My '06 has 100k miles on it, and there are no unusual or annoying noises, other than passenger seat squeeks sometimes if there is a passenger and seat is back and reclined. Otherwise, like someone else mentioned, all the same normal car noises, just a little louder.

I think there may have been suspension and/or driveline issues with you previous car.

 

What you've described sounds normal for the S and I don't consider those noises unsettling. If you want quiet then you definitely need to look at a different vehicle. Our 981 is much quieter but comes at a bit of a premium to the S.

 

Yeah there is absolutely no way that car has all ten VIN stickers intact and has never been in some form of accident in the past.

No one is dumb enough to mistakenly price a car $5-6k below book value.

 

Yea... $14,200 is super cheap for an 06 with that low mileage. But maybe it's just one of the really good deals and you may be right about the weather changing and the guy just needs to "get it gone."

I had an '00 that made absolutely zero shakes, rumbles, rattles, etc and didn't drink a LICK of oil to boot. I'm so freaking mad at myself for selling it...
Then I bought an '05 and it has probably mild to moderate rattles that are unavoidable. I was absolutely paranoid when I first bought it but after some investigating I'm comfortable in determining that they're all completely normal and not harming anything. It's just a raw car to begin with.

A lot of people like the 06 because of DBW (drive by wire). Look into that. Additionally, a lot of people would prefer the 01 due to the F20C 9k rpm redline.

The 2nd gear shift clunk is probably normal. A lot of people have it.

 

I never said it was accident-free. It's an 8 year old car, I'm realistic in that cars of this age have probably hit or been hit at some point. When I sold my 07 SI it had been in two accidents, one pretty bad, and it still drove and performed flawlessly. According to both him and carfax, it has been in one accident. Rear clip and a tail-light and trunk lid was replaced. I'm ok with that, but I'll make sure to point it out to the shop looking it over. He had it listed for 17k, which was a decent/near-average price. He *needs* to sell it for clear up some funds, and being located in northern MN doesn't make his car very liquid right now in 10* weather. Definitely a very buyers-skewed market right now. I've emailed a few s2k sellers and most of them were willing to talk to me after very low offers, something that was being met with silence or telling me to 'f@#k off' a mere few months ago.

 

If you need an Autocheck (reports more accidents than lousy Carfax), PM me. Plenty of nice, accident free ones out there so don't settle.

 

I guess I just fail to understand why you would even be shopping for and/or considering buying a car that you know has already been in an accident. Perhaps I'm just too OCD but I would never feel comfortable willfully buying a car that I knew had damage in the past, especially when you have no clue as to the qualifications of the body shop that did the repairs. Had they ever even worked on an S2000 before or was this their first opportunity to get one in the shop? Why even take the gamble?

The real question is why wouldn't you pay an extra $3-4k for an S2000 that is in the condition it was in when it left the factory? If $3-4k really has that big of an impact on your decision then you're obviously shopping for the wrong car in the first place.

 

I went back to the original post to try to get a feel for the OP's intent.

Based on my experience with my '05 with almost 60k miles, of which I am the fourth owner (the first owner had an accident that made Carfax):

Yes, the soft top frame rattles on bumpy pavement. There would be a squeak if I leaned the seat all the way back. Occasionally there might be a bit of a clunk when shifting into the lower gears (I really don't remember).

But no, it does not sound clunky all the time. There are no unsettling noises. While accelerating, braking, turning the wheels, etc., I can enjoy the roar of the engine and (stock) exhaust without being distracted by thoughts that the thing is going to fall apart.

In my humble opinion, many squeaks and rattles are due to parts that have broken or loosened up (such as plastic fasteners) and not been fixed.

 

Because shoddy body work is evident right away. This accident was reported 2 years ago - if the paint was going to fail, now is very likely the time by which it would have. If panels aren't lined up, it's easily spotted. I can tell a shop exactly where to look, they can dig around and see if they find anything alarming. The fact that just a few panels were replaced tells me it wasn't a bad accident. In contrast, someone ran a red light a few years back and I hit them in the side going 40 mph. I had over $13,000 worth of repairs done to my Civic SI. Couldn't tell a difference in the way it drove when I got it back, and I went to just an average shop. When I was younger, literally 5 cars in my family had been in an accident at some time or another, and never once did any of them give us problems post-repair. I just think some people get way too caught up in things like this, personally.

If you crash your S2000, are you going to immediately sell it, regardless of the damage? I guess I don't care that much, because in the grand scheme of things, I've never once in my life been burned by purchasing a car with an accident in its history. Until that happens, I'm not going to let an unfounded fear cause me to spend thousands more on a car.

Just my $0.02, you don't have to agree. I also wax my car once a month instead of once a week, change the fluids at mfr specs rather than twice as frequently, etc. In the end, to me, it's a car, and I probably don't care *as much* as most of you guys do. Probably somewhere in-between the average s2ki member and a random person not very interested in cars.

Accident or not, $14,200 is a pretty sexy deal on an 06 S2000 in the color I want @ 6x,xxx miles.

 

Depends on the body shop. I've had some really bad paint work, and I've had some excellent paint. Z06 I had bought was accident free, but, it had been resprayed when the car was a few years old, under warranty. Paint color and texture didn't match from panel to panel, this drove me insane, it was all I could see.

Now a big accident, where they bend the frame back, nope, no thanks.