I really love my little Silvia but I think it's just about reached the point where it's too underpowered, even with the last few upgrades.

Yep, my Focus (fully upgraded) didn't cut it any more either. I bought the BMW and nearly have it fully upgraded. Yet, I still have a race that I can't touch your time on! Haha

Does the payout for races ever increase? I know with my Lamborghini, the payout is the same as it is for the starting tier races. While I don't have an issue with winning basically going to upkeep, it makes me wonder if the winning for the final tiers will even scratch the surface of what the upkeep cost. I have no issue with needed to actually purchase some of the higher tier cars in Car Packs (I've spent $1.99 and already played 15 hours of the game), but if I can't even afford to upkeep on them, well... that's just not very cool at all.

With my McLaren, I definately earn enough to keep ahead of the upkeep.

@Bankai The most that I've seen was about 9,000 R$ (without the Friends payout), which I've gotten several times in the first tier races.

I think the game also rewards you by winning by a long way.

One race I ended up around 3,000 miles ahead of second, and I got a payout of 14,000 or something.

If you do the 3-5 races that you can before the car has to be serviced you should still be earning a profit, assuming you're not coming dead last in them.

And don't forget if you haven't made enough cash to cover the expenses, you can still race with a car that needs servicing. It's slower, but if you go back to the first couple of races you'll still be able to cruise in to a few thousand cash to put you back in the black.

@Bankai Oh, yeah - I'm making profit. It's just that if a car cost a few million to purchase - shouldn't the payout for a race be like 25,000 R$ or more?

I don't mind having to actually purchase the top cars either, but it can cost over a $100 to buy them with actual cash. I'm sorry, but the games good, but it isn't worth all of that. Haha

So, I've been trying to 100% each tier and that's been a blast. I'm like 95% on the first and like 80% on the second one.

^^ Yeah it's actually kinda scary when you do the math. If you earned R$25,000 for a 5-minute race, it'd take you 3.3 hours to earn $1 million, and that's not even factoring in repairs.
_{R$1,000,000 / (R$25,000 / 5 minutes) = 200 minutes = 3.3 hours}

That's a ridiculously slow rate considering you can rarely earn even half that.

Also the upgrades are stupid expensive and they do basically nothing.

Oh the upgrades are essential.

Anyways, yeah it's a real grind for the best cars.

Yeah, I'd have to disagree with the repair - they do do what they say they do (that's a lot of do's. Haha). I've now got 3 cars fully upgraded and all three of them are beasts. Your top speed will go up nearly 20mph on some models and your grip/acceleration sky-rocket as well. Buy the final car in each tier and upgrade it all the way, and prepare to have a blast!

One thing I have found though, is that with higher tiers, you don't need the upgrades near as much as you do in the lower tiers. Keeping your car damage free, and racing clean and fast will send you to the gold just as fast as the upgrades. With that said, now that I've dropped around 20 hrs into the game, the flaws in the AI are really starting to show through. The AI doesn't slot itself over to one side when you try to slip trough them and the wall if the track narrows down. This happened to me recently in my McLaren and I went from around 175mph to 60mph instantly - all but destroying my car. Also, I find that at the beginning of each track's start, I'm noticing that if I carry too much speed around the pack, there's a tendency for the AI to slam on the brakes for little to no reason at all, again causing major front end damage, which as you know, negates your upgrades and keeps you from finishing in the top 3 if enough damage is caused. And one that's really bugging me, is that even with all of the assists off, the braking assist is still pulling my speed (and lap times) down along with it.

I'm a racing game fanatic and I could go in-depth on all the issues with Real Racing 3 - no braking bias, no racing differentials, lack of weight management, etc etc. - but it's still a great game for the iPad and I'm still really enjoying myself. I've now got a ton of Game Centre friends from all around the world and that in itself makes the game worthy of praise from me.