Talk about buying a lemon...

I'm driving home (at my parents house in north raleigh for the summer) yesterday from Advance Auto Parts, getting some plugs, when I see this red 2nd gen rx-7 on the side of the road with the hood popped and a kid who looks about 18 looking at it. I'm in my 88 Rx-7 so I pull over to help him out.

The car is flooded, he knew that much, and he was having trouble popping the clutch to start it. To summarize, we try to crank it with injector fuse out, it still doesn't start, so we go to clean the plugs and find out it had the wrong kind installed. Finally we push start the car, it smokes like hell (shitloads of whitish-bluish smoke coming out), and drive it a bit and it's obviously running like shit.

The kid tells me that he bought it at some bumfuck car dealership for $1900 and he took out a loan to get it. The car has 160k on it, which is pretty much the end of life for an n/a rotary. I told him he needed a compression test and that the motor is nearly toast, which he seemed to be mostly in denial about. I drove it and it was hesitating and sputtering, obviously indicating a ton of fucked up sensors. Today he tells me he overheated it twice... some shitty shop changed the coolant and may not have bled the air bubbles out (or stuck thermostat). So now he probably fried his coolant seals.

Poor kid is now about to be making car payments on a POS he never should have bought, and it will cost him at least 3 grand to get it running right with a new motor. The thing is, he could have bought one with a rebuilt motor for $3000 easily.

Anyone else here ever bought a completely shitty lemon? oh and yes I know rotarys are timebombs etc etc, b/c they are if they are really old or aren't taken care of.

[Edited on August 6, 2006 at 2:52 AM. Reason : .]

8/6/2006 2:50:06 AM

No but i've watched my friends do it. Not so much as watched, more like I get phone calls that start with "hey i just bought a _____". If these people want my advice on what to do with it once they have it I just don't understand why they don't call before they buy.

8/6/2006 2:54:36 AM

There is a ricey FD3 in Garner for $15,900.

8/6/2006 3:21:28 AM

Everything I have ever bought

8/6/2006 10:20:46 AM

ah ha pwnt

8/6/2006 12:02:42 PM

my first dsm

8/6/2006 2:15:09 PM

this is why i buy honda

8/6/2006 2:31:51 PM

Well

If you buy a pos anything with an I4, chances are that itll run for cheap.

8/6/2006 2:54:16 PM