Affordable Dream Car: Why Aston Martin's DB11 Was a New Failure, But Used Bargain

hello everybody before today's exciting video featuring a fantastic aston martin a couple of points of order first off i need to do a shout out to jasmine hello jasmine secondly i see a lot of people talking about videos that look cinematic and a lot of people seem to think that cinematic means black bars at the top and bottom and some crazy color correction i disagree you want to know how to make somebody feel like they're actually sat in a cinema well using the medium of my adreel i shall tell you ready hello everybody it is no exaggeration whatsoever to say that the db-11 is one of the most important cars in aston martin history after a decade and a half of popular and successful models spun off aston's vh architecture it was time for something new and db-11 was the car to lead aston into what they called their second century but even according to aston martin themselves the db-11 failed so spectacularly to meet expectations it was canned after just 18 months today i'm driving one and asking the question what went wrong and were we too harsh on the db11 the vh era is almost certain to go down in aston martin history as one of its finest in case you weren't aware vh stands for vertical horizontal and was aston martin's nomenclature for the technology they used to underpinned a series of cars beginning really with the vanquish and ending in some ways with the rapide this included cars like the v8 vantage the db-9 the vanquish the dbs the vanquish and a few other specials too in many ways there wasn't really anything wrong with the vh architecture it was built on a series of aluminium extrusions bonded and riveted together a technology developed by lotus unfortunately there were many who didn't understand that vh was an architecture not a chassis so they thought aston was simply recycling the same thing time and time again when they weren't many including myself were also keen to criticize aston for the fact that all of their cars in this period did look somewhat samish and i must confess i myself was forced to eat a bit of humble pie when the db11 came out because i took one look at it and went ah yeah actually can we go back to what you've been doing for the last 20 years it turns out that was fine after all this to me is not really much of a looker from the front i actually quite admire it however it's the rear that just doesn't work for me i don't like cars that come in the sort of two section shape much like the jaguar f-type i prefer a little bit of something at the rear where you can have a little flick or a little flourish something like that many times the design of both aston martin and jaguars have been compared for many good reasons both british firms sometimes sharing designers even sharing componentry the db7 and the old xk are very very closely related both being based on the old xjs platform likewise the newer xk many considered simply to be a bargain basement version of the db9 however when it came to the db11 it was aston that seemed to be the imitator because more than a few people noticed the similarities between this and the f-type as an aston martin is perhaps above all else an object of desire getting the looks right is crucial i'd love you if you haven't already to hop into the comments section and tell me do you consider the db11 a looker i don't but i'd like your input on this one that's important this diavalo red certainly does help it really lifts the car makes it look a little bit interesting i think the piece i was at least keen on was the little floating c-pillar thing they've got going on at the back it just doesn't really work for me this being said there was still plenty the db-11 did right the chassis was still bonded and riveted aluminium but in place of the old extrusions they used a series of stampings which gave it a stiffer platform and also a bit more interior space you can certainly feel the latter the former i'm not so sure about the aluminium chassis of the old cars was already pretty good certainly in coupe form if you are expecting this to have transformed into a fully fledged four-seater you will be disappointed space back there is still limited and the boot is still surprisingly small for what promises to be a proper european continent crossing grand tourer the engine in the first db11 was also something of a pleasant surprise because we'd known aston had done a deal with mercedes and it was assumed that whatever engine they used was going to be mercedes derived not the case at all because the car launched with a 5.2 liter twin turbo v12 that aston claimed was all new not so sure about that and was all aston that i am certain of i remember the reviews of this car early on and most were generally positive the car received largely four out of five eight out of 10 so not glowing reports but still a good car praise was given in particular to the suspension which was considered by some to be more compliant and aston like than a lot of cars they built up until then i myself had found a number of the vh cars to be just a little bit stiffer than i'd expected the dbs and the original v12 vantage being the biggest perpetrators there the interior also had the correct amount of leather in other words loads and felt very aston like however there were criticisms the infotainment system was taken from mercedes which even then wasn't brand new and today is a laughably out of date i know some people do like the system merc use here it's essentially very similar to what you've got in an s ore class or something from about 10 years ago but i've never really got on with it perhaps that's because i've never had more than sort of half an hour or an hour in these cars but i'm not a fan many were also upset at the fact aston went for an eight-speed zf auto in place of a dual clutch for the gearbox for me i think they actually made the right decision even just there turning around the gearbox responds well and at low speeds in auto mode it's very smooth and very pleasant it's shuffled itself into eighth gear now at 48 miles an hour and i didn't really notice it doing that the steering wheel is a rather oddly shaped affair and beyond its it's a fairly plain screen a couple of the important features for the car happily