A couple of my mates have them, I drive them every now and then, and am in a passenger in one 2-3 times a week.

Seats are very, very hard. If you are over 6ft, expect a sore back and sides, and a numb bum after being in it for an hour or more. Rear seats do not fold down, so don't expect to get much of any size in it. Front seats bolsters will have worn badly if the car has more than 80k miles on the clock.

One of them had the crank pulley bolt snap off inside the crank leading to a very costly repair. It has happened a couple of times before from what i have read on an accord type r forum. The other of my mates have had a few reliability issues.

VTEC gets very tiring. Having to be at 6000 revs + all the time just to make the thing move uses a lot of fuel, and seems hardly worth it sometimes. Its like loads of turbo lag, but without the turbo kick when you finally get there. Its very hard work keeping the thing inside vtec.

The wheels corrode faster than a vauxhall under the sea, if they havent been refurbed, then expect that they will need doing.

However, they do handle quite well, but there is no getting away from the fact thats it is a big car, and does feel like one.

I chose my st170 over one, just prefer the way it drove, easier to live with day to day, the understated looks of it, the better handling, and it is about the same speed point to point that an ATR.

I would go for the st220!