"not paying attention" will get you killed. lesson learned junior. You should always be paying attention whether you are driving, walking on the street or in class.

yes sanguru my lesson was learned and i know that i will never do that again.

it's ANYTHING BUT ok. you still don't get it do you?? your mistake just raised your insurance rate multifold cuz your busted fender will be more than your deductable unless your parents cough up the dough.

we're not even talking about pushing the car. We talking about general driving habits and experience. Difference between front wheel drive vs RWD only comes into play when you start pushing it. Normal driving is no different.

So if I see a 30 year old get into a car accident, I can suddenly say, "oh look all 30 year olds are bad drivers and shouldn't be allowed fast cars?"

What you arguing is exactly the same arguments used by racists years ago... For example: "oh i saw a black guy steal something last night on tv", "oh yeah, lets go beat that black guy standing over there"...

Amazing, pig-headed comments like this lead to sweeping generalizations that are the downfall of society.

So your telling me a 17 year old can't drive well? I've seen 6 14 year olds in BMW driver training, who I'd bet handle a car a LOT better then you on a race-track... Just don't make generalizations like this... its really unnecessary.

If you want to come watch me drive, and then make judgments, by all means do. Come to the bay area and I'll go for a drive with you. Then you can talk all you want about how I am an unexperienced driver. But saying that at4689 is not an experienced driver without knowing him is unbelievable stupidity on your part.

Well i still think he shouldve got the M3 if the parents were willing to pay for it. What he does with it is his parents and his problem not ours. My first car was an M car. I never put one scratch on it. Who knows maybe i was lucky maybe i was careful.

Yea but he is 17 he will be pushing it. thats why i said he shouldve got a regualr 3 series first to learn on.

I am with Sanguru (and UCrew, who IIRC got a clean 318 for his son). And I think that bringing racism into it is a huge stretch of the imagination.

Yes, there are some bad older drivers along with some bad younger drivers. But all that aside, many would agree that a new driver needs to have less power, not more. You can't buy experience. You can speed up the process by attending the right kind of driver training courses, but you still need to have the seat time. I am sorry if that seems pigheaded to you, but having been 17 once, and now having 30 years of driving experience (car, motorcycle, heavy truck, bus, off road, very limited track time), I still think that the best car for a 17 year old is more like the Yaris we got my daughter, and less like an M3. My second daughter asked me about an M3 a few months ago, by coincidence. We introduced her to the idea of a four year old MX5 Miata.

See if you still feel the same about the skills of 17 year old drivers when you have driven for a few decades, hopefully without an accident.

Well, this is the car I had for 18 months......

http://www.members.lycos.co.uk/bmwx5/car6.jpg

And then I sold it and bought this one......
http://www.members.lycos.co.uk/bmwx5/car1.JPG

Did the swap last November. Now the sun is out a bit more I do miss the M3. But, the X5 is far more practical - much more of a family car.

Do wish that I could have had both!! Never mind, when the kids are old enough to drive themselves around (instead of using 'dad the taxi'), I'll sell it and get something a bit more fun again - Porche, Ferrari maybe ;)

But, I must say, the X5 is a great car. Certainly don't have to look after it nearly as much as the M3 - don't have to avoid potholes, don't have to worry about parking (as the X5 is undingable), curbs - can go up them, down them, can drive through puddles (in England we have lots of those :rofl: ), go off-road, through mud etc etc etc etc

thanks dinan and xx3