are controlled by a very simple and elegant method two buttons one on each side of the wheel and easily accessible by your thumbs control the suspension and the powertrain settings each have three comfort or gt they call it for the powertrain sport and sport plus i'm going to put the car now in the settings that chris the owner recommends which is regular for the suspension and sport plus for the power train as you might expect sport plus gives the car a little bit more throttle response believe the steering might have weight up too though don't take my word for that the suspension is still in basic mode it also in auto makes the car keener to hold gears for longer and does give you just a little bit more noise i have few to no complaints with very smooth very responsive what's the turning circle like uh not great but i didn't expect it to be got a little bit of clear road ahead of us let's see what this car's like you know something i really like driving this car the steering very important to get right in and aston absolutely on point wonderfully communicative perfectly weighted has a sense of heft that you need from a car like this it's no light weight eighteen hundred kilos this thing it rides fairly well i would say a little firmer than i was expecting i've come to this car the wrong way around because what i have driven is the v8 vantage and the dbs so i've driven the cars that came after never the original gearbox is crisp and responsive the car makes a good noise you get just the right amount of throaty burble into the cabin with the odd pop and crack on a downshift too that's not too much not too little into reverse nice and easy have a reversing and 360 camera here the 360 camera is actually standard which does shock me because the general rule of the automotive world is the more you pay to start off with the less you get as standard now there is one thing about this particular car i haven't mentioned that i'm sure you haven't failed to notice the engine and you'll also i'm sure be aware that you can still buy a dv11 yet at the start of this video i said it got canned after 18 months well both are true the original db11 v12 was indeed axed after just 18 months on sale and replaced with the db11amr of the reason that car exists is this the db11 v8 which was introduced only just over a year after the first car came out this was actually a very significant thing because this was the first time i think maybe ever that a flagship aston martin was actually offered with a couple of completely different engines in the past they'd offered their cars with different capacities or states of tune that sort of thing but i don't believe they'd ever given you a choice of two totally different power trains or if they had it was a long time ago the old db9 dbs vanquish they were all strictly a v12 the only car that got a choice was the vantage on paper this car is some way shy of the v12 that made 600 horsepower this is just over 500 but in terms of torque there is next to nothing between them because the v12 made 700 newton meters this 675 and if you're wondering surely a 5.2 liter twin-turbo v12 can make more torque than a four-liter v8 you'd be right this as you've probably already guessed is the same four liter twin turbo amg unit the mercedes stuffed in just about everything from the c63 to the g-wagon and the gt torque is limited not because of the engine but the gearbox with the dbs aston martin didn't actually do anything at all to the engine it made more torque because the gearbox allowed it to this car's parking sensors apparently are a problem [Applause] as a gt car for me should really be more about the mid-range punch rather than the top end fireworks the v8 really is a very very fine engine it has a little bit of turbo lag but honestly not anywhere near enough to concern me in something like the gt which is trying to be a more overtly sporting car it bothers me a great deal more here not so much the fact is the dbs with the full fat version of the v12 simply struggles to get the power down anyway actually as does this it's just about started raining for the first time in a couple of weeks and in sport plus mode the traction is just a little looser so the car will spin up and has done a couple of times already the v8 was also the car particularly interesting two journal types because this guy is notably lighter than the v12 by some 100 odd kilos and as you might imagine a lot of that has come off the front axle so whether v12 has a 51 front weight distribution this has a 51 rear weight distribution not masses for sure but does give you an idea of where that weight has been shaved as i haven't driven the regular db11 i cannot tell you whether it really makes a difference but i can say this is a much more competent sports car than i would have possibly imagined the v8 also returns reasonable fuel economy in the last 116 miles which has included me having quite a bit of fun it's done 23.3 to the gallon and chris said on the journey down here when he also had a little bit of fun it averaged over 26 for this kind of car i think that's very good he bought it from an aston martin dealership it was actually an ex-aston car so has a very healthy specification around 46 000 pounds of optional extras chiefly comprising carbon fiber some leather stitching bits and also a five and a half thousand pound bang olufsen stereo with the little pop out tweeters up the front i actually do really like it the bno system in aston martin's is one of my favorite in-car stereos if for the visual drama of it and nothing else it is a pretty broad car this the rear archers stick out an impressive amount that being said at no point has it been daunting to drive i feel like i can place it with more accuracy than expected so on that front it's pretty good certainly no worse than any contemporary ferrari happily not much has really gone wrong with it the only thing he has issue with is the parking sensors that you may have heard earlier were going off at inappropriate moments this also has nice things like ventilated seats and the chairs themselves are very very comfortable not at all supportive there's really no side bolstering in this whatsoever though doesn't actually seem to have been much of a problem that does surprise me they also seem to have