Na or not to na? That is the question

[Killer33gtst]

Hi all,

l am looking at buying a skyline for my 16 year old son. We have been looking at r33’s predominately gtst’s. With a few drives under our belt and a budget of 8k we are worried that most around this price will either have the dreaded paint fade with a few other exterior issues or lots of kms on the clock or both.

l am not too concerned about high kms if the car looks ok and runs well. This has not been the case so far, high kms and crap paint.

the question l have is, would it be a better alternative to buy a gts4 with 160,000kms ish but very clean and convert to turbo once my son has his full licence? 

We have loved the test driving experience so far in gtst’s, is the na going to be that bad?????

regards

shaun

[KiwiRS4T]

Yes slow as a wet week...

[GTSBoy]

Buying an NA when you really want a turbo is a bad move.  Converting it to turbo is even worse.

[GTofuS-T]

1 minute ago, GTSBoy said:

Buying a 16 yo anything worth over $500 is a bad move. 

FYP

[GTSBoy]

Just now, GTofuS-T said:

FYP

Pay that.  1992 Corolla is the only sensible choice.

[Killer33gtst]

Not this 16 yo, he worships these, he has wanted one since he first saw Tokyo drift. Been saving for a long time, he’s paying most of it

[Leroy Peterson]

Maybe buy a turbo one and stick it in the shed and tinker with it. But get something else to learn to drive/commute

 

 

[Kinkstaah]

These cars are just dreadful for a P plater for many reasons.

a) Slow if N/A
b) Slow stock as turbo nowdays
c) Old
d) Prob not the safest thing
e) Illegal to drive
f) Expensive
g) Unreliable

Everyone involved will be disappointed going down this path.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

 I would buy him a safe car, a 1992 Corolla has no ABS, no airbags no seatbelt pretensioners or anything of the like.

Get a Golf GTI or a Jetta MK5.

Wait till he is old enough and has enough driving experience before you give him some form of high performance vehicle.

[niZmO_Man]

They only become expensive and unreliable once you start tinkering with them and stuffing things up.

They aren't a good choice for a first car. Depends how disciplined and mature your son is, but I wouldn't start with a turbocharged RWD coupe. I started with an R31, the 3L in there has plenty of grunt to get me into trouble.

N/A they would be slow, but if he really wants it, might as well start with an N/A (R33 GTS4 is N/A and AWD).

[tridentt150v]

Just get a Lancer like the other 90% of P platers do!!  Cheap[ish] and cheerful.  Would eat a N/A Skyline. 

Save the $$$ for later IMO.

[sic33r]

Hey

i have an r33 manual na 2 door and it has plenty of power for When I was on my p’s years ago it was faster than most 6 cyclinders. But yeah it doesn’t have a hope of catching anything with 8 cyclinders but the end of the day it was pretty good

[Peache07]

I'll tune in with my experience as I purchased an N/A skyline as my first car and was in fact the first car I drove on my learner's permit

Not sure where abouts you are but in VIC Turbo Skylines are illegal for P platers to use and now that I'm matured a bit and have had the car for some time, I'm glad I didn't get a turbo car because likely I would've wrapped myself around a tree and most of them were absolutely flogged.

It really depends on how your young bloke is, If he is a Boy racer that will beat on it and cares only to go fast and look cool infront of his mates or if he is the kind of person that will look after it, improve it, respect it and be proud of what he's purchased

I've had my R34 25GT for 3 years now and when I first got it I really wished I had a turbo version but it was still a lot of fun and still is the most fun I've had in a car I'm getting closer to my full license pretty soon and I don't even think I will sell my car to get a turbo version, I've grown out of that need for speed phase and I act like a 70 year old boomer who's on his fold out lawn chair after just finishing polishing his car for the 3rd time this week.

I've driven stock turbo versions and yeah they're a bit faster but when you're faster through the KFC drive through looking at your cracked interior with your exterior's missmatching panels rusting away and you're rattling away when your motor is about to conk out waiting for your zinger box, all of your enjoyment is gone. A clean turbo is hard to come by these days because the only clean ones around are the ones owned by people who don't dare to sell it

If someone gave me an option, either my 25GT or a turbo version with a condition that reflected the equal price of the N/A, I'd take the 25GT again

On the other hand I might just have stockholm syndrome lol

Sorry for the giant wall of text