Hi all,

This is my first post, so hope you can advise me on this :-)

I'm considering buying a second hand S2000.... the one at:
http://www.winfieldmotor.com/owned/car.asp...orsID=122&Pos=1


and the engine bay is at:
http://www.winfieldmotor.com/owned/car.asp...orsID=122&Pos=7



What do you think?

It is very clearly modified... which makes me wary. However, the car shop tells me that it runs very well (and i drove it and it seemed good, but i haven't and cannot drive an original S2000 so I have no comparison), plus they were not heavy/extreme modifications (they said). All the details on what has been done is on the webpage above.

I was just hoping that you could give me some tips or advise/experience as to what (if anything) I should look out for, Good OR Bad

I don't know much about the modifications themselves... I'm no "under the hood" expert. I didn't notice any obvious dings/scratches, etc. and the transmission is smooth. The ONLY thing i did notice (and was obvious) was that the rear window (plastic) was creased badly in the lower middle across. Can that be fixed/removed?

Besides that, the car drove well. The exhaust was pretty loud but certainly not booming. It only had a tape player (no CD???) but it said it was original Honda.

Were there any problems with year 2000 S2000 particularly, or anything important that gets worn/broken/etc. easily that I should pay particular attention to or have checked?

Thanks in advance for any comments/tips/suggestions!!! Hope to join you guys in the S2000 club very soon!!!

 

btw... just want to add that I need to purchase this (or not) within the next couple of days, as Hong Kong is adding in a new TAX for cars that will increase the price of all cars 10-20%, so even though this is a second-hand car, I want to do this ASAP so I'm in a better barganing position to get a better deal.

BTW the dealer "said" the previous owner was a 57 year old guy that just liked cars and stuff. How true, I don't know. But anyway...

I can have the car inspected by the AA or another garage (dealer was happy to let me have the car to inspect with a third party too). So should I ask the AA or garage to look specifically at a particular engine part, or something?

Thanks again for any tips or suggestions! :-)

 

can you get a compression test done? Otherwise it looks fine but it's really impossible for anyone to give you a honest opinion thru pictures. BTW does are Mugen 17" rims not 18" as it says on their website. I am not a fan of the ARC intake because the design seems silly. Open air in an engine bay and there is a reason why most performance intakes use the cone shape filter design instead of what you see in the pic.

 

Ah... so those are 17" NOT 18" rims???

Anyway, I checked the price of the ARC induction product and it is pretty expensive... in fact it is among the most expensive (not that expensive means good or better, just saying).

But beyond that... did year 2000 models have any particular defects or problems that I should pester the dealer about?

Heck... I saved for YEARS to get this car... I really hope it ain't a dud.

 

How much are they asking in US Dollars?

 

US$33205 is the list price (I've got them down another US$1K or so. In HK we can't buy new 2002/2003 S2000 (they are all imported from Japan). A "list price" 2002 S2000 is US$53846.

(btw. the exchange rate is fixed at US$1 = HK$7.8)

The dealer claims the upgrades overall are worth over US$14000. I don't know how much the Mugan suspension, the P Zero corsa wheels, the ARC air intake and tower bar are worth... so hard for me to say if that is true/false. Couldn't find "ARC"'s website either.

 

Well the rims/tires and NZero suspension is about $6,000 USD new. I would make sure that the suspension is actually there. It should be easy to tell it has a gold/bronze color. Can't tell what Ti exhaust that is from the picture. The ARC intake is expensive because it is also made out of Ti. But the actually benefits are very debatable. I also seriously doubt their claim about the 290hp computer/ecu upgrade.


Ti exhaust if it is Mugen (since the seem to have a Mugen theme going) is about $1500 new.
ARC strut bar is about $300 new (I think)
Endless Brake pads $200 new (I think)
ARC intake $1500 new
Not sure about the computer since I have no clue what it is.

 

How hard is it to import a car from the US? Hell, you can get a great, unmolested, low miles '01 S2000 for 26 +/-, and an 'oo for less, so does that make sense? Probably not, but worth looking at the option.

 

but then it would be LHD and not RHD. He'd also probably need a special permit, taxes, etc would make it not worthwhile.

 

Yeah... it would be a nightmare to import a USA car. Since HK is so near Japan, most people import from there. But then it can take months to get the car imported... especially for such limited demand cars as the S2000. And as i mentioned.. the taxes are going to increase WITHIN DAYS by 10-20% :-(

However... I was searching and found this car. Since I plan on doing some upgrading myself once I am more familiar with the S2000 and what would be best to do with it (through s2ki :-) ) I will do more to it later.

But I though... heck... if someone has spent good money upgrading the car, and it works well... why not start from there rather than the ground up?!

Thought I'd come here and see what the more experienced/expert among us think :-)