I just spent three days with a 2013 DB9 Volante. Beautiful car, handled a lot better than I thought it would. Did a surprisingly good job of keeping up with my friend's new 911 Carrera 4S in the twisties.

However, I gotta say, I was a little taken aback by some of the quality issues of the car. The tiny, pixellated black & white stereo display, okay, I got used to it. The Garmin-sourced GPS looks cheap, but at least you can fold it away when you're not using it.

But the panel gaps were disconcerting—the hood had a gap so large it looked like it was never quite closed, and the gap between the right side of the trunk and the rear deck was easily three times as wide as the gap on the left side of the trunk. The soft top stopped moving halfway through its operation when I unbuckled my seatbelt—the car was in park at the time—and refused to move in either direction until I turned off the car, removed the key, and waited ten seconds, at which point it folded itself back down. The doors would close the windows when I climbed out—even though the top was down—but didn't return them to their original state when I got back in. Oh, and every time I changed away from FM radio to iPod or satellite radio on the audio system, when I went back to FM, the radio had defaulted back to 95.5 Mhz—which was not what I'd been listening to before.

My question is—are these pretty much par for the course for a new Aston Martin? Or was the car I drove lemony fresh?

 

Aston attention to detail is crap

 

you won't see Rolls Royce or Bentley levels of english build quality unless one of the ze German car brands (likely Volkswagen) decides to buy up Aston Martin.

Until then...enjoy the lack of quality control issues on your six-figure car.

 

That's what drove me nuts when I had the DBS. Volvo mirrors and lack of quality right out of factory

 

I have owned my 2010 DB9 for over a year now and while I agree the nav sucks (mine is the pre Garmin.... It's worse!) and the display on the stereo isn't high tech (I have the B&O; best sound system I've ever had in an automobile), the fit and finish is as good or better than any of the 50+ German built cars we've owned. Is any car worth the super high price tag, that's debatable. It's all about scale of the company building the car and the exclusivity that car offers. Same arguments/comments applied to Porsche b/f they embraced the Japanese manufacturing processes....