In reply to nullcell:
What could be tortuous about a french engine in a German designed car built in England for the US market?
In reply to nullcell:
What could be tortuous about a french engine in a German designed car built in England for the US market?
I'm kind of looking for something similar and am seriously considering a C5, probably a Z06. Other cars I'm considering: Boxster, s2000, 928. What I'd get if I didn't have a kid and other non-car interests: 2nd gen viper or 02-08 911TT.
I'm not sure that this info helps at all, but it is a list of cars that I don't think will depreciate much at all, look great and are attractive.
All right I'll say it....
Why not RX8?
Ok now I hope you are done laughing in all seriousness it's the size you are looking for, comfortable enough, good aftermarket, with an LT coil swap and plugs every 30k you can have all you are looking for (minus gas mileage) aside from that I would say a genesis but make sure to get the 3.8.
If you can find one in butgood running shape, the old e21s are a gas. Hardly any aftermarket, but there a was a guy making urethane bushings for them, h&r I think still makes springs, bilstein the struts, take out the sound deadening, ditch the water pump driven fan for electric, get a hotter coil, good plug wires, and I think a heat range up on the plugs, and it'll feel near as sporty as Miata.
Dirt simple, and in my neck of the woods, rust free. Heck, if the kjet is hummed up, they're really fun with a 38/38 on them.
You'd probably be all in at $5k with money left.
That's the reason I wound up with one (something to take the kids in), and I really need to get it running again...
(Yes, I can hear everyone on here roaring with laughter...)
Funny enough I was just thinking about those Minis the other day. My wife loves them so it's probably on the bucketlist of cars to someday own.
Working on the E36 (4cyl) always made sense and didn't seem more complicated than other cars so long as I had the right tools. I guess I've never experienced the "BMWs are scary to work on" mystique. Are newer BMWs also as DIY unfriendly as the Minis are made out to be?
what of the last of the Saabs? the 9-3s have not held their values since Saab went belly up. While I would probably not buy the very model as body parts are hard to get, the previous generation NG900 and 9-3 has plenty of parts made to keep any of them running for a long time. While they have considerable torque steer, the 9-3 turbo and viggen will make you giggle like a school girl as the boost builds and it tries to get the power to the ground
yupididit wrote: Not German Not Japanese Not American In black
Been looking into the xk8 and xkr a lot the past month. I wish they made it in a manual, would be perfect. On the surface my impression was there's a lot of Ford parts interchangeability. ECU is a weak point but easy to deal with. I guess to get a manual you have to go to AM which are 4-5x these at a minimum it seems. Sumptuous interior.
mad_machine wrote: what of the last of the Saabs? the 9-3s have not held their values since Saab went belly up. While I would probably not buy the very model as body parts are hard to get, the previous generation NG900 and 9-3 has plenty of parts made to keep any of them running for a long time. While they have considerable torque steer, the 9-3 turbo and viggen will make you giggle like a school girl as the boost builds and it tries to get the power to the ground
I've always kinda liked the Viggens, neat unique cars. I see them pop up dirt cheap from time to time. Seen some scary pics of saab rust.
JtspellS wrote: All right I'll say it.... Why not RX8?
Only because I don't know anything about working on rotaries. My impression was they aren't very home mechanic friendly, but nothing to back that up. Are these Rwd?
nullcell wrote:t25torx wrote: somethingYes. I know I am conflicting/contradicting myself. Because I have fantasies of a GT car and the alps and all that (or at least taking weekend escape trips in the US "hills"), but then also have this fantasy in my head that a Miata is a stress free no hassle pleasure to work on based on all the decades of people raving about them that I can play with and mod. In reality though my reason for a 2+2 is because my kid loves the Mini, mostly because its "dad's" and he wants to go out in "dad's car" and I think he likes the visibility out the windows and stuff, and he's not really big enough to be sitting up front yet. So if I go the Miata or C5 route I feel I tick off the no-dumb-designs box but then I'm excluding my son at least for a little while so....uggh. If my kid didn't love the Mini I would have left it in a lake somewhere or on the side of the road with the title on the front seat a long time ago.
I completely understand on the Mini front. My wife had an R56 Turbo... Biggest piece of junk in the world. When nothing on it was broke it was fantastic, when something was, which was more often than not, it sucked.
I used to seat my son up front in my '04 GTO, he loved it. He wasn't heavy enough to trigger the airbag sensor so I didn't have to worry about him getting smacked in the face with a gunshot balloon. But it's all in your comfort level I guess.
The CLK55 someone linked would also make a great GT car. I had the C55 and loved it, for the time I had it. Not too terribly difficult to work on either.
nullcell wrote:JtspellS wrote: All right I'll say it.... Why not RX8?Only because I don't know anything about working on rotaries. My impression was they aren't very home mechanic friendly, but nothing to back that up. Are these Rwd?
Most people don't so its usually a learning experience going in, In saying that Ignition system is extremely important to keep healthy and up to date (30k plug changes I've found is the best rule of thumb) and most people (myself included) upgrade to LS/LT coils for better longevity being as the OEM do not have heatsinks and are right over the engine which is MUCH more hot then most, Brings me to the next point, Cooling is quite taxed on these systems so cooling systems are important to keep up with on time (80-100k usually?)
Now to oil, big thing is these engines are made to burn oil, in fact on the newest S2 (09-11) there are 3 oil injectors per rotor and 1 OMP (oil metering pumps) per rotor so you will be going through oil and would kinda just have to deal with it, checking it every other fill up is usually what I do.
