This is basically a post telling the s**** story of my mk3, of someone who has no resources for cars. Don't read it all if you don't care for a personal story. (I refer to fluid light as bhg light, as that's what people told me it basically meant)
As a 13 year old boy seeing a silver mk3 with gold wire wheels at a used car lot driving by, it's a huge eye catcher. I fell in love with the mk3 as soon as i saw that car. I had to have mom take me to look at it. So we did that night, but $5,000 for a used 89 model car, she said no way (Even if i saved and saved and helped) She said find a cheaper one and we can fix things here and there and make it reliable by my 16th birthday. So here's me, just recently turning 14, checking craigslist everyday for a supra under $2000 that isn't too bad. I find a maroon and black one, $1500 with a bhg.(Supras are very rare where i live, in my state even, this is the cheapest i seen posted in months) So then i research the bhg, doesn't seem THAT bad with someone who knows what they are doing.
I talk to my cousin who's best friend at the time was a ex mechanic, he pursued other things he enjoyed. He talked about a blown head gasket, and how easy it would be for him to fix because he has done a few things like that. So together we convince my mom to look into it with me, and that weekend we go to check it out, about 2 hours away. 2 hours later, mom is trying to see if see if she can save any money, and they say no, they bought it for $3500 4 months back, $1500 is already a huge loss. So with my mechanic friend looking it over, (The interior is great, no rips or tears, one little hole in passenger seat, about pen point size) and we buy it.
Try to drive it home, he knows we will need to stop continually and let it cool down, fill it with water, and keep going. Well it overheated 15 minutes later and would not stop smoking, so we parked it in a parking lot and he picked it up the next day.
Fast forward 2 weeks and the tear apart begins, 3 weeks later and we have the head off and shaved, he said it was the worst he has ever seen, something about 1400 something if i remember, something like that. so now all it should take is putting it back together, right? Wrong. After about 4 hours of starting to put it together, new sparks plugs and a thermostat and such, he stops working. Never responds to us or anything. 4 months later, we find he gave up on the car. So we had to have a shop tear it apart and do the gasket job. several hundred dollars, whatever. The bhg light is out, but the check engine light is still on, it never went out since the day i got it. new radiator fan and shroud, the car is done.
Drive it to town a few times, it's fine. so we take it on the highway, (There's always this strange sloshing sound behind the dash?) and it over heats after 20 mins. bhg light is still out. turns out the heater control valve blew? (the weird mechanism on the back firewall, left corner) So we got a replacement from a junkyard. That one blew after 3 drives, so we bought a new one and it hasn't given us problems sense. This also stopped the sloshing sound. So i get to drive it one day a week into town, waiting until my 16th birthday. Then it over heats again one night, simple fix a broken hose. Then My alternator started acting up, car would always be dead, on a brand new battery. Take it to the local parts store, they say yeah its the alternator, we buy a new one. Car is dead again in the parking lot, have to go across town to get to the house, and the battery is under 6 volts. lights are all dead, going 70 through the street to get it home, all green lights and no problem. (Very empty town at night, nothing was in our way) Next day put on the alternator, it sparked putting it in but that never seemed to cause a problem.
So it's good for a few months, i get louvers for it, hoping to get a muffler and side louvers and a low spoiler soon (like the 1st gen rx7 one).
I take on the project of taking apart my dash and putting in white gauge faces (i'm way too poor for new custom gauges, so this would do until later down the road) and i snap the speedometer cable. Take it to a shop, they fix that problem and i put the dash together (God forbid i will wire in the gauges....don't want to ever touch them again until i put in all new gauges) And they also find the problem with the engine light, my knock sensor is out, something like that, so the light is out now. they also say some little things are damaged/broken, and mom decides we can deal with that later. They also say that my rear bearings are pretty bad, i should have them replaced soon. My car has always made a high pitched whistling sound, i was used to it. So as a early birthday gift, mom buys all new tires (These were about 7 years old apparently) and about $1100 bearing job. My car has always lurched at the 60 shifting point, but no one has said anything about it, i probably floor it and bring it up too quickly since i only go 60, but i'm 15/16 what do you expect.
Happy birthday it is all done for you, get ready for your car.
Wrong.
A week ago we're shopping, breaking in the bearings so we can use the 500 mile oil and get a oil change, and they want to check a slow oil leak when we go back in.
My cousin calls and says he needs help at his house, so leave the store. We notice my car is making a horrid smell, like it is burning something, but we figured it was normal, breaking in the new bearings and burning the special oil.
