Faults:

Vibration caused by manifold heat shield.

Glove box starting to squeak.

Dealer drilled a hole into my front bumper to hold license plate.

Recaro seat is starting to wear already. Side bolsters are wearing due to hopping in and out of the seat and also the seatbelt rubs against the seat and this is wearing out the seat too.

General Comments:

New DC5 shape looks modern. It's easy on the eye.

Interior is plastic fantastic. Feels a little cheap, but it's all clear enough and the Recaro seats are great. Bootspace is huge especially with the rear seats down.

Gearshift is light and mostly direct, but when on the limit it's easy to mis-shift into 3rd gear. It's also sometimes hard to find 4th when shifting down from 5th gear.

If you lower the car with lowering springs you will get very severe wheel hop. I had to go back to stock springs.

Car feels larger than it is. You cannot at all see the front of the car so it makes parking a little scary, but you can get used to this.

The engine is quite torquey, but if you have 2 adults in the car with you the car feels so slow.

Ride is firm for stock. Handles quite good for a stock car. Torque steer is there, but it's not that bad. Steering wheel is fat and thick, it feels tough and the steering itself is heavy. Steering isn't as fast as some cars I have had and it does feel a little vague. It's hard to trust at times, but I am getting used to it.

Faults:

Nothing.

General Comments:

Stunning handling, roadholding, brakes, gearchange. Steering is telepathic. Licence-threatening as you feel at one with the car - pretty confidence inspiring.

I saw a Type-R all over the back of an Audi S3 recently and a fair 0-60 time is probably around 6.2-6.4 seconds if you rev the car to 9300rpm.

Performance is amazing above 6000 rpm, but can be caught out below this if you are in the wrong gear. Lack of torque is the problem here.

Essentially, you need to thrash the car to obtain the best performance. For this reason, driving can be very frustrating in town (this car is also difficult to drive smoothly at low speeds).

Needing to thrash the car is fine if you are a boy racer, but if you're not, it can be embarrassing. Don't kid yourself that the engine sounds like an F1 car at high revs - it doesn't.

In summary, one of the best cars ever if you are in the UK on a nice B-road, or at a track day. Does have road presence because of its reputation, although if you look at the car from some angles you can clearly see Accord-like styling cues. Not recommended if you live in a country of straight roads and traffic lights however.