First car

[tuzzio]

Originally Posted by coolsupermanfly

I'm surprised people mod their dailys, and it's a horrible choice unless they have another mode of transportation.

Give it a few years....

[CamryOnBronze]

I'm pretty torn on this one.

While I never want to discourage someone from getting into the hobby, I'm not sure this is the time to do it. I was into cars and actually wanted a 240SX or a Civic when I was 16, but my mom bought me a Toyota Camry with 100,000 miles on it. I tinkered around with it a bit, but fortunately I didn't have the money to ruin it until I was in college.

From the sounds of it you don't have any interest in modifying the car. However, a car that old is going to have issues and if you spend time online researching how to fix them, you're going to get sucked into improving and modifying the car as you fix it. The aftermarket for this chassis is unreal and I think that 99% of people would get sucked into messing around with the car- which only leads to spending a lot of money that most high school kids don't have.

If you're truly not into modifying cars, I would encourage you to spend that $8,000 on the newest/lowest mileage Japanese car you can find (personal preference.) I would be chasing down an Accord, Camry, Civic, or Corolla with that money. Are they impressive or exciting? Absolutely not. Is one of those cars potentially going to last you the better part of a decade with minimal headache and repair costs? I would bet good money that it will.

Do you get to keep whatever you don't spend of the $8,000? That's an interesting consideration as well that might change my response a bit. It's hard not to want to spend all of that money on a cool car to impress everyone in high school and I have to admit I would have wanted to do the same thing if I had that opportunity. But knowing what I know now 12+ years later, I wouldn't advise it. You'll thank yourself later.

As for the car you posted, it looks to be in good shape but is 110% a waste of money at $8k and that dealer is dreaming. Definitely don't spend the money on that. As for everyone saying "I would pay $1200 for this and $2500 for that," take that with a grain of salt too. Everyone likes to play the "S chassis cars are worthless and no one should pay more than $1000 for one ever" game here, but that's not necessarily a true reflection of the market. Don't be scared to spend a bit over what the internet tells you if you find a clean example of an S13 that's truly been well taken care of- but definitely don't drop $8,000 on an S13 either.

I wish you luck with the decision man. It's tempting to want to be cool in the current moment, but if I had such a great opportunity given to me at that age I would want to set myself up for the future as best I could (that's the "old dad" me talking, not the 16 year old me... lol.)

[zenkicpe]

If I had an 8k allowance on my first car I have to admit Id be looking 350z, but seriously, you can snag a nice s13 for 4-5k and use the remainder to fix any shortcomings and learn some cool stuff along the way.

Oh and 8k is wayyyyy too much for that stocker. Its got a cracked dash otherwise there wouldnt be that pube catcher cover on it. The seats look like sloppily re-skinned s14 seats. The steering wheel is disintegrating. Holes in the door cards. If there were more pics I could go on. Of course you can use this as bargaining chips to let the dealer know that the crack he is smoking is REALLY good lol

[Artworks]

To be honest with a budget of 8k there are A LOT of better car you could buy. Cars like s2k, 350z, depost for frs?, etc. Go buy 240sx when you already have stable income or a good daily.

[zenkicpe]

s2k for 8k?? Where?? I havent seen any, maybe its just an east coast thing that they are all 10k plus.

ha
8k for an s2k... sure buddy!

and have you guys seen the state of despair in the Z community? these cars are junkers nowadays. i never would have thought an s chassis would out-live a Z car, but theyre just not made the same.

[Artworks]

my bad as I am not from the us. change that with any late 90- early 2000 japanese car