Mine isnt all that bad most of the time. I dont really love it but its ok. Could definately pay better and have some kind of benefits though.
true
Hey man, just caught your post…
Couple thoughts:
- Try to settle on a platform first. I’d love to have something like your budget ($5-$7k right?) as I can think of like 12-15 things that would be cool. And I’m just thinking sedans, since you have family…
Some of them have been mentioned but here are a few, in no particular order:
Conventional FWD
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'03 and newer Accord, 4 cyl w/ the 5 spd (stay away from '98-'02 V6 w/ auto tranny)
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5.5G Maxima (mentioned by Ilya), ballsy, torquey, so-so looking unless modded (subjective I know), but 6 spd w/ the limited slip is cool yeah
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Acura TL Type S (like '02ish) is a good bet too, again this has been mentioned I think… No manual for this generation sedan though, if I remember correctly. 6 spd was for CL only right?
RWD
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I’ve seen E46 BMWs in your price range, but with over 100k miles… I don’t know much about them, but heck ask Pete or one of the real BMW heads on here, you know them all anyways.
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Don’t be afraid of a maintained E36, your budget you can buy a real nice 325i or 328i with fairly low mileage. You’ve worked on BMWs before, parts on E36s aren’t that big a deal unless you break something REAL big… $hit I own and maintain (well ok I use the word “maintain” LOOSELY) one, so uh, any idiot can…
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Other RWD rides in this price range are either automatic (i.e. GS300, LS400, IS300- no way you could find a 5 spd one w/ this budget)… Or not worth mentioning because I can’t see you in it (i.e Ford Crown Vic- :lol). Oh wait!! Hell yeah a GS300 w/ 5 spd swap (and/or Aristo mechanicals is a wet dream yeah but at this price range- NO :lol) [/boner]
OK so my RWD list reeks of Bimmer fanboizzzms but you don’t have much of a choice in RWD sedans for family use unfortunately.
Somewhat off the beaten path
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Galant VR4: with your budget you could find a pretty nice a$$ one but yeah you’d have to stay on top of it. An almost stock one with low miles sold for like $7k a couple months back, but yeah it’d be dicey and it’s an almost 20 year old car… But hey you have a Z31 so you’re not afraid of old school styling. See galantvr4.org for cars that are out there.
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Mazdaspeed Protege, '03 or '04 can be had (tough to find stock and unabused perhaps, not to mention maybe a bit boy-racer if you are representing your company)
Whatever you do, don’t be so quick to jump into something. Whenever you have time on your side you can use it as leverage while scanning for all possible deals.
If you can, set aside the equivalent of what your monthly payment will be for like 2 or 3 months… It should be no problem for you if you can really swing it. Then, buy the car after you do that ‘experiment’.
You can then use the 2-3 months x payment put aside towards your loan and/or maintenance stuff when you do buy the car! All the while proving to yourself you can swing it without impacting your lifestyle. In the scheme of things, 2-3 months is nothing, take your time, do it right.
Shift will always be here to make fun and talk $hit about why your choice was a bad one and that you overpaid because ___________ anyways. :lol
Good luck!
:thumb
Just a side note on the Acura TL…
Be careful with the 00-03’s…they had tranny problems. I know because my brother had an 03 and while researching a diagnosis for his car, I came upon post after post of people going through tranny’s.
But otherwise? SOLID CAR. I loved that thing. He has an 08 now and I love that one too lol. Acura TL’s are fantastic cars.
So, I got pre approved for an 04 Accord, YAY… Well no… my MAH DUKES gave me and the old man the clink, she doesnt want to have another loan with their name on it as I have my school loans and in case theirs an emergency.
So I had to settle for less but im deff happy with it. I’ve been driving my bosses 97 Ford Ranger XLT for the past week, and asked him if hed sell it to me, so I now have a ford ranger, thing is mint, realitivly low miles for the year was well taken care of by the first owner and my boss and Ive been driving it a lot for the past week so at least I know what im getting myself into.
NOW MY FORT ORANGE STORY!
So knowing that I could only get ~4 grand by myself with no guarantor, I saw a 2000 Honda Civic on CL looked clean as hell, were asking 3900. Having called a few other places and getting soem very helpfull people i called fort orange despite whats been said in here just to see whats going on.
