Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

There’s a thread somewhere on here about a SAAB Haul-Arse

And lots of quite wealthy people have 996, 987, and 997s and are just waiting for bore score to blow £££££ on relining and rebuild. They're actually quite popular as track toys as well as the last 911s with hydraulic steering.

The fact the motor has so many inherent design flaws probably makes it easier for Dammit to sell engines... I doubt there would be any market at all for the same amongst, for example, 997.2 owners.

Having said that, my dream car is a 996 GT3 and I'd definitely just buy one rather than developing an engine, or buying a swish engine for a non GT 996 - but that's just me, not that I'll ever be able to afford either.

Or you could buy a hatchback and stick some murdered out A/T wheels on it...

Who's the schmuck? 🤷

Whats next for the subarooo? Expedition roof rack?

I don't think it needs anything else...

Apart from an engine swap, obvs...

I am looking out for some replacement leather seats at wreckers, tho' that's a bad choice in the Oz heat... Our fabric front seats are looking a bit tired...

Sorry, should rephrase. My real dream car I can actually afford is a 90s AE95 Toyota Sprinter Carib with diff locks and a lift kit and A/T wheels (not necessarily murdered out).

The M96 (generally) benefits from a rebuild around 100,000 miles. Not because of the bores or the IMSB per-se, but because it’s likely that the main bearings are very much past their best by then. The crank is cantilevered on the flywheel end, without a bearing to take the loads from “excitable” gear changing the nearest main bearing also wears faster than the others and in extremis the crank can snap.

And of course, bore scoring and IMSB on the 3.6 - 3.8 litre cars.

So we have cars that are (for what they are, chassis wise) very cheap indeed, that are an engine away from being a 60k GT car, with engines that perform well but have a handful of serious issues.

Resolve the issues, add some power and some character, whilst keeping costs within a range that someone deploying man-maths considers reasonable and you may have a proposition.

Or not. But there’s only one way to find out, which is why we registered a company (H2 Engineering Ltd) to start offering some of the parts we have made for these engines, and if all goes well on the dyno the engines themselves later this year.

The man maths works pretty well when facing a rebuild...

1. Scrap the car and lose £££ and have no car
   
2. Rebuild and spend £££ and have same car as before, which has cost you double what it is worth
   
3. Rebuild to something more awesome and spend ££££ but at least it's better than what you had, and a bit different; the financials on all options are grim anyway
   
   
   

There was a guy turned up at a local AutoX last year in a metallic red carib 4x4, didn't look much.

When asked in scruiteneering if it had a current WOF (MOT equiv) he said yes, does it matter if it's supercharged?

It seemed to go good i think he had engine swapped it with a supercharged 4AGE from an older MR2

It seemed to go good i think he had engine swapped it with a supercharged 4AGE from an older MR2

JDM only

You're in NZ aren't you? There used to be a gazillion of those things over there. They were a popular $1500 student car. Quite a few got used for the undie 500. They are probably considerably more desirable now although I imagine still quite cheap and a lot are in bad shape.

You are wrong in my opinion:

1, take broken porker to porker specialist garage, give down payment for investigative work.
2, broken porker owner does not answer garages calls. nor letters. Car sits till storage costs exceed value of car.

1. Car sold on a few times, with v5 as different owners get different garages to look at car. Car left at garages till storage is worth more than car.
   4, find an idiot that will give you a grand for a car that has more liability than worth, but it is a turbo 4x4....
   

Yep. There is literally hundreds of Caribs here, i had never even heard of one before we moved.

From looking on trademe $2995 gets you a mint Carib sprinter

Damn, that's still so cheap

They are posh corollas, they are in the uk but rare as the cars worth little more than import costs. Engines were worth more than cars especially the rear wheel drive version. Cars never left japan, engines removed and came ti the UK.

I love how you're frothing for an old corolla wagon... Proves how diverse the car culture is. Every kink is carried for!

Posh corolla wagons with silver top, 4wd and diff locks. Think they're now worth the import costs - getting rare in Japan due to age and NZ is probably the cheapest place to get them.

They're also really light. I don't know what's not to like except the looks. I might by one in NZ and store with the folks for now.

MOT yesterday on the Beetle. I had a hilarious half hour banter about cars and life with the KwikFit guys near E&C. I had a string of unreliable cars BITD and at one stage that banter at the mechanics was a very regular occurrence. I had forgotten how enjoyable those moments are. Remember to be nice to your spanner spinners.

I had a similar conversation about a fortnight ago with a guy who was MOT’ing a car for me - advised against buying anything that relies on electrical components for anything at all.

BMW’s - the sensors are apparently a “fucking minefield”

Everything that’s ever come from Audi in the last 8 years has consumed oil “like a pisshead in ‘Spoons”

He laughed his head off whilst he was telling me about a five-year old Mercedes that had just come out of warranty and developed electrical and technical faults on a monthly basis.

He also pointed out that whilst it’s not the most glamorous of vehicles, his Ford Galaxy had covered 250k miles and was still going well. It carried everything he needed as well as bikes on the rear hatch and a roof boot. He bought it from a minicab firm a decade ago for next to nothing.

The thing with taking the word of someone like a mechanic at face value is that, like the police, and paramedics, they only fixate on the problems because that's all they see. Which of course, is only half the picture.

One could also argue that the number of luxury German cars on UK roads has probably quadrupled since the 90s thanks to cheap finance so the number they see in the garage with problems is likely to go up in line with total ownership.

How many modern German cars with hundreds of sensors are out there on the roads every day with zero problems? I'd wager a lot more than online forum and Facebook discussions would have you think.

This is true completely true.

All the panic about IMS bearings on 996 era Porsche when there was only ever about a 7% attrition rate. Change and inspect your oil regularly and there never was an issue.

Also, when people finance a car at their absolute credit limit, they tend to get little to minimum maintenance and servicing. See many BMWs and Mercs round here with the cheapest tyres, or broken down with no fuel or other ridiculous failures of complete neglect.

Makes me super suspicious of buying second hand without FSH.

I looked at a car in Dubai that had five different tyres on it

It is odd, the cars went for little money in the UK. Often thought so few came over they became hassle to insure.

When was the last time, if ever you saw a late 90s nissan leopard or late 90s or early 00 nissan cedric.

Again, not uncommon in NZ. Well Cedrics and Cefiros anyway. I think in the UK you'd struggle to get people out of Mercs and BMWs of that era, but these were obviously quite expensive in NZ and had a reputation for being expensive to fix compared to Japanese imports.

That era of Japanese sedan/wagon aren't exactly pretty either which probably didn't help.