Cars We Drive!

[Rumpelstiltskin]

I love my car but hate the dated technology. I mean I cannot get bluetooth except for those stupid speakers that hook to your visor. That and with the low miles I generally put on cars I should probably be in the lease category.

Stereo's are super cheap to replace as far as car things go. If you're planning on keeping the car till 100k, might be worth getting the stereo system and speakers upgraded. It makes for a more enjoyable driving experience if that's what you're after. Things like aftermarket heated seats etc are also doable and doable right if you find the right people to do it.

If you're planning on keeping the car, it makes sense to do things to make you more comfortable in it. Otherwise, there's no shame in playing the carmax game and selling and getting something that fits your life more every 4-5 years. You don't take the depreciation hit with used cars and it probably evens out. Probably...

Have a professional change the headunit and mount a hidden microphone. The end result can look just as good or even better than stock. Aftermarket headunits can be controlled by the factory steering wheel mounted controls and just sound better, esp if you change the speakers as well. Hell double din units have some of the most updated NAV screens (if you need that sort of thing)

 

[jcman311]

Not possible guys (at least for less than probably 2k). Audio controls are built into the hvac and might be able to be custom altered, but no aftermarket hu will fit. Trust me, Ive been searching 6 years for a solution.

 

[GreenFrog]

Yeah, you'll most likely need to do some serious custom work to get everything working together nicely. Obviously comes at a significant cost.

Instead, I think you'd be far better off saving money and getting a lightly used Bugatti Royale Kellner Coupe.

 

[brokencycle]

So did ramubrah get absorbed into the Musk singularity?

 

[venividivicibj]

No - he got a new job, remember? He's not a Tesla spokesperson anymore

 

[ridethecliche]

In other news, bewsty things are going to happen to the miata.

 

[Thrift Vader]

Dat yellow GDB. Just wow. .

Actually, if you de-riced it? - regular hinges, stealth the stereo, and plain steering wheel?
That is a very clean low miles bugeye. Which is a rarity.
With Some black wheels and accents. That is a great buy.

 

[pravda]

How's the resale on Teslas. Are they like regular cars or do they appreciate like houses in great school districts?

 

[jbarwick]

How's the resale on Teslas. Are they like regular cars or do they appreciate like houses in great school districts?

You can get into a Model S 60 and sometimes an 85 for less than $50K with ~30-40K miles. I don't know if the older models get all of the software updates and such so that is a question to ask.

 

[Thrift Vader]



How's the resale on Teslas. Are they like regular cars or do they appreciate like houses in great school districts?

How much are flat batteries worth?

'Bout the same.

 

[ridethecliche]



Dat yellow GDB. Just wow. .

Actually, if you de-riced it? - regular hinges, stealth the stereo, and plain steering wheel?

That is a very clean low miles bugeye. Which is a rarity.

With Some black wheels and accents. That is a great buy.

Agree about mileage and condition. It's just too riced out at this point sadly. Someone should save it... At that price though....

 
In other news, bewsty things are going to happen to the miata.

To elaborate, one of the subie friends has a miata he's boosting as well except someone blew his engine by redlining the car for like 2 minutes while trying to learn to drift. No lie. Poor kid (I can say that because he's 21) learned a lesson in being nice the hard way. He was lending the kid his car because his got totaled. He's getting a pittance of money for his trouble and we found a guy on a forum selling his engine and turbo setup to do a k swap. He gave us a pretty solid deal, to be honest.


My engine's compression checks out (175, 175, 165, 180 from 1->4) and I'm looking forward to getting started. As always, these things are more expensive than you want them to be. Budget right now is going to be about 2500-3000. I should be able to sell some of the parts I bought for an NA build to recoup some money along with the diff I took off.


The goal is to get it to 200-220 hp and 180ish tq for that much. Should be fun. 


I'm not sure it's practical to do the motor right now, but I really want to put forged rods in there. Apparently the transmission and the engine can take 250 or so rwtq before going kaboom, so I want to stay well south of that. Hopefully that will be a project for next year. In any event, from what I've been seeing from people that know far more about this than I do is that twice the rwhp/tq is attainable safely provided you don't cheap out on fuel pump, injectors, and engine management.

This should be fun!

 

[jbarwick]

Good luck! The small things you are forgetting could easily double your budget. I remember a $7,500 budget turning into $15,000 real quick.

 

[SirReveller]



Alrighty the '98 SL600 is still there but my lowball remains unanswered and more importantly #winteriscoming. I want to stick to my plan of one cheap 4x4 Nov-Apr and an old classic RWD sports car May-Oct, alternating insurance.

Ontario's cache of old Blazers and Broncos that aren't $300 plow trucks is empty. So I broadened my search. Hence, booked to check this out Thursday

1995 Range Rover County LWB aka Range Rover "Classic"

Had some fun educamating mehself on these on Sunday. Last year of the body style introduced in 1970. Slow, sturdy, full-time 4x4 and guaranteed to have electrical gremlins.

If you snipe his mods though, great suspension. Xenons. Lifted nicely (factory is pretty low). Also, I'm told dealership replaced the engine at some point years ago so less engine miles.

http://www.kijiji.ca/v-cars-trucks/...er/1188394711?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true

Here's the owner off some of my questions.
I though it looked pretty cool but I put a big premium on originality and got a few "total POS" responses on showing on my phone, lol...thoughts? *and, yes, my indie is close to work

Soz I drove an hour out of town to test drive this puppy. Really cool lookin and def a headturner...however drove like an armored personnel carrier and steered like a barge. You're ten miles high and seeing everything in a fishbowl..but kinda pinned against the flimsy driver's door. The backseats tho...damn. So roomy. Anyway the dude also had a Discovery (or "Disco" in Roversprachen) and was an offroad enthusiast + also a skilled wrench. This is basically the only kind of person who should drive these. Or if you actually drive over rocks on the way to your work, which is directly adjacent a mechanic (He also moved off $12K to 10 but held firm there...I'd calculated KBB+mods as $7500...a true distressed seller and Ida taken the plunge at 6/7 as I am already known for nonsensical decision making anyway lol)

Funniest part: he's like 'yah everyyyything works except for the driver's seat warmer.' I get in and the power controls to move the seat back from the guy's schmushed position immediately fail. Lol.

 

[ridethecliche]



Good luck!  The small things you are forgetting could easily double your budget.  I remember a $7,500 budget turning into $15,000 real quick.  

Haha I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here. There's so much written about this that there's not really all that much left to chance. Yeah, things can go wrong, but another transmission and engine together run 1k. And the car isn't my daily, otherwise I wouldn't be trying this at all.

 

[mike1445]

How's the resale on Teslas. Are they like regular cars or do they appreciate like houses in great school districts?

My brother just picked up a 2012 s85 with 60k miles for $46k. The thing is in immaculate condition, even had some goofy wheel guards on it so they wouldn't get curbed. Seller was asking $50k so he could get a new one with autopilot capabilities and my brother had been saving for his model 3 and saw this one sitting on Craigslist for a month or so. I think he got a damn good deal considering it had a $90k MSRP, obviously he thinks so, too.



edit: This picture is hilarious to me because my brother is so frugal by nature. Before this, I don't think he'd ever spent more than $5k on his current 10 year old Prius, and that was extravagant for him. He also has an old Ford Ranger electric fleet vehicle that he picked up for $2k and swapped the battery pack. Cars were always such a wasteful thing to him but to see him get giddy when he pulled out the key to tell me was priceless. Also my dad's finger in the top of the frame.