New car, Bought today, hopefully a good buy...

[ngarover]

Originally Posted by johnlvs2run

It's a nice looking car, and that's in the range that I paid for my civic.

OK, that makes me feel better...

[user removed]

If I was going to do a transmission swap, I would grab something like this, but considering the owners knowledge of cars it probably needs a clutch slave cylinder and some fresh gas.

2001 Toyota echo

regards
Mech

[cbaber]

Hey don't feel bad at that price. I've seen rust-free shells (no motor/tranny) go for $2-2.5k easily. The automatic transmission may be undesirable but that has saved the car from abuse in it's life.

If I were in your situation I would convert it to a VX with the wheels, motor, transmission, etc. If you want a little more go, throw in the d15b 3 stage vtec. If you are content with the current motor and transmission there are many aero mods and driving techniques that can get you respectable numbers over EPA.

[sarguy01]

$3,300 isn't bad. From the pics it looks to be rust free and in pretty good shape.

The CAI doesn't always mean some kid did crappy work on the car. I know plenty of mature adults that buy them and install them.

A manual swap should be fun!!

[Frank Lee]

I'd like a CRX but it's hard to find one that hasn't had 1,000 busy little hands all over it. :/

[cowmeat]

Yeah, there's not a CRX in Florida for sale that hasn't been lowered, gutted, swapped, tuned, raced, etc . . .so far 100% of them I've looked at have quick release steering wheels, a bunch of gauges not hooked up, goofy dash colors, ricer wheels with the low profile tires worn down to steel . . .

There's almost zero chance of a "barn find" here, but I do keep looking for that unmolested low mileage CRX

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by cowmeat

Two things automatically drive me away from considering a car:

#1 cold air intake - cold air intake equals kid-owned . . .everything done to the car will be half-assed by some 16 year old ricer wannabee and his buddies, from the lowering to the "tuning"

#2 "se habla espanol" in the ad - all the wiring will have been done with speaker wire, and there won't be an OEM part on the car

Wow...stereotype much? There are a couple things wrong with this: first, you jump to conclusions based on (very) limited information when the conclusions do not necessarily follow (i.e. it has a cold air intake, so the lowering job must have been of dubious quality) and, second, you assume that personal experience can be extrapolated to apply to new scenarios (i.e. you encountered a situation in the past where a Spanish-speaker did a poor wiring job in a car, therefore every Spanish-speaker must do the same). Both are logical fallacies.

[Frank Lee]

And yet common enough to label "typical".

[cowmeat]

Yeah, I pretty much stereotype certain car ads when looking for a car that's going to cost me thousands of dollars, I jump right over them.

I wouldn't necessarily say I am jumping to conclusions, since I have been living in this market for over 30 years and know it pretty well, but that's your opinion, and you are free to it.

Would it be stereotypical of me to assume that if I saw a camo F250 in Centralia with a gun rack lifted 6 inches on Mickey Thompsons, it was probably driven by a red neck? Yeah, maybe. . . .

[user removed]

Originally Posted by cowmeat

Yeah, there's not a CRX in Florida for sale that hasn't been lowered, gutted, swapped, tuned, raced, etc . . .so far 100% of them I've looked at have quick release steering wheels, a bunch of gauges not hooked up, goofy dash colors, ricer wheels with the low profile tires worn down to steel . . .

There's almost zero chance of a "barn find" here, but I do keep looking for that unmolested low mileage CRX

That is my observation here in eastern Virginia, some of the best fuel mileage vehicles built in decades, destroyed by those who want to make them "hot rods". If you find an unmolested original VX or CRX hf the cost in parts alone to bring it to like new condition would probably exceed the cost of my Fiesta.
Even without any serious rust issues.

regards
Mech