Going down the highway, no ones on, so me being a young driver, push i to 85 to see what it's like, it should be able to handle it no problem. It did, and i was going to go a little more but it was time to slow down. We meet him at the gas station near his house, and it just starts shaking and smoking, for no reason. There's a problem now. So we go the 1 mile to his house, where it completely overheats needle over the red, smoking like a mofo you can't see anything. So he drives it to a shop to have it looked at. Apparently there's a blown head gasket, a hole in the radiator, and a crack in the engine block, so the engine is toast, he shows it all to us. Quotes $4-6k for a new engine, radiator, and all.
I don't have any car experience, no father, siblings, cousins, or family that can do any car stuff, so we're forced to do this eventually, since we are so far into it.
The shop guy says they can tow the car to a scrapper for $100, which is disgusting, the louvers are worth more than that, let alone the 3-4k we've put into it.
We tell him all we've done and is amazed that we've spent so much, the interior is near mint and is a very clean car, but still. We ask the previous shop if he has a guarantee on his work, since he did to the gasket job less than a thousand miles ago, (yes, all of this happened in 2k miles or less) He says yes, but we can't prove it was his work that went wrong or something else, so we are on our own.
I can't like the idea of that much for a crappy 7mge, if it's going to be that much do a 7mgte/jz swap, but my mom does not believe we can (even though the shop guy and i both show her the hundreds of cars that people have done, she just does not want me to have a turbo car, even if i get a job and buy it myself.)
So this was all a huge learning experience and let down for me, 16 in 5 days and no car. I Want to buy another car, a z31/280z/fiero, but mom said don't and just finish mine since there's so much in it, but id rather throw it in the garage and deal with it when i have disposable income (if ever....)
My advice, is don't be cheap when looking for cars in some cases . Especially your first car. Don't jump at the first car you see that is in your price, just save and get the car you want, in my case the turbo version. Only take in a project if you/people you know know how to do it well. Learn from my mistake, and get the right car. Mine will be sitting for quite some time until my mom decides to get the work done, she wants to pay since it was supposed to be done and mine in the week.
Do you're homework and get a good car, not a 256k tired but determined car that lived on a dealership lot and then to a poor family who sold it to you. I really wish i went for a 280z/z31 these days, though i still love the mk3, just not mine. Don't get into a lemon and feel bad about it soon, i always feel bad about the money for my mom, but she pretends it doesn't matter. Whatever your age and situation, the mk3 is a wonderful car. Just be careful what one you buy.
If you read all of this, thanks. I just want to let people know possible problems they could run into with such a old but great car. i may be stuck with a new 7mge for a few years.
I hope to be loving my mk3 one day, maybe a 2jz and completely redo almost every aspect of the car, but that's a long time from now.
As a 13 year old boy seeing a silver mk3 with gold wire wheels at a used car lot driving by, it's a huge eye catcher. I fell in love with the mk3 as soon as i saw that car. I had to have mom take me to look at it. So we did that night, but $5,000 for a used 89 model car, she said no way (Even if i saved and saved and helped) She said find a cheaper one and we can fix things here and there and make it reliable by my 16th birthday. So here's me, just recently turning 14, checking craigslist everyday for a supra under $2000 that isn't too bad. I find a maroon and black one, $1500 with a bhg.(Supras are very rare where i live, in my state even, this is the cheapest i seen posted in months) So then i research the bhg, doesn't seem THAT bad with someone who knows what they are doing.
I talk to my cousin who's best friend at the time was a ex mechanic, he pursued other things he enjoyed. He talked about a blown head gasket, and how easy it would be for him to fix because he has done a few things like that. So together we convince my mom to look into it with me, and that weekend we go to check it out, about 2 hours away. 2 hours later, mom is trying to see if see if she can save any money, and they say no, they bought it for $3500 4 months back, $1500 is already a huge loss. So with my mechanic friend looking it over, (The interior is great, no rips or tears, one little hole in passenger seat, about pen point size) and we buy it.
Try to drive it home, he knows we will need to stop continually and let it cool down, fill it with water, and keep going. Well it overheated 15 minutes later and would not stop smoking, so we parked it in a parking lot and he picked it up the next day.
Fast forward 2 weeks and the tear apart begins, 3 weeks later and we have the head off and shaved, he said it was the worst he has ever seen, something about 1400 something if i remember, something like that. so now all it should take is putting it back together, right? Wrong. After about 4 hours of starting to put it together, new sparks plugs and a thermostat and such, he stops working. Never responds to us or anything. 4 months later, we find he gave up on the car. So we had to have a shop tear it apart and do the gasket job. several hundred dollars, whatever. The bhg light is out, but the check engine light is still on, it never went out since the day i got it. new radiator fan and shroud, the car is done.
