Dough1397

I should start with a brief HI! I've been lurking around here for a couple of months now gathering some info. I have the opportunity to buy an acquaintance's 2007 TL Type S 6mt in a few months. I've always liked the car, looks awesome, specs are good, available manual, only downside is the fwd.

In any case I was given the opportunity to take the car out for a spin and I was quite excited. So it was a cool day last fall, 2 degrees celcius out, it had been raining up until an hour ago. I meet up with the owner who's says "lets get to business, here's the keys, take it for a spin..." the moment i stepped in the door. He's told me to go down these roads, check out the toll highway (407etr just north of Toronto, known to be super quiet during non peak hours) and make sure he can drive the car to work on Monday. I asked "you're not coming with?!" He said "nope, just have fun! We'll discuss the details when you're back." So I hop in, drive out the residential neighbourhood, letting the car warm up, brushing up on my weak manual transmission skills (never driven manual regularly before, just learned by borrowing family/friend's cars over the years). I get to some quiet roads, leading away from the neighbourhood, give it a bit of gas as I pulled away from some lights. I had a huge grin on my face. Kept on pushing the gas til it was all the way down; shoot lots of wheel spin! Did variations of this for a few minutes around these quiet roads til I got to the toll highway. I sped up on the ramp, the car was flatter than anything I'd driven before (not saying much). Driving on the highway the car was insane, an awesome car, and not another car in sight! I was surprised at how quick the car was, how muhc power it had. At one point i slowed down, shifted to third and floored it rather quickly. I was greeted by some more wheel slip, eased off, accelerated shifted to fourth high in the rev range, floored it again, wheel spin again! I must have had a weird look on my face, cause I know I had a huge grin, but I was quite scared, doing ~100km/hr (60+ mph) and slipping was terrifying. On the way back to the owner's place, I had a stretch of road to just go all out on (he had told me about this). So I was like let me try this. I got it going in first (rather normally since I didn't want to risk stalling), put pedal all the way down, wheel spin again, tried to control it, got into second, tried to control the wheel spin again, same deal in third. I stopped accelerating and was so impressed with the car, I thought I ought to slow back down, so went down to 80km/hr as I went through an intersection. The intersection however had "tracks" from traffic over the years travelling perpendicularly to the direction I was going in. I didn't notice this and went over them at 80km/hr, I felt like i was gonna catch some air and was scared shittless, again! after that I decided I'd better obey all speed limits as I was approaching the residential area.

I spoke to the owner, told him everything, he had a good laugh. 10 minutes after giving the keys back to him, I had to ask, "ummm, this may sound weird, but what colour is the car?!" It was silver; in my excitement I hadn't paid much attention to the exterior. He made me go look at it again and make sure everything was nice.

So long story short, I loved the car. I've driven many cars , this is amongst my favorite, its also reliable and practical. I am not to worried about the fwd aspect as of now. Maybe checking out the competition might change my mind, but I'll worry about that later.

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I have two questions regarding the 07-08 TL Type S:
1. Is there an A-Spec suspension for the Type S? If so, could you describe the major changes?
2. Some reviews mention that the addition of the LSD in the 6mt requires you keep a firm grip on the wheel when accelerating hard. Why is this? I have some knowledge of what an LSD does, but not enough to understand why this statement is true. I will be reading up on LSDs, just wanted to get your opinions in parallel.

Thanks!

stvtec

iTrader: (2)

Read up on torque steer. I have an '06 (non TypeS) 6MT and the car definitely had some strong torque steer. As you experienced, the FWD traction is definitely an issue, but it is a nice reliable car with decent power, and looks terriffic.

csmeance

If you do get the car, I'd invest in some good tires since it sounds like they were loosing traction pretty easily! The TL suffers from a mild case of Torque Steer, but this has been GREATLY reduced on 2006+ models as a torque management system was added to help prevent people from struggling or complaining!

There is an A-Spec suspension available for the TL-S and TL models, it essentially lowers the car a half inch and also firms up the ride. If you are considering suspension modifications, besides the A-spec, a Rear Sway Bar (around 100 dollars) is the BEST investment you can make, the car drives much better and corners even better!

Deep n TX

Nice pick up on the Type-S and welcome to the community You may consider getting some pics of the whip posted soon because we're all a bunch of TL picture whores.

jwr0ng626

iTrader: (1)

si... turn those words into pictures lol easier to comprehend

Dough1397

I should clear a couple things up, I haven't bought the car yet so, sorry no pictures. I don't want to buy it from the owner just yet and he knows that and is fine. He's leasing it, the buyout is low and to him its either going to dealer or he can flip it and sell it and make a good profit. I fit in between the return to dealer and flip it options. I can have it for the buyout + fees + some cash to him. Which should still be under the market value .

How big is the difference between the Type S suspension and A-Spec suspension? I assume the ride gets a little stiffer but not rock hard stiff. I like the idea of it being lower by 0.5" - 1".

I think the tires were stock and it was really time to switch over to the winter tires at those temperatures. I assume if/when I do get the car I'll be getting some new rubber for the warmer months. Definitely look for something better than stock .