Hi, I've been looking over the forum and doing my homework on the s2k. It looks like an awesome little beast so I went out and test drove an '02 today. I must say I'm really pretty impressed with honda.

About the car: It's got about 37k on it and has some pretty bad wear on the rear tires (gee.. wonder why..;] ) There's also a little mis-alignment of the front fender where it looks like someone hit the curb or something or maybe the front end was repaired. It's not noticable though. I'm totally nuts about these things, I looked at it 5 times before I saw it. Everything else about the car looks great. I think the car might have originally been a lease, the carfax report they had said it was purchased by a corporation. I'm assuming that's probably a capital lease corp.

I'm in the chicago area and there's a few cars I'm looking at (about 3-4) but there's a whole bunch for sale. (15 or so) The dealer wants around $21k. Do you guys think this is a fair price? I think it's a little high considering there's a lot of supply and little demand. They wanted to make the sale today so I low-balled em with $16k. They said they couldn't go much below $20k. I think they'll call me back and meet me in the middle. I've got an awesome credit score and they said they'd do 100% financing.

What do you guys think?

 

i picked up a 2002 berlina w/ 11,000 miles for 21,300 from auction. That was also a corporate lease.

 

yea, better pick up 02 and above.

but, my friend's brother is selling his s2k. he's car has been in the garage for years. it's 01 silver with only 4600 miles. yes, 4600 miles. asking 23,000 or best off. some might think that's high price but thinking about how low the milage. you guys decide

 

Hope he really enjoyed his $2 / mile....

 

yeah i'm in the same situation, except i was only looking for blue ones. 21,2 was the lowest one dealer i went to would offer; the car had 22k miles on it. i think it got sold. i think 20k for an '02 and 22k for an '03 are good, average prices. if you can find any for lower it's either a good deal or the car isn't in perfect condition IMO.

 

From my past experience, i would only go for this one if you can get a great deal;

Miles: 37k, this wouldn't be much of problem if the car was from a private party or looks to be well maintained, but it seems that you see the car is not in such great condition, nor from a reliable source. Plus, i would personally pay more $ to get anther S with like 20K miles and drive myself the extra 17K miles. After all, this is not an accord, miles can be hard driven; some exciting times for previous drivers at your expense

From my past M3 experience I learned that older year with few miles can fetch as much money or higher as newer year with high miles.

I

 

Thanks for all your input. I'm stilling looking and haven't made any decisions yet. All the dealers around here are very firm on their prices. Just seems a little strange although I'm no experienced car buyer. I do plan on keeping my 96 toyota camry as a beater/winter car. The s2k is my birthday present to myself. :] I may just use it as a fun car, but I'm also thinking I would probably autocross with it. It kinda depends. Most of the S's around here with decent mileage are way too high priced. So I may end up with a few more miles on my car than I'd like.

 

I'm in Virginia been looking for an 02 as well....I'm finding some very nice 00 and 01's for $19K down to even $16.5 asking price!

 

I just bought an '02 a couple weeks ago for $20,400. It only has 22,000 miles on it and it's in great condition. The wheels still have a fair amount of tread as well. I got the dealer down 1,000 and they had already lowered the sticker price about 1000 the previous month (I had been watchin the car for sale online for about 3 months). Anyways, I felt like it was a pretty good deal. Just thought I'd let you know so you get an idea of what other people are paying. By the way, I live in Chicago.

nategta

 

evilbeatfarmer:

you mentioned that you have good credit...

did you look into getting financing through web/finance companies like capital one auto?

i got my finance through capital one auto and purchased my car from private party. i had financing approved even before seeing the car.

you will almost always pay higher with dealer because that's their livelyhood. when you go with private party, you can negotiate it be some where between dealer price and wholesale price. plus, if you have financing ready, you will have more power to negotiate.

plus, most dealers are not in such hurry, in fact, it doesn't hurt them much to hold on a couple more months till weather gets better!

so
1. get your financing ready
2. start looking at web everyday, so that in case something good comes out, you will be first one to check out. also, this way, you know the market meaning whether something is good priced, over priced, ridiculusly priced.
3. be patient, this will be your baby!
4. in contracting to #3, make sure to take advantage of summer; after all we are in chicagoland, good weather comes once 1 year!