USDMFTWs Car Reviewing |Open|Stable Build|2nd Review Posted

[Oskiinus]

Take a look at newest cars from Airborne Automotive (NY ones). If you want to review one of those, pm me

[USDMFTW]

In todays review, we have the Miller 181 MS-4, a surprisingly cheap mid-engine sports car. With a size inbetween the Ferrari 458 and Alfa 4C. Thanks to stickmaster62 for building and sending in the car!

On to the review!

Quick Stats
1.8 DOHC 20 VALVE I4 TURBO
Horsepower : 268 @ 7500RPM
Torque :235 ft-lb @ 4100RPM
Top Speed : 181 MPH
Transmission : 6 Speed Sequential Dual Clutch
Weight : 2829 Lbs
Mpg(US) : 31.2




Driveability
6/10
As a mid engine car, poor driveability should be expected, and that is the case here. The mid engine configuration here makes us think of the old Porsche 911s. Once the rear end loses grip, its hard to correct it without completely spinning out, even at low speed cornering. The engine does not help either, with its turbo lag that even a 1980s SAAB would be proud of. Peak torque is sudden, and pretty late in the power-band causing the thin tires to break loose. Conservative use of the gas pedal on public roads is advised. One odd design choice stood out to us here, the car uses all the latest driver assist, besides traction control, why?

Performance and Sportiness
8/10
This is where the car shines, for the most part, more on that later. Lets start with straight line performance. Using the cars built in launch control, our testers were able to get consistent 0-60 runs of 4.1 seconds, even with 225mm rear tires. Tire spin is extreme in first gear, but thanks to the short gearing, second gear comes fast and hard, allowing the car to complete the quarter mile in 12.54 seconds, impressive for the small-ish amount of power this car has compared to its peers. Top speed is at an awesome 181 miles an hour. Braking is also almost perfect. Using completely oversized 4 piston vented disk front and rear allows the car to stop from 60 mph in a short 108ft. Break fade does not exist thanks to the extreme size of the brakes. We found the brake pedal to be extremely touchy due too the huge brakes, and our testers believe the brakes could be smaller with little sacrifice in performance. Larger tires would also decrease breaking distance, as the fronts are only 185mms and rears 225mms.

Unfortunately, the car suffers from turbo lag, requiring high rpms to get any decent power, below 4000 rpms, you would think someone stole your engine and put a late 90s civic engine in its place. With more time spent on tuning and design, the engine could be much better, as we feel that it is limited in low end and high end power.

Our only real complains where the lack of a manual transmission and we thought the tires were too thin for the purpose of the car. Some testers would also like to see manual steering, similar to the Alfa 4C. Also, our testers wished for a louder exhaust setup, a sports car should not be this quiet.

Handling
6/10
This car did not impressive us here, we were expecting great handling from this car and we were let down. Lets start with the odd suspension setup. Looking at this car, you would expect to see advanced suspension to compliment its advanced aluminum construction, but you would be wrong. It seems the suspension was pulled out of a 1970s sports car parts bin, with its MacPherson Strut not only in the front, but also in the rear. This setup severely limits the handling of the car. Even with the most advanced active aero you can buy, the skid pad brought out the cars weakness. The car produced a poor 1.02gs on cornering at 20 meters, and at 250 meters .96g, poor for the segment. We would gladly like to pay more for a better suspension setup, as we dont believe the cost savings are worth the sacrifice in the handling department.

Comfort
6/10
Comfort is not bad, its ok for this sports car. The interior is designed for sport and track use, but comes with a premium entertainment system with 6 speakers and a nice touchscreen. The suspension is bumpy and lumpy , you will feel most of the imperfections of the tarmac. The engine is smooth, with only minor vibrations while idling in traffic. Like we stated above, the car is very quiet, even at full throttle, with almost no engine noise while doing city and highway driving.

Interior Quality
7/10
The interior quality is good, mostly thanks to the minimal use of materials to keep weight down. The 2 sport seats are really great, great fabric feel and well done welds and metal work. The infotainment center is also good quality, the buttons use high quality light weight plastic and provide decent tactile feel. The touchscreen responds with every touch swiftly, with a little delay opening certain menus.

Aesthetics
N/A
The car features the typical supercar style wedge shape, with a wide smiley face grill and headlight layout that would make a mazda feel proud. The handles are small and are nicely chromed, with functional and nicely placed side vents just behind each door. The rear features, in our opinion, chrome overload, with Ferrari 355 style taillights. Its also nice to see something other than circular exhaust on a car.

Safety
5/10
Once again, the car fails to impress us here too. The car only features basic safety features, such as driver and passenger airbags. The car also lacks traction control allowing inexperienced drivers to have excessive and dangerous wheelspin, and being mid engined rear drive makes that problem even worse. The car does have a slight size and weight advantage over smaller city cars in a potential wreck, that is the only positive we found for this car.

