Miata Mailing List: August 1999, Message #3580

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> If I thought that spending $2000 on wheels would materially increase
> my chances of winning $20,000 in prize money, then I'd very
> seriously consider buying them.  My point was that most people don't
> buy wheels for racing (at least, not racing with large cash prizes),
> but rather for looks and on-street performance.

If folks would treat (and disclaimer) their advice like it was 
investment advice, rather than admonishing the question asker with 
"buy the best or don't bother" I'd have less beef with the topic.  
There is a lot of "holier than thou" attitudes that IMO surface when 
folks give advice about their beloved V1's.  I've heard a few folks 
are married to theirs... not sure where the wedding ring goes, not to 
mention a few other things  :-o

> Most products have diminishing returns at the high end, where you
> can double the amount of money on a particular item with a very
> small increase in quality/performance.  The tests I've seen of radar
> detectors suggest that the returns of buying the highest-end (the
> V-1) aren't terribly diminished as compared to the runner-up.

the tests I saw didn't show that as much, but admittedly that was a 
few years back.

> Certainly, there's a large degree of luck involved as well.  All the
> tests I've seen of radar detectors have shown the V-1 to be
> significantly superior to all of the other detectors that were
> tested.

again my data differs, but does not argue that V1's are the best.  
There's also luck and then there's smarts.  Certain locations you 
drive through you are a sitting duck WRT getting nailed by radar, 
with or without a detector.  Instant on and lonely roads is a good 
recipe for a ticket regardless of detector performance.

Again, no one is disputing the V1 is the best.... I do think however 
that you can save yourself from speeding tickets without having the 
absolute best creation on the planet and save a few hundred bucks to 
boot.  Will having a 1mile detection range help that much over 1/4 
mile?  I suppose in instant on, yes, perhaps, if there's traffic well 
ahead of you.  Cops running steady radar, if you can't slow it down 
in 1/8 mile (1/4 mile, two cars coming head on) then you're going too 
fast!!  :-)

> Unless you were paying a huge amount to begin with, I'd be very
> surprised if you could get such insurance in California.  2 tickets
> in a year basically doubled my insurance rates, about 5 years ago.

In in VA - must be the difference.  I pay about $1k / year for full 
coverage on the Miata and a beater car.  Don't know how that stacks 
up around the country, but pretty good compared to folks I talk to 
around here.

> IMHO, having a good radar detector is a part of "smart speeding" :)

And an increasingly smaller part it plays, with instant on, lidar, 
vascar, etc.  I've thrown my hands in the air at electronic 
monitoring and just use the old noggin' these days

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