Hello All,
I am looking to purchase my very first s2000 as a project car and would like some help from people who know this car.
Now I have come across one but I am having second thoughts about it and would like some other opinions on the matter. So here goes.
It said in the ad that it is a 2002 s2000 with 150000 miles on the body with 30k miles on rebuilt motor.
So I went to go check the car out with my brother who used to be a mechanic and the car wasn't as good as it was pictured. Lets start with the body.
The front end looks like it may have been in an accident, the front bumpers was cracked and damaged, the passenger fender was repainted, poorly, and the driver fender is a little damaged and none of these panels line up correctly. The soft top is terrible, has maybe 3 or more gashes in it that would definitely leak, the rear bumper and rear fenders do not line up properly with the body and trunk. There are no wheel well covers or inner fender liner as some people call them. The tires are bald which could only mean that this guy sure had some fun with it.
The interior was in descent shape, the seats were a little worn and the drivers side seat had a small tear in it. The dash looked to be in good condition but underneath the steering wheel and dash the covers for the wiring that would normally be over the pedals is missing, owner said he removed it when installing a sound system but sounds suspicious to me. The car does have a sound system but why do all that and do such a lazy job of reassembling it.
Now the mechanical part, the owner said that it was a rebuilt engine but when we looked over the documents he had it turned out that he only had the timing chain, gaskets, clutch, flywheel, and some gears and such replaced in the engine and trans. So technically the engine was never rebuilt and my brother and I began to have this feeling that the guy fried the motor and just replaced the bad components just to get it running and who knows it will be before it starts acting up again.
Another thing that had me concerned about this car was the owner, he didnt know anything about the mechanical history of the car, how the body go messed up and to top it all off, he didnt know how to find the reverse gear... So then I began to think that this guy is just one of those flippers trying to sell me a bad car.
I did a carfax check on the car to be safe but nothing bad came up, clear title and everything, so i guess all the damage went unreported.
Now by this point you all would be thinking I should forget about this car, but I am looking for a project car to I guess restore and track it as well so a fixer is not that big a deal for me but I do not know if I am biting off more than I can chew with this car.
He is willing to sell the car for 6000 but I dont know if that is a good price with all that is bad with the car and the work I will have to put into it to make it a good car, mechanically and body wise.
So could anyone give me their opinion on whether or not this would make a good project car or if it is just to much that is wrong with it.
Any opinions would be appreciated and if you have any more questions about the car I will try and answer them in case I forgot to add it in this post.
Thanks

 

$6k for a car with 150,000 on the clock plus all of that damage??? Absolutely not. Once you get through fixing everything that's wrong with it, and I bet you more stuff will pop up that you missed, you'll be well over the price of a decent non-abused specimen.

 

https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/775...t__p__18385358