This is a little depressing, but I've been thinking lately. No matter what you do, no matter how well you take care of a vehicle, you cannot stop the inexorable wear of time. Your car is disintegrating before your very eyes. My daily driver is a 97 Q45 Touring. It's a well made car that I purchased with 17,441 miles on it a year ago from my grandmother. Daily driven but garage kept--not immaculate, but very clean and maintained well.

I've waxed it 5 times in the past year and I still see more imperfections showing up in the paint on a weekly basis. The tint (installed by some shitty place in Arizona after delivery to the dealer) which was perfect when I bought it has started to bubble in some places now that it is no longer garage kept. There's only so much you can do on a daily driver; day-to-day events will take their toll. I clean the interior every two weeks (upholstery cleaner, dusting, leather conditioner) or so but when I recently took my friend out for his birthday he ended up puking in the back. I cleaned it up and it's not noticeable at all, but eventually some other incident like that will occur.

My turbo 88 Rx-7 is similar. Everyone reads horror stories about people blowing 3 and 4 motors on these cars. My motor was rebuilt before I bought it (had about 2500 miles on it, currently has about 5500 miles on it) and the shortblock itself has never given me trouble despite me overheating it, severely detonating it, and running it on half [sic] a quart of oil. But everything else is still falling apart. Each day it seems more little interior plastics break, and replacement used ones aren't much better, while new parts are very expensive or discontinued. I've fixed all the common interior electrical problems (switches etc) but new ones arise regularly and it's only got 120k on the body. Now, some cars are made better than Mazdas but even they go to shit eventually. There's a reason why it's becoming harder and harder to find decent Rx-7's or any sports car from the early 90s or whatever. The newest ones are 15 years old. People beat on them, neglect them, wreck them, etc. It's called time, and you just can't stop it.

There's going to come a time when I'll have to have throw in the towel on old cars for a while. It might be a couple years from now when I have more money, but it's really a labor of love that really drains you. Most people who are so down with the idea of owning an old car (muscle cars, 50s classics, whatever you're down with) just don't understand the shit they put you through no matter how much you love them.

[Edited on June 13, 2008 at 2:03 AM. Reason : .]

6/13/2008 2:00:44 AM

Everything can be maintained. Body can be resprayed, engine rebuilt, parts replaced. Rust is about the only thing that will kill a car completely.

6/13/2008 2:39:03 AM

^^ wow.. 10/10.

I feel ya...

6/13/2008 10:20:27 AM

i hear ya man but its just nuts and bolts buddy, keep your head up. as much work as you put in to both those cars im sure they are still emaculit to other peoples standards

6/13/2008 11:30:06 AM

^^^not really. even bad rust can be repaired and eliminated. i'd probably say bad wrecks are more so the only permanent killer of vehicles.

you people worry about shit too much. cars are for driving and enjoying, not agonizing over. if you want things to brood about, buy expensive art, drink fine wine, and get a high maintenance girlfriend.

as long as it runs, i'm ridin. if one vehicle breaks, i just move on to one of the others in the fleet. after they're all broke, i get around to fixing them. drive, repeat.

i can kinda understand this for rare/enthusiast/specialty type cars like your rx7 (which is still borderline), but damn, a decade old q45 is just another car. there's better things to waste your worry and effort on, even if it's just the rx7. i know that thing has an insatiable appetite for it.

[Edited on June 13, 2008 at 11:55 AM. Reason : .]

6/13/2008 11:54:53 AM

I guess I was just venting. As you can tell from my buildup thread, working on that car (Rx-7) has taken a huge portion of my free time and most of my expendable income so at times it's hard not to take it a little too seriously/emo. With the Rx-7, it's more of a feeling that the enthusiast community is dying along with the cars. The local Raleigh Rx-7 club has splintered and dwindled compared to 3 or 4 years ago, and the Rx-8's just aren't the same.

As for the Q, well it's just annoying when you get the (probably misguided) mindset that if you do the right maintainence, it will stay almost good as new. It IS just a 10 year old car that, while nice, didn't sell particularly well nor was especially unique. But I also don't have the luxury of a fleet of vehicles like BigBlueRam... no place to put them. I keep the Rx-7 at my parents place because they have a garage.

6/13/2008 2:22:34 PM

^^panel/door rust is doable as you can always replace the entire panel/door, but once rust starts eating undercarriage and various support pieces it is really not worth repairing.

6/13/2008 5:27:54 PM

in the calenders defense the rx7 isn't what comes to mind when you think long term good condition vehicle

6/13/2008 6:36:00 PM

Quote :

"My daily driver is a 97 Q45 Touring. It's a well made car "

thats where i stopped reading

6/13/2008 11:15:50 PM

you're complaining because you have a 20 year old car and you're having problems?

c'mon

what do you expect? if you dont want problems, do it right the first time, meaning dont put bandaids on the problems. fix them right.replace a wiring harness instead of trying to splice some wires together.

stuff happens, dont expect to have a good car that is 20 years old. yeah, lotsa people do. they're lucky, or they got money.

you're a college student trying to build a car.