Cost
9/10
The cars price tag is just insanely low compared to its rivals. Our model cost roughly 40000 USD. Which is dirt cheap for this style and type of car. Also 32.1 mpg is really great for a car this quick, you just have to remember to hit 93 octane, and pay that premium at the pump. Service cost are also just under 3000 per year, which is great for a MR car.

Reliability
7/10
The engine is the most unreliable part of the car. Though its reliability is still above average for engines contained in this class of car. Expect your typical turbo car issues. The rest of the car is pretty reliable thanks to its simple and cheap interior layout, just watch out for possible problems with the electronics as everything else is solid.

Overall
7/10
We are not sure what this car is suppose to really be. Is it suppose to be used at the track, despite its poor handling? Is it suppose to be a MR sports car? We are not sure what the car is meant for, due to many conflicting design decisions, but one thing is for sure. You will not find another MR car brand new on the lot for this cheap. We feel that the only reason you would buy this car is just for prestige and the oddity factor. Others cars, even at this price range, are faster around the track, or have more comfort and are easier to drive with their standard drivetrain layouts. At the end of the day, we would be willing to pay more money to make this a much, much better car as we felt the cost cutting decisions really hurt the car in categories that matter to buyers shopping for a sports or track car.


For any feedback on the review, message me!

[Speedemon]

That was a great review! The car is pretty decent for that price. I might send in one of my cars soon! I just have to build it...

[Sillyworld]

That was a nice reading! For that price, Miller must be losing money
By the way, what's the difference between driveability and handling? I thought those were synonyms.

[stickmaster62]

I must echo what everyone is saying, great review, despite needing to do some major tweeks, but this is what reviews are for!

[USDMFTW]

That was a nice reading! For that price, Miller must be losing money
By the way, what's the difference between driveability and handling? I thought those were synonyms.

Handling in my reviews is for performance/track only. I use driveability as how easy is it to drive on public roads and the track for a less experienced driver.

Some cars can handle well and get great times around a track, but be extremely crazy for a lesser experienced driver, such a Corvette C6 z06, vs something like an R35 GTR thats easy to drive fast.

[USDMFTW]

Next review coming out this Wednesday. Also looking for more cars to review. Also planning on a comparison for when the open beta finishes. Most likely rwd sports cars, 2017 MY. What comparison(s) would people want to see?

[Speedemon]

I want to see a hot hatch comparison! But either something like Civic type R competitors or Fiesta ST competitors. When it is mixed between the two it just gets a bit unfair.

[strop]

But speedemon, we've had like... Just about every car comparison we have had on these forums is either hot hatch or sports sedan! Surely it's time for something a bit more different than that.

There's a disproportionate number of hypercar manufacturers here. Why not really put them to the test?

[USDMFTW]

Hypercars would be interesting, but they vary so much that a real comparison would be difficult to do without imposing restrictions that limit design choice.

[strop]

I think you'd have to decide just how much to weigh the principal themes: performance, presence, livability (at least as far as the modern hypercar is concerned).

[USDMFTW]

All the classes of cars already have specific score weights based on their real world counterpart class and in-game class.

[strop]

The market tab won't account for subjective evaluation of "presence" (prestige is based on its components and stats). Comfort as a single stat is also not a good measure of livability, unless you analyse the components of drivability according to torque curve and handling characteristics. The presence and absence of multimode suspension e.g. active sport/comfort will also affect the car's versatility beyond simply affecting the drivability score. That is to say, there's a lot of scope for assessing the cars beyond the scoring metric, even though the scoring metric is already quite sophisticated for what it does.

[USDMFTW]

The market tab won't account for subjective evaluation of "presence" (prestige is based on its components and stats). Comfort as a single stat is also not a good measure of livability, unless you analyse the components of drivability according to torque curve and handling characteristics. The presence and absence of multimode suspension e.g. active sport/comfort will also affect the car's versatility beyond simply affecting the drivability score. That is to say, there's a lot of scope for assessing the cars beyond the scoring metric, even though the scoring metric is already quite sophisticated for what it does.

The in-game scores play a big part on how reviewers score cars, the game calculations do a pretty good job and reflect design choices pretty accurately. The in-game calculations are pretty complex and cover all aspects of your design. Such as drive ability having 3 base values, and 21 other calculations that combine into that single score.

[strop]

I had a wall of text prepared in reply to your last post. The larger the wall became, the more I realised, I don't understand the point of your post. Are you saying the numbers reflect the car well enough that there's no need to add any editorial or speculate on what the numbers may reflect in terms of the experience of a car? What does this mean in terms of reviewing hypercars, as opposed to anything else? And what then is the point of doing anything more than posting all the screenshots of the stats in detail for everybody to draw their own conclusions?