“Hey I’m callnig about teh 2000 Civic”
“YEAH! It’s a great car, absoloutely beautiful, when would you like to coem take a look at it”
“Well im just shopping around right now, and It seems liek the cars got quite a lot of miles for the year, but I am very interested and I wanted to see if we could work a little bit on the price”
" Well what about fi the cars got a brand new paint job and detail, theres not a scratch on it the car its beautiful"
“Well the car looks great but a new paint job isnt going to do anything for me if the car has any mechanical issues that might arrise”
“Well If your not interested in the car” CLICK
THEN HE JUST HUNG UP ON ME, AS I STARTED TO SAY SOMETHING!
REALLY? IM TELLING YOU I AM VERY INTERESTED AND RATHER THAN TELL ME OR EVEN SAY “Hey but it runs great, we went thru it completely ETC ETC”
YOU JUST HANG UP ON ME? WHAT THE FUCK
I called a handfull of places before here and all said theyd work with me if I came and looked at the car and wanted it, all had no isses tryign to sell me the car over the phone, poitn out its been fully serviced, has some of a service history or even to say that theyve gone thru the car completely.
So anyways I decided to go online and see if I could find a few reviews of the place, not one single review was good, from them being rude to the car being a complete pile and them giving them shit about fixing it.
FUck that place
when were these reviews?
the place used to be bad from what ive heard but no i dont really see any complaints from anyone at all…and that doesnt sound like kevin at all to just hang up on someone…something must have happened…when did you call?
only bad reviews ive seen since ive been there is the people who dont make their payments and get their car repo-ed and thenk theyve dont nothing wrong…
lolololololollolololololol
Dude…I know it’s your employer and all (if I follow the thread correctly)…but you need to stop trying to hype them up. We weren’t born yesterday. I too have heard crap about them.
and im the asshole that dont know anyone
im really not trying to hype them up…ive heard a tone of shit about them too…a lot of it from my own boss! he has told me that place used to be a joke…and according to him he said that things have really cleaned up and turned around in the last year or so…we sold about 8 cars the first 3 days of february…shit was crazy…
if the place was a shithole i would say it was one…but honestly i dont think it is…not as clean a place as a bigger dealership, but they do offer decent cars at very reasonable prices…
Like a 2000 Civic with 160kmi, no service history but has a brand new paint job for 4 grand? :rofl A brand new paintjob screams look at me im pretty but ill leave your ass on the side of the road in middle of febuary
I dont care if the place itself is made of 24k gold and lined with virgins that will fuck you silly when you buy the car…
After reading and hearing the things I have, talking to whoever it was I talked to, thats a shady ass place…
sounds like fort orange is full of herbs
A brand new paint job means that car was seriously fucked up and they had it bondoed and Maaco’ed.
x1000,
Just find a Corolla, Camry, etc from a private seller, 1-2 owner cars. In general, little shit dealers sell just that, shit, HOWEVER, look up Dean Fox Auto Sales (something like that), I got my Corolla from him and have no complaints. He is so small (yeah ha), that he dosen’t have a store front or anything like that.
Im finalzing the purchase of my bosses 97 Ford Ranger, 4 cyl, 5 speed with 100kmi on it.
He’s the second owner, was well taken care of, things pretty much mint except for some bubbleing down on teh bottom of the bed by the gascap and the edge of the tailgate.
been driving it for a week and a half now, he let me use it when my contour shit, runs absoloutely awesome and is 10x better on gas than my contour
Good for you man, good luck with the Ranger. :thumb
Good luck with the stranger.
its got 149k…new exhaust underneath…it was painted because when we got it the dumbass kid that had it before thought that rattle can was sufficient to paint his car…and no maaco shit done here…paint was done by SOS on walker way in colonie…guy does werk for langan audi and porsche and shit…no bondo there…
and he said that when you asked to negotiate on price he said no and you didnt want to talk anymore…im not trying to start an arguement, im just sayin thats what i heard…
No, when I asked to negotiate on price he said
Exactly what i said:
“hey hows it going, I’m very interested in the 2000 Civic you had listed, was wondering if you were willing to negotiate on price a little bit as 4 grand for a car with 150kmi seems a little much”
“Well how about if the cars got a brand new paint job, not a scratch on it”
I told him a pintjob doesnt hide and mechanical issues the car may have
he hung up on me…as i was about to ask about a service history etc…
regardless he hung up on me, thats what pisses me off more than anything. if he said he coudlent negotiate on price but said the car is in great mechanical shape, its been compeltely gone thru, so and so has been changed… I woulda been fine with that.
That right there screams it was beat to shit and probablt will have issues down the road