for under $1000 in the performance area, go with handling. Intakes, exhaust, headers, pulleys, etc are typically going to either get you marginal gains or a loss in performance and reliablity. All in all I have never see one of those parts do what they say.

For about $400, you can pick yourself up a good set of tires, that would be number 1 in my book since most stock tires suck. You will notice a big difference in handling right there.

If you do the work yourself, you can have a good set of springs on the car for less than $300. I run TRD and love the balance between ride and handling, and they look nice and not too overdone once settled. See my profile for pics of mine. If you want to go further, Tein is probably your best bet. Keep in mind that too low hurts performance, and looks crappy imo

A stiffer rear sway runs a little over $125, takes very little time or skill to install, and makes a big difference. I run the TRD on track setting all the time. Still not so stiff that bumpy streets are an issue, but keeps the car much flatter in the corners. If you are going to autox it, then you may want to go with a hotchkis set (much stiffer than the TRD on the back will warrant a stiffer front sway to match and balance it out). The front will be a pain to install and on bumpy city streets you may have a few more issues cornering, so it depends on what you want.

To sum it up, I run Avon MTECH 550's, a trd rear sway and trd springs for handling and it is a lot better than stock. For visual mods I have the Figure LLC grilles, S2k stubby antenna, blue gauges with red needles and blue HVAC lighting plus the oem led kit inside. I plan to debadge the rear and have the emblem hole filled and painted as well.

There are some ideas for you

 

You'll love your tC. For the money buy it stock and add the extra crap on later on your own. Can get much better deals from local Scion groups or Ebay. My advice join a local Scion Evolution Chapter for your area and meet some other people. It's not just a car it's awhole family - have met some great people just from buying a car. Not something you'd expect when you buy a car for sure.
Trust me the car is freaking awesome. Was in a bad accident in my car a little over a month ago and it is a SOLID car. If I ever had my doubts going from a bigger sedan to a coupe they were put to rest during the accident.
Bottom Line....buy the freaking car. You will not be disappointed at all.

 

You are such a nice person

 

Well, I'm pretty new to these message boards still but here's my two cents...

I was actually impressed with the interior. The "rhino hide/parchament" look really caught my eye and everything else looked very modern.

Trunk space is truly limited from my point of view. I used to drive an '04 GTI and if you know that's a hatchback. I once moved practically my entire apartment by packing everything in the Dub.

I've driven manuals my whole life, the easiest again being the Volkswagen and the hardest was a trap clutch on a '76 Ford Pickup. Honestly, the clutch on the tC took me about a month or two to get really comfortable with and I'd like to consider myself pretty well experienced when it comes to driving manuals but this one just seemed a little touchy. Now that I'm used to the grab and when to release I honestly don't even notice it. Second nature to be sure.

The shift **** on mine was loose too when I took delivery and it just needed to be tightened down. The throw in the shifter didn't seem too long to me and the only thing I noticed is that 1st gear is a little short. Again, that's probably because I'm coming from the turbo charged GTI which had an awesome first gear...

The steering wheel felt pretty beefy to me. I agree with the above poster.. it's a good thickness. The GTI has a really beefy steering wheel and that was a big concern for me too but in the tC I don't really have a problem. In fact, it feels more natural with the 3 spokes than other cars I've driven with 2 or 4 spoke steering wheels.

Overall I'd say I'm really satisfied with the car. I typically get bored of cars after the first month of ownership but the community and the fact that you just get so much car for the money has really served to keep my enthusiasm in the vehicle.

Not to mention Scionlife.com is a pretty cool site. I've learned alot about my car just by creeping around these message threads.

DO IT!

 

Thanks Claudia :D

I do agree that that hatch space is a bit small, but they make up for it in rear seat space. But fold down the rear seats and you will be suprised at how much you can pack in there! I moved a LOT of stuff in mine.

I have heard a few that said the shifter was loose, mine was fine when I got it. But that is always something you can get the dealer to fix. I am getting ready to install a shifter kit that reduces height by 1.75 inches and throw by 50%, along with new cage and shift cable bushings. So I will update and let everyone knows how well it works.

 

i dont have a tc but what they ^ said is realy good info also look into joining a club in your area i would sugguest www.scikotics.com we are like a family that has people nation wide

 

I think you're focusing too much on the interior and forgetting about the rest of the goodies you get with the car.

You can always fold the rear seats if you need more trunk space... If you think the TC has small cargo room, you should check out the trunk capacity in an RSX and other hatchback cars.

The real catch to the TC is that most of the options come standard.

17" alloy wheels with factory tires that cost $185 a pop on tirerack.com
4-wheel disc brakes with ABS
Panoramic sunroof
Power windows, mirrors, locks and everything
Mp3/Ipod player
Front airbags and etc
FREE Concert/events for Scion Owners

If you compare the standard features on the TC to other cars within the same price range, you'll see that you'll have to pay extra for most of the options that comes factory installed in the TC

 

^ Agreed. The tC comes with so many standard features that you'd have to pay extra on for other cars. And the ipod stereo is a must for ipod users.

On top of everything, the tC just looks sweet!

 

thanks everyone for the quick and informative replies

 

I do reccomend throwing out the $185 dollar a peice tires that should cost more like $45 a peice due to thier poor performance and going out to buy a set of $100 a peice tires that perform worlds better :D That is if you got the yoko's or potenzas. Avons are $103, pirellis are $125 and both KILL the potenzas in all areas.

 

^^^^^Is my only complaint about the tC. The stock rubber is BS.

 

Funny, I thought the interior was nice; although, I would have liked a larger tach and/or a smaller speedo.

Trunk space, what trunk space?

The clutch feels a little numb to me compared to my Nissan 240SX and Triumph TR-7, but the grab point seems fine. (Could it be that you're not familiar with a hydraulic clutch?)

Shifter felt OK to me but the throws are a little on the long side.

The steering wheel felt beefy to me.

 

yes if you get the tc.. please upgrade the tires as soon as you can!! the stock tires are terrible in the rain. ugh!

i'd recommend toyo proxes4 lately, i've sounded like a rolling advertisement. hey i like the toyo's can't help it

 

if you ever need help installing anything if you want to start modding, go over to the local forums, plenty of SLers over there. i'm close by as well, i live in newton and actually have some friends over there in weston...filthy rich town from what i can tell haha what school will you be going to? somewhere close by?

 

Yeah...... I just hit a guard-rail the other day thanks to the Yokogayos! It made $2k worth of damage. GET NEW TIRES before you learn the hard way like I did!

 

haha i think newton's land is actually more expensive than weston! but yeah... lots of really well off ppl in weston.

im currently at Umass Amherst, goin back for my 2nd semester.

 

yoko? i thought stock was potenzia's?

i think it is a fun lil car, i like the growl of te trd exhaust. but this is my wifes car i would have a mazdaspeed 3 touring.

 

stock is either yokohamas or the bridgestone potenzas

I have the yokos, and I don't see them as terrible, and I haven't felt like I was going to lose the car in the rain. However, I haven't used performance tires, but at the same time, the Yokos seem fine for what they are.

 

All I can say is that when an 18 year old is getting a car for free and has so many nit-picks, he/she needs to get a job!
Seriously. If your old man bought you a beater POS, you should be happy.