6/13/2008 11:37:39 PM

Quote :

"once rust starts eating undercarriage and various support pieces it is really not worth repairing."

sure it is. especially if the vehicle has any sort of value. almost any restoration involves some level of rust repair, and the lower extremeties of the body and chassis are usually the problem areas. the make new floorpans, subframes, etc. just like they do any other pieces. if they don't, anyone halfway competent at working sheetmetal, using a welder or rivet gun, etc. can do a decent enough structural repair even if it's not super pretty.[/serious part]

hell, you've even got the tried and true method of chicken wire, newspaper, cardboard, or whatever else you can stuff in and slather it up in body filler. don't hesitate to go pro and paper mache some shit too if you need to create a body line, crease, corner, etc. use that preschool learnin! sand it down pretty, spray bomb it with you best 99 cent hardware store paint, and roll! plus you can do this any damn where, no fancy tools or power required. live in an apartment or a house with street only parking? no problem! keeping a few essentials in the car allows you to set up a mobile body shop anywhere at anytime within minutes. running a little early for work one morning? great, you can get your body filler on now and you'll be ready to sand by lunch. paint at the end of the day, and use the accelerated curing power of 65mph on the way home! makes for a nice hammered enamel style finish! step up your skills a little, and you'll be on to making custom "billet" wire grill inserts and molding lcd screens into dash panels in no time![/mildly serious part]

6/14/2008 12:14:06 AM

^i know, but we aren't talking about '71 hemi cuda here.

6/14/2008 5:17:15 PM

Cars are tools, Drive them till they give up then replace them.

6/14/2008 7:20:32 PM

I feel ya man, im very picky with any vehicle I ever owned with one or two exceptions. What your saying is true for newer cars as well.

With some of the older ones its repairs as you mention, could be little things or big things but then again with an older car that can be part of the fun. Can make you nuts if you let it though.

However, with newer cars you will get the same thing, its just smaller stuff. A tiny nick in the paint, a place where the leather has stretched and no longer sits flat, whatever. Anything that makes it a little less new. I catch myself being overly anal with my new car and have to tell myself to let it go and just drive it. Enjoy it.

When it comes down to it, its a car, thats it.

6/14/2008 7:45:51 PM

I feel ya. My poor '92 GS-R is really REALLY starting to show its age. The paint's on its way out, ABS hasn't worked in years (though not a hard fix), AC compressor's shot, and despite all that I've put $3500 in maintenance into her this year. Add in a loose suspension (all original bushings still in place) and the charm is fading.

Maybe I can get her out of the DD rotation at some point and bring her back to some glory but who's got the time (or will, I mean it is an Integra, lol).

6/14/2008 8:09:25 PM

why would you put $3500 into that car, Pat? has it tripped 300k miles yet?

[Edited on June 15, 2008 at 12:22 AM. Reason : asdfad]

6/14/2008 11:53:57 PM

even at "excellent" on KBB it only comes up a value of $3K

so I kind of have to agree.. why pour that much money into it? It's just not worth it

6/15/2008 12:21:34 AM

I've pretty much given up on restoring my 92 3000gt vr4. its like that car was built with the sole purpose of pissing off anyone who wants to work on one. its also a pretty sad thing when stock parts from other vehicles are considered to be "huge" upgrades for yours (EvoXIII BOV, DSM intercoolers, WRX 13t's, etc)

6/15/2008 12:56:40 AM

^^^
^^
i think he's said before it's a mix of sentimental value plus the gsr of that chassis is a kinda rare bird.

they're pretty high on the list of "want" for any honda lover.

6/15/2008 1:40:45 AM

Right, so I'd sell it since it will actually bring a little bit of cash from the right buyer.

6/15/2008 1:53:04 AM

^^^ If it's a 92, it's not worth saving anyway. Too many problems compared to the later model cars (5 speed drivetrain) and too high of production numbers (relatively speaking) to be worth anything. The 94-95 cars are really where it's at.

6/15/2008 8:49:15 AM

Quote :

"I've pretty much given up on restoring my 92 3000gt vr4. its like that car was built with the sole purpose of pissing off anyone who wants to work on one."

it's a mitsu, what do you expect?

6/15/2008 11:17:15 AM

yeah, i've heard they're a real redass to work on.

^^ ha, tell that to his car. thing has got to be pushing 300k (or more) miles by now, after a zillion auto-x and track days.

6/15/2008 1:22:39 PM

Quote :

"why would you put $3500 into that car, Pat? has it tripped 300k miles yet?"

Nah, about to break 270,000 miles. Only put around 350miles/month on the car. But those are NYC miles, which in my book is like quadruple regular miles.

Of course I know its not worth putting that kind of cash into it. But I'm not buying a new car while living here in NYC so I don't have a choice. I'm working on relocating to NC and then I'll get a new car.

I haven't been able to find anything official, but I think the production number for '92 GS-Rs was around 1500

[Edited on June 15, 2008 at 4:31 PM. Reason : k]

6/15/2008 4:25:05 PM