When To Cut Your Losses...

[joeleo87]

hey all,

im not sure if my car is running as well as it should b....

138XXX kms, just got the oil filter/oil change, new belts, new plugs, coolant flush done. looks as of the timming belt and water pump was done not long ago but should get it redone so im "sure" its done.

needs new:

castor rod bushes, new hoses, new radiator (as begun to corrode), def needs a paint job, front bumber scratched a lil and not fitted properly, wheel alignment, new tires.

it idles quite rough and 1 of the belts slips when i start her up.

im up for spending money on my car but i dont want to spend the amount i paid for it on making it run 100%..

im after advice and opinions...

cheers peps.

[bubba]

Mate, a lot of those things are general maintenance items, it's part of owning ANY car, let alone a performance car that is ~17yrs old. If you can't handle any of that, buy a brand new Hyundai or some other Korean crap with a warranty.

[RusH_]

this is true, also think of it as a chance o upgrade those to performance parts at the same time, saves you doing it down the track and will obviously improve performance, good luck with it man

[SECURITY]

hey all,

im not sure if my car is running as well as it should b....

138XXX kms, just got the oil filter/oil change, new belts, new plugs, coolant flush done. looks as of the timming belt and water pump was done not long ago but should get it redone so im "sure" its done.

needs new:

castor rod bushes, new hoses, new radiator (as begun to corrode), def needs a paint job, front bumber scratched a lil and not fitted properly, wheel alignment, new tires.

it idles quite rough and 1 of the belts slips when i start her up.

im up for spending money on my car but i dont want to spend the amount i paid for it on making it run 100%..

im after advice and opinions...

cheers peps.

these items are general maintenance items so you cant really see these as a negative because eventually you will have to do them on any car:

castor rod bushes, new hoses, new radiator, wheel alignment, new tires.

these are extra things out of the ordinary that you'll be spending on:

paint job, front bumber scratched a lil and not fitted properly.

a respray in the same colour shouldnt cost you more than $1200 if the body is straight. things like fixing the scratch (if there is a dent from it) will cost you, they will have to remove the bumper and re-fit it when re-spraying the car anyway.

[25GTT]

Also, keep in mind your car realistically has not done 138 xxx kms, therefore you will need to get things up to standard on it.

once sorted though enjoy the drive :-)

[Xicon]

I think it is a pain to have these things to sort out regardless what the they are for (general mantance )or not .

But my questions would be what did the car cost you in the first place as this would help with weather or not its worth cutting your loses or not also how much you thinking it will cost to get the car up to 100% .

If you got the car cheap knowing these problems then your just going to have to suck it up but if you paid full price and got stuck with this then I can see your point and would be concidering cutting out here as well .

Good luck

Also painting a car for 1200.00 is hard to believe product alone will cost more than that on its own and if you can get that I wouldn't be to confident on the quality .

Edited January 11, 2008 by Xicon

[bubba]

The paint would only cost that much if you were going some special colour (such as some of the Ford and Holden colours.. I think they can be up to $600/L!).

Basically when it comes down to it, 32's are pretty old

[W0rp3D]

I think you should give up now.

Sell the 32 and buy a ford or commodore, But first....

take into account how much money you are going to lose when you sell it, then add in how much you would have to spend to make a falcodore handle as good as a 32 then add the price of getting decent power from a falcadore then weigh the difference between what you would spend getting a falcadore up to scratch and the money you have to spend on the 32, at worst your down a little bit and own a nice 32, but on the other hand you have a an extra $100 bucks in your pocket but no amount of money will change the fact that you will be driving a falcadore.

Just my 2cents.

[dmr]

i know how you feel bud. it took me a while but my list of things to fix is almost finished, it just takes time. you gotta expect this sorta thing from an old car. every similar age holden and ford i've seen has ALOT more problems than i've seen in mine and my friends' jap cars. these problems you have arn't huge and don't cost too much to fix. get the bigger ones out of the way like the radiator before it causes grief, and leave the cosmetic and comfortability for after.

my car has done ~150,000km. it missfires, idles a bit funny, it's running rich, and it needs a nice tap of the accelerator when cranking it over to get her breathing. apart from those few little things it runs like a dream. this is because i always look after the little things and change things asap rather than leaving it till a later date.

hope that helps

Edited January 12, 2008 by dmr

[Stormchaser]

hey all,

im not sure if my car is running as well as it should b....

138XXX kms, just got the oil filter/oil change, new belts, new plugs, coolant flush done. looks as of the timming belt and water pump was done not long ago but should get it redone so im "sure" its done.

needs new:

castor rod bushes, new hoses, new radiator (as begun to corrode), def needs a paint job, front bumber scratched a lil and not fitted properly, wheel alignment, new tires.

it idles quite rough and 1 of the belts slips when i start her up.

im up for spending money on my car but i dont want to spend the amount i paid for it on making it run 100%..

im after advice and opinions...

cheers peps.

[Stormchaser]

Hey there.

I was in the same situation as you are in now, I had bought a 96 series II r33 gtst and after it running perfectly fine for 6 months it decides to pack it in.

Now I had this dilemma: Rego was due in like 40 days I had most of the money for Rego and insurance yet I could'nt drive it.

All symptoms were leading to dead coilpacks. After looking around on here It seemed that it was going to cost more to put a set of splitfires on it than I was willing to spend(remember that I still was unsure as to what the real problem was).

Anyhow to add to this dilemma I had two manifold studs snapped of flush with the head.(quoted $900 for removal and replacement of studs).

So I looked at my options 1. put second hand coils on and sell car off asap. 2. take car off road and fix everything properly. 3. Just fix coils and rego car and hope that nothing went wrong in the mean time.

So I decided to take ther car off the road, Im putting a new timing belt kit, water pump, thermostat, coolant,fuel pump, manifold gaskets/studs and nuts ect, o2 sensor.

Sepnding close to a grand on the whole thing. This way I can make sure that nothing SHOULD go wrong(aside form a total engine meltdown) and I dont see that happening.

So basically what Im saying is if you have some cash you could look into getting another cheap runabout, get the skyline to a decent standard and then your not pressured into rushing it or driving it while it needs work.

Sorry for the long post

Hope this helps.

Jason

[Amm]

My list of problems hence the reason why im leaning towards a 34 gtt

Need new dump/front pipe and cat

Splitfire Coils

paint job car is fading......went to the paint shop and he quoted $65 a litre for kr4, sonic silver

at this point i only wanted to do the front fenders so do you think this was a good price

[Greekos]

hahah thats nothing, i spent close to 2k on my daily after i bought it, now it starts and runs perfect for a 11yo car, the only way that your not going to loose money in the maintenance of a car is if you buy it brand but then you have desperation set in. no matter what car you buy be prepared to spend money or you could take the bus