90's Hyundai Accent

I know it's been covered, but I searched and only came up with threads on newer stuff.

My son is driving more than he'd like to for work, and is looking for a cheap beater with fun potential.

Decent Swifts are getting hard to find, but Accents aren't.

Any reason he should be afraid of the 90's cars?

He likes the looks better than the newer ones, and they're budget friendly.

What are the trouble spots, and is this for real (I thought they were 1.5 DOHC)?

http://ontario.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehicles-cars-trucks-1996-Hyundai-Accent-gt-Coupe-500-W0QQAdIdZ248351999

Almost all of the accents used the 1.5L SOHC Alpha. An absolute dog of an engine, but as long as you change the oil once in a while it'll run forever. There were a few 98/99 that used a DOHC version of that engine and were sold as "GT's". They use the odd 4x114.3 bolt pattern and anything pre-98 is almost impossible to find suspension parts for.

As ong as they haven't succombed to cancer (real problems with control arms and subframes) and has been halfway maintained it'll run for another 100k miles.

EDIT: Just noticed tyhe ad was canadian.... not sure what the Canadian options were back then. Y'all got different options than we did down south of the border.

At $500 for a good running GT. I wouldn't care about any of this reliability/parts availability stuff. Buy it and run it 'til it explodes.

It was an Accent of that era that a small courier company in Mississauga [suburb on the west edge of Toronto, for you foreign readers!] bought off the local dealer's lot when they needed another vehicle. Several hundred thousand kilometres later, the dealer woke up to the fact that the little beast was still chugging along, day in, day out, and the car & owners got a few publicity photos. So, yeah, $500 sounds like a deal, assuming there's no obvious flaws.

As long as it passes safety okay... under 200,000 clicks is a reasonably new beater to me

I once bought a $500 323 with similar mileage... and was quoted almost $2,000 to safety it. Friends and I worked on it all weekend, only money I spent was new brake pads, emergency brake cable, a pair of struts (and pizza). That car ran another two years until I took the tranny out doing a TSD rally on a rocky road.

I have driven one of those a little bit (neighbor has one and i have done minor repairs a couple times), and it seems decent enough, very very slow, but also light and simple.

I always liked mine.

I will just leave this here

I like Gimp's better.

I forgot the link

http://www.hyundaiperformance.com/forums/showroom/82732-hyundai-excel-x3-twist.html

Chassis and suspension- Fully fabricated from chrome molly and mild steel with the addition of some v8 Supercar suspension arms. Engine- Mid mounted Nissan sr20de Brakes- Alcon 4 spot all round with wilwood floating rotors Gearbox- Holinger 6 speed dog box Diff- Nissan r200 Wheels- 16x10 wrapped with dunlop slicks

I miss my '98 so I bought an 11. Only problem I had was the manifold liked to crack itself, presumably due to heat - that engine seemed to run pretty hot.

I think the low prices are due mainly to the ugly fish face, but they seem to be really reliable.

I think the low prices are due mainly to the ugly fish face, but they seem to be really reliable.

You said it twice, so you must have really meant it.

I really like the looks of those cars, Gimp's especially.

He is looking at them, as we got a similar answer from a good friend who is far more up to date on that stuff than us.

I also offered him my green Swift tonight, so we'll see which direction he goes in. If he takes it, then me, and both my kids will be driving Swifts