Last thing I can think of at the moment is once you get in to drive it you have to be committed to get it up to operating temperature every time or you could be have a flooded engine and lessen your plugs lifespan as well as the whole being stranded thing.
Im sure theres plenty of other things to touch on but this is most of the major things, I would not blame you for not getting one but they can be the best bang for the buck price wise so long as you can keep up with the known issues, Good luck either way!!
I know the auto trans in the XK8 were weak and broke a lot. The XKR had the stronger Mercedes auto trans thats is used in the 55 AMG's and I think the V12's.
I was also going to suggest the RX-8. BUT your kid depending on age/size will have a hard time seeing out of the back seat. As long as you post on here or RX-8 forum for help you'll be fine to DIY it. Plug changes and coil change is pretty easy.
I don't find my RX8 that hard to work on. Some of the work is a bit fiddly but I've worked on worse cars.
That said, running costs are pretty high, both regarding the fuel consumption and when it comes to all the special ointments (i run premix and Idemitsu full synthetic oil in mine). On the track I can usually work out if my lap times were any good by looking at the fuel consumption - anything over 6.5 mpg and they weren't 
.
The RX-8 is intriguing. I watched the top gear video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5FNjyaLfC8
And watched a vid on how the engine works. These things sound like a friggin F1 car. :D There seem to be a lot of these up for sale cheap that say they either need a whole engine or an engine rebuild. What is the deal with that? Is it owners not understanding the car or is there some design flaw? Is it something you can pick up cheap and do some engine TLC in the garage and have it back on the street easily? It also seems the engine is not very mod friendly and it is hard to extract any more power. Is that true? One of these with 340-380hp (8-9lbs/hp) seems like it would be pretty fun. Some quick googling seems to indicate that is impossible?
Others with more RX-8 knowledge than I will chime in, but I did look into them quite a bit for a while. My understanding was the issue was a combination of a design flaw and people not knowing how to properly use/maintain a rotary. The early years ('03-'05?) had issues with oiling, which was fixed later on. Plus there are quirks like not starting the car and then shutting it right off immediately (once you start it, you have to let it run a while before you can shut it off). Mazda extended the warranty on the motors for the early cars due to these issues. Rebuilt motors are out there for not all that much money.
For a street driving GT car I would look at one of the newer Taurus SHOs.
dean1484 wrote: For a street driving GT car I would look at one of the newer Taurus SHOs.
To me, they fall more on the side of luxobarge cruiser than true GT, though that may be splitting hairs. The new SHO doesn't seem to get a lot of love, but there sure is a whole lot of it to love. It's a plus size for sure. One of the magazines did an article on it where they parked it next to a 1st gen SHO and it looked like a whale. EDIT - here's the pic. There's some visual trickery here, they've got the new one parked ahead of the others, but you still get the idea:
To me GT is Grand Touring. A larger car with some performance. Meant to eat up the highway mikes and will not scare you on the back roads.
Most of what I have seen in this threat are sports cars. Not GT cars. In fact the SHO should probably be called a GS aka a Grand Sport but I will stop splitting hairs.
Furious_E wrote: 04-06 GTO? LS engine, sorta spacious, comfy cabin, decent handling...
I came in here to suggest this as well. I had an 06. They're actually fantastic cars and I think the styling has aged MUCH better than all the retro-styled muscle cars from that same era.
It was a really fun car. And it was pretty easy to work on.
A good friend that I carpooled with had two MINI's for many years. They were always maintenance headaches for him. He has a Civic Si now.
In reply to nullcell:
Metric $$$$=HP in a rotary
For around $7-10k you might get up to 200hp with the stock engine and a swap from an earlier car (13b rew or other) is far from a drop in affair and unless you are good at wiring you lose most luxuries that come with the car, biggest issue is the renesis is the super high compression version as opposed to the 13b rew which was more about getting boost in and out.
You would get more mods for money with suspension as opposed to engine mods with an RX8.
F-RS is an excellent interstate cruiser in all aspects except for quietness level (custom aftermarket exhaust doesn't help either). Excellent fuel mileage (30+mpg cruising at 80mph, was seeing gph stay within a range of 2.0 to 2.5), the aerodynamic body is extremely stable to strong crosswinds (larger and heavier sedans and coupes feel much more pushed around), and responds quickly yet flowingly to sight inputs or resistance to steering and pedals. Mine beautifully eats up interstate miles in a non-fatiquing way. Have done many 1000+ miles trips in it, in fact just got back from the Daytona 24 with it - did the whole 1,100+ miles in one day stint on Monday.
I will say the stock seat (as with most Japanese car stock seats) absolutely sucked for me though. I knew that going in and have replaced the driver's seat with one that works very well for me. If there's one thing I've learned over the years is that it's well worth spending the money to get the right seat that works for you. With 150-200lbs in the trunk (had my camera gear, tools, clothes, etc) the balance and ride was very good. Taking banked Florida onramp onto I10 after fueling up past Tallahassee was a riot... F-RS feels REALLY good with that weight in the rear, better than stock when pushing it through turns. Very stable and planted, much harder to get the rear to begin coming out compared to stock.
Pretty easy car to work on too...which is one of the core philosophies of its design - massive aftermarket support with engineered in ease of parts replacement. I've never had a car that was as easy to wrench on as the FR-S, beats the Honda's/Acura's and Toyota's I've had before it.
I'd suggest trying one out to see if it would work for you...
nullcell - I don't know how old your kid is, but my son loved riding in my 2010 Mini. He REALLY loves riding in the 2013 Mustang convertible I replaced it with.
it is cool that you are considering him in your search.
You'll need to log in to post.