Drive it to town a few times, it's fine. so we take it on the highway, (There's always this strange sloshing sound behind the dash?) and it over heats after 20 mins. bhg light is still out. turns out the heater control valve blew? (the weird mechanism on the back firewall, left corner) So we got a replacement from a junkyard. That one blew after 3 drives, so we bought a new one and it hasn't given us problems sense. This also stopped the sloshing sound. So i get to drive it one day a week into town, waiting until my 16th birthday. Then it over heats again one night, simple fix a broken hose. Then My alternator started acting up, car would always be dead, on a brand new battery. Take it to the local parts store, they say yeah its the alternator, we buy a new one. Car is dead again in the parking lot, have to go across town to get to the house, and the battery is under 6 volts. lights are all dead, going 70 through the street to get it home, all green lights and no problem. (Very empty town at night, nothing was in our way) Next day put on the alternator, it sparked putting it in but that never seemed to cause a problem.
So it's good for a few months, i get louvers for it, hoping to get a muffler and side louvers and a low spoiler soon (like the 1st gen rx7 one).
I take on the project of taking apart my dash and putting in white gauge faces (i'm way too poor for new custom gauges, so this would do until later down the road) and i snap the speedometer cable. Take it to a shop, they fix that problem and i put the dash together (God forbid i will wire in the gauges....don't want to ever touch them again until i put in all new gauges) And they also find the problem with the engine light, my knock sensor is out, something like that, so the light is out now. they also say some little things are damaged/broken, and mom decides we can deal with that later. They also say that my rear bearings are pretty bad, i should have them replaced soon. My car has always made a high pitched whistling sound, i was used to it. So as a early birthday gift, mom buys all new tires (These were about 7 years old apparently) and about $1100 bearing job. My car has always lurched at the 60 shifting point, but no one has said anything about it, i probably floor it and bring it up too quickly since i only go 60, but i'm 15/16 what do you expect.
Happy birthday it is all done for you, get ready for your car.
Wrong.
A week ago we're shopping, breaking in the bearings so we can use the 500 mile oil and get a oil change, and they want to check a slow oil leak when we go back in.
My cousin calls and says he needs help at his house, so leave the store. We notice my car is making a horrid smell, like it is burning something, but we figured it was normal, breaking in the new bearings and burning the special oil.
Going down the highway, no ones on, so me being a young driver, push i to 85 to see what it's like, it should be able to handle it no problem. It did, and i was going to go a little more but it was time to slow down. We meet him at the gas station near his house, and it just starts shaking and smoking, for no reason. There's a problem now. So we go the 1 mile to his house, where it completely overheats needle over the red, smoking like a mofo you can't see anything. So he drives it to a shop to have it looked at. Apparently there's a blown head gasket, a hole in the radiator, and a crack in the engine block, so the engine is toast, he shows it all to us. Quotes $4-6k for a new engine, radiator, and all.
I don't have any car experience, no father, siblings, cousins, or family that can do any car stuff, so we're forced to do this eventually, since we are so far into it.
The shop guy says they can tow the car to a scrapper for $100, which is disgusting, the louvers are worth more than that, let alone the 3-4k we've put into it.
We tell him all we've done and is amazed that we've spent so much, the interior is near mint and is a very clean car, but still. We ask the previous shop if he has a guarantee on his work, since he did to the gasket job less than a thousand miles ago, (yes, all of this happened in 2k miles or less) He says yes, but we can't prove it was his work that went wrong or something else, so we are on our own.
I can't like the idea of that much for a crappy 7mge, if it's going to be that much do a 7mgte/jz swap, but my mom does not believe we can (even though the shop guy and i both show her the hundreds of cars that people have done, she just does not want me to have a turbo car, even if i get a job and buy it myself.)
So this was all a huge learning experience and let down for me, 16 in 5 days and no car. I Want to buy another car, a z31/280z/fiero, but mom said don't and just finish mine since there's so much in it, but id rather throw it in the garage and deal with it when i have disposable income (if ever....)
My advice, is don't be cheap when looking for cars in some cases . Especially your first car. Don't jump at the first car you see that is in your price, just save and get the car you want, in my case the turbo version. Only take in a project if you/people you know know how to do it well. Learn from my mistake, and get the right car. Mine will be sitting for quite some time until my mom decides to get the work done, she wants to pay since it was supposed to be done and mine in the week.
Do you're homework and get a good car, not a 256k tired but determined car that lived on a dealership lot and then to a poor family who sold it to you. I really wish i went for a 280z/z31 these days, though i still love the mk3, just not mine. Don't get into a lemon and feel bad about it soon, i always feel bad about the money for my mom, but she pretends it doesn't matter. Whatever your age and situation, the mk3 is a wonderful car. Just be careful what one you buy.
If you read all of this, thanks. I just want to let people know possible problems they could run into with such a old but great car. i may be stuck with a new 7mge for a few years.
I hope to be loving my mk3 one day, maybe a 2jz and completely redo almost every aspect of the car, but that's a long time from now.