fixed the issue that old astons had where if you were to drive the car with a big wallet you would change your seat position every time you went for the clutch this obviously doesn't have a clutch but even in some of the auto cars it was an issue happily doesn't seem to be a problem here there are some silly design choices in this car the door handles are absolutely atrocious they've been styled rather than engineered there's no nice way to open the door on this car the exterior door handles are from the old astons and i do not like the concept that they went to all the trouble of building a completely new ground up fresh car and then thought you know what you know the bit you're going to touch first let's use the old one [Music] suspension test coming up right if this car can go through here a reasonable pelt without going bang it's a good car it's a good car this suspension's set up really nicely a little firmer than expected but there's some control in it corners quite flat too got that punch i like this i really like this don't like the entertainment hate the infotainment there was also no need whatsoever for the little central storage compartment here to be electrically openable that's just daft it's just that's just gonna break isn't it let's be honest here and i do seem to recall in the early days aston had a lot of problems with quality control which is a great shame because their them boss andy palmer was so determined that the db-11 was going to do things right allegedly the first thousand people to buy one got his personal mobile number so if they had a problem he would know about him i suppose we'll know if the car is any good if he's changed that number won't we [Music] [Applause] [Applause] unfortunately for whatever reason it actually turned out to be i suspect it was the way they look the db11 was not a big seller the v8 i think did a little bit better the db11 amr really hasn't done anything that had a slightly spicier version of the v12 they tried to tweak it make it a little sportier but that really isn't the db-11s character but let's be honest here the dbs also hasn't done very well and the v8 vantage hasn't done very well i blame the exterior and the interior i really do because to drive i actually quite like this i really do and here's the thing this car new the v8 version once optioned was just shy of 200 000 pounds not long later in fact two years later it was close to half that price from an official aston martin dealer and today you could buy a car a little bit like this for 90 000 pounds in fact it's the v12s that are some of the cheapest in the classifieds of prices starting at about 88 000 pounds when these were new and trying to compete with the likes of ferrari and the f12 bentley and the continental gt and porsche with the many variants of the 911 i can see why people fail to become attached to the aston particularly if they already owned an aston because if i had an old vanquish with the later much improved infotainment system and the glorious naturally aspirated v12 i don't really think i would see many reasons to go for this but if i didn't have one of those and i was currently sat thinking what can you get for a hundred thousand pounds these days you could surely have a db9 you could have maybe a dbs but honestly don't buy one they're not actually that good as a car you could actually get a second gen vanquish i suppose though that will come with its own problems this annoyingly doesn't actually even have apple carplay in it i believe as standard though you can retrofit it and that's frustrating as the old vanquish did but beyond aston well you can have a lexus lc 500 that would be a very very good option but a lot of people are put off by them they don't like the infotainment in that and the way it looks and it's still got useless back seats as well so that's how people don't really want to go from a maserati gran turismo that's a really really old car now an old platform though certainly has its charms 911s maybe just aren't special or different or interesting enough and then if you want a ferrari well you'd have to buy a 599 because an f12 is still loads of money despite the fact they haven't been in production for what five years or something so though this is a car that i still have plenty of issues with for 90 000 pounds i think i could see past them and this i think might also be the best of the current aston lineup the v8 vantage surely is a better sports car and an absolute riot but if you do need the little back seats it is of course useless to you the dbs likewise is just far too stiff just an unpleasant car to drive and it's silly money yes it's a better looking car for sure won't deny that but it's just too stiff if it rode like this that'd probably be the one that i'd go for but i won't this gives you the choice of engines that you don't get with the other two and if you can get over the looks of it you'll find a car that drives really quite nice and rubbish mercedes bits aside still feels like an aston i really really like this car a lot more than i thought that i would best news of all if you buy one approved used get them to chuck in a service pack and frankly if you get one that's already sub 100 000 pounds you're highly unlikely to lose much money the only downside is that i've really enjoyed this car i've only driven it though for 40 minutes but chris the owner has had many cars before not all particularly sporty or exciting and this is his daily driver yet he says fails to give him the fizz so are you considering one of these have you had a db11 did it deliver did it excite or did it also leave you just feeling a little bit indifferent towards him i'd love to know in any case i want to say a huge thank you to chris for bringing his car out thanks to you as ever for watching don't forget to hit the like button comment down below subscribe if you haven't already and even if you have make sure you check that bell icon so you'll be notified of every new video release i'll see you for the next one bye [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: JayEmm on Cars

Views: 193,336

Keywords: Diary, VLOG, Car, Sound, Test, video, Review, Comparison, JayEmm on Cars

Id: HR91tOhZRTo

Length: 20min 35sec (1235 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 01 2022