Buying 2gb, Rusty

[TurboTesh]

Hi guys, I have a talon, but it's only in decent shape... I found this eclipse which is in great shape, minus the rust...
78k miles. Runs pretty good. Silver. Auto
But RUST!
This is the strut.
Other side is a lot less, can just sand and paint the on passenger side.

Also rockers are shot from the rear wheels about half way along the side skirts.

Is this salvageable at a reasonable cost? They want low 3000 dollar range...
Link here.
http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/cto/5642655214.html

 

[totaleclipse_05]

Umm, I would not even drive that car.

Unless you are pretty proficient with welding, I would run away from this and not look back. With the body in that shape, I'd say the car is definitely worth under 1k without knowing how it even runs. Nowhere near what they are asking.

 

[97awd-turbo]

I agree ^ That rust is pretty bad, probably not even safe driving it?

 

[Twinturbo120]

Definitely too much rust, I bet looking underneath it's even worse.

It's going to be time consuming and cost a good amount to fix that
because you have to cut a strut tower from a clean car and weld
the clean one on that car. It can be done but your gonna burn a hole
in your pocket fast

 

[CiscoBite1Time]

That's a lot for the car in that condition. Shoot if your willing to spend that much on a car that needs that much work I'd consider selling my 2gb talon and I'm in the milwaukee area too.

 

[TurboTesh]

Thanks for the input guys. I figured it was too far gone. Shame since it has such low mileage.
Really struggling to find a clean 2g DSM. Especially manual.

I found this one:

http://milwaukee.craigslist.org/cto/5624766804.html

He said he put a 1g CAS in to make it run for people, but it still misfires. shouldnt that fix the CPS problem?

he says it really is as spotless as in the pics. My question is why wouldn't he just fix it and sell it for thousands more? Said he's had many of these cars. Leads me to believe more is going on... crankwalk possibly? I suppose a compression test and a little prying of the crank pulley would give me more to go off of. Hell if i can get it for 2500, i could swap a motor in and still come out pretty good.

Opinions?

Really looking to get into a 2gb. My talon isn't quite clean enough for the build i want to do. I have this Buschur 16g turbo and manifold just waiting for a host

 

[totaleclipse_05]

If you want to come to MN, mine could be available. It's a 2Ga though.

 

[TurboTesh]

Is it the purple color? Sadly im only really drawn to black, white, grey, the cayenne and the durango copper on these cars. maybe silver if it was the right car.

 

[totaleclipse_05]

Is it the purple color? Sadly im only really drawn to black, white, grey, the cayenne and the durango copper on these cars. maybe silver if it was the right car.

Yeah, its Barcelona Red Pearl, but looks purple most of the time. I also have a 2gb eclipse gsx shell that I could package into the deal, caged and gutted. Otherwise I will be keeping both to swap everything over to the gsx shell and probably keep forever haha.

 

[2gmitsueclipse]

Gentlemen, if you want to continue the discussion about buying cars, take it to PM.

 

[MoarAWD]

I've been searching for 2g dsm's the last 2 weeks, and that first car in the OP is pretty typical of the quality people are trying to sell lately. Idk when it happened, but a lot of DSM owners have been jacking up the price of really badly abused cars and claiming, "I know what the car is worth, and the price is firm." It's making the search for a quality 2g DSM pretty exhausting.

My thoughts on buying a DSM (these are only my OPINIONS, so if you disagree, great. I am certainly not the end-all be-all DSM appraiser):
1. The average blue book, black book, NADA value for this car in "GOOD" condition is roughly $2700 (for a 99). This assumes ZERO cancer rust. Now, since those book values mean jack and squat to a community of enthusiasts, it's safe to say that a quality 2g GSX fitting the description of "GOOD" is valued a bit higher. From an extensive bit of searching online, that price seems to sit at $5,000 (there are people who try like hell to say otherwise, but $5,000 is nearly TWICE the book value, and this includes ZERO modifications).

2. Auto or Manual? Regardless of what you're actually looking for, the price of automatics is usually quite a bit lower than manuals. To me, this makes sense, because a lot of people prefer the manual transmissions in sports cars. Again, just from looking around, $3000 seems to be the average for autos, while the manuals stay around the $5000 mark.

3. Electrical Mods: Here is where a lot of people will disagree with me, but again... opinion. ANY modification to a wiring system in a vehicle done by the average "dude" selling his car on Craigslist should immediately make you hesitate. Many of the people who do these mods have zero prior knowledge or experience, and simply follow guides on forums like this. While I would never discourage people from doing things themselves and learning a thing or two about their car, I would discourage any electrical mods without first having a working knowledge of basic electricity. I've seen a TON of pics on this forum in which people are using industrial soldering irons at insanely high temps to solder 20g wires, or using the worst kind of wire strippers imaginable, etc. Bottom line, mods do not collectively add to the price. In fact, many times they subtract. The fact that someone spent $545 on a DSMlink V3, and then did a hack job of installing and tuning it, does not mean the car increased in value by $545.

4. Mechanical mods: See electrical mods above. Same thing, just with grease instead of current.

5. Strut tower rust: The big one. If you find a perfect condition GSX, but it has the SLIGHTEST bit of strut cancer, just go ahead and knock $2500 off the price right now. It doesn't matter how small, and it doesn't matter how much it costs to fix. The fact that it's there means that at some point in its life, the DSM you're trying to buy was neglected. Usually what this means is that some jackass drove it in the snow on salty roads and didn't bother washing it. If you live in the snowy states and you want to daily a nice car, be ready to wash it EVERY DAY YOU DRIVE IN THE WINTER, or kiss the value goodbye. The smallest bit of visible rust means that there is MUCH MORE that is not visible, and things will only get worse.

6. Transmission Issues: This is a big one I've noticed while searching around. A lot of people seem to think that having a 2nd gear that won't engage is a small problem and shouldn't subtract from the value. The fact is, a lot of DSM owners don't have a ton of extra time to pull a tranny for a rebuild, nor do they have the volatile budget. A quick look on TRE shows that a stage 2 rebuild will run around $1500. Add onto that the cost to have a shop pull the tranny (and reinstall it when it comes back), and the cost for shipping, and you're sitting at $2000-2500 easily. If there is a tranny problem, either make the seller fix it first, THEN sell it for what it's worth, or make sure to adjust the price accordingly.


Like I said, these are only my opinions. Feel free to develop your own strategies for buying. After all, the most important thing in the end is that you are happy with your purchase!

 

[totaleclipse_05]

^Makes me feel a lot better about my cars, .

I remember looking at about 3-4 other dsms before choosing the one I have now. A lot of them were just rusted out here up in MN to the point where I poked the strut tower on one and it made a hole from very little effort.

 

[silverex]

thats serious rust....not worth any effort just part it out