Plans for your rides this "offseason"

[Chiquae07]

its worth a try lol. but the credit card will in turn bring in credit. i have absolutly no credit as of now lol. maybe i should do that, but i'll get too addicted to buying things with it, which isnt good. i'll figure something out

[-The Stig-]

Ahh, credit.

I hate it. Just becareful with those cards, easy... too easy to get in over your head. And once you live outside your own means it's damn hard to get back on top.

My Camaro, in addition to my own ambitions drove me into what I call perpetual debt. Sucks.

When I sold my first 240z, I had $7500 cash. I spent roughly a month looking for a new car, not sure what I wanted. In reality what I wanted was a new truck, but $7500 doesn't buy you a $40,000 truck.

So I figured I'd suffice by getting a car I'd always admired as a cheap car to mod with good power... aka LS1 Camaro.

I did some calculations and it seemed that I could easily afford the car and the insurance as long as things stayed peachy. Any mods I got for the car would be bought with whatever I'd save on the side. Easy enough, right? Throw $6500 down for the car... bam. Just like that, hardest check I ever wrote.

Insurance on the car was roughly $3000 a year, so I had to come up with the first 6 months right then and there, there went the rest of my money... I put $1500 of the insurance on a credit card, I forget why I needed to keep the last $1000 of the Z money... at this point it doesn't matter. haha

Well, not too long after buying the Camaro I noticed the clutch was having problems. Something, that wasn't covered by the hefty aftermarket warranty I bought for the car. A $1500 add-on to the car's final price. A worthless warranty as I found out later.

Seeing as the stock clutch in the Camaro was showing to be a weak part, I decided to upgrade to a aftermarket clutch and flywheel. $800 later with install it was in. I hated that clutch... it chattered sooo bad. Unbelievably horrible. Trying to drive 500 miles smoothly was impossible, literraly impossible. It shook the whole driveline so violently it was embarassing to give rides in my new car. It was like I didn't know how to drive it, and no matter what you did with the clutch pedal or throttle it still chattered.

Soon after the clutch went in, the rear end started to howl. This happened because the damn clutch would shake the driveline, and the driveshaft would smack into the rear differential housing destroying the bearings.

$900 later, and 6 weeks of them trying to get it right after them giving it back to me twice and me bringing it back saying it wasn't right... the second time it came back behind a tow truck when the rearend destroyed it's bearings fully and was metal to metal.

Then insurance came up again... another $1500 hit. Normally, at that time I'd have the money to pay it off, but since I'd dumped $1700 into the car and was trying to pay down a small amount of credit card debt I had prior to purchasing the car I was in a hard spot.

Ultimately, I sold the Z28 for roughly $12500... final purchase price of the car after tax, title, registration and emissions testing... was over $17,000.

After all was said and done, I'd lost about $9000 because of that car if you add in all parts I bought. I'm still paying for it now... and will be.



So, when we say, becareful what you do with plastic money. We speak from experiance.





By the way, I hate white 2001 Camaro Z28s.

[turtlecrxsi]

The Stig has wise advice. Another bit of advice is to be careful what you sink your money into. I bought an 85.5 944 n/a for $3,500 cash on borrowed money. I ended up sinking roughly $5,500 into it over a years time. I found out the hard way that old German cars are money pits. The clutch was the first to go... it was literally shreaded to nothing. I had other miscellaneous stuff fixed at the same time so the only guy within 30 miles of me that would work on it charged me a lot in labor. In fact, i remember I had to cut him a check before he finished work because he claimed he wasn't big time enough to front the parts. Most of it was labor though... bastard. I wised up, went further away and had the car fixed after a couple episodes of that. The price of labor didn't get any cheaper nor did the snottiness of the mechanics working on my car. So I thrashed it, learned how to fix some stuff on it myself (like wiring and cosmetics) and that is what got me started working on my own cars. Then the timing belt broke so I sold it for $850 and took a nice loss. This is another reason I bought a Honda CRX. It was already riced out and pretty damn fast for what it was but mostly it was 10 times more reliable than the 944 and I can honestly say I got my monies worth. Plus, the after market was huge so even though I live in a pretty hick town area I still felt that I could rag the hell out of the crx and not get terribly into debt if things went bad. I was right, plus I learned everything about that car and did a lot of my own maintenance when needed. And that is a good feeling... a lot nicer than spending $60/hr. for repairs to a mechanic like I do with my wife's VW... Anyway, I've learned my lesson about getting transportation with what money I have and what I can afford. I'm now in a 98 Jeep Grand Cherokee with low miles. I still owe money on it but if anything goes wrong my wife's nephew is the head mechanic at Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep and has his own shop at home.

This all reminds me of that skit on SNL recently... about not using a credit card if you don't have the money to pay for it...
Woman - "Wait, if I see something I want to buy can I use my credit card?"
Announcer - "Do you have the money to pay for it?
Woman - "No."
Announcer - "Then No."

[clawhammer]

I agree on the whole debt thing. I am in debt for the first time in my life. When I bought my S2000, I borrowed $18,000 in February. I still owe about $10,500 on the car and hope to have her paid off within a year and a half. After that car is paid off, I will never buy a car on credit again. I will be buying my cars when they're about 5 years old and selling them when they're 10 years.

[Gotian]

Plans for before january (when Autocross season starts again)

Jetta : Full Turbo back Exhaust, Tuning from GIAC for the current parts I have now (with that I should get pretty damn close to 250-260 whp) Get the car dynoed by the tuners there since they are going to be tuning the car any ways. get suspension for it (springs, and front and rear strut bars.)

The RX : Learning to drive the car with the traction off, I've already taken the Dynamic stability control off and that lets you get a better feeling of the handling, but taking the traction off and controlling it in this car is harder than you would think.

And finally, move in with my g/f. But that is going to be morein april when we get our tax returns.

[drftk1d]

The first time I drove an RX-8 it was with all that electronic bs turned off, and it was in damp conditions.

I didn't have a problem.

[eps]

The first time I drove an RX-8 the ebrake was up the entire time. I stalled it at LEAST 10 times. I was thinking to myself "Damn this is a sensative clutch" Didn't notice until we got back to the dealer...

[chevytrucks92]

Originally Posted by -The Stig-

So, when we say, becareful what you do with plastic money. We speak from experiance.

True facts.

And I'm sure Matt would agree with me on this too: it DOES NOT matter how much money you make, you'll still wind up with credit card debt if you have one. That's just the way it goes. The more you make, the more you spend. That's so cliche, but its so true.

I'm in debt, big time, lol. I've made 5 payments on a $36,000 truck, lol. Got 57 more to go. I've made 2 payments on that new race car. Got about 26 more to go, lol. I'm actually still paying on that 383 I had built for my other car back in the spring, lol. That $4875 all went on a credit card (Plus $400 for rocker arms, plus $250 for lifters, plus $100 for gaskets, etc. etc. etc. it adds up!). I think I owe like $1000 on it right now. Sometime before next spring, I'm going to buy a new car trailer. That's goign to cost me anywhere between about $2200 to $6000. Just depends on what I get.

Anyways, like Matt said, its real easy to pile up a big credit card bill. Real easy. But, the reality of it all is unless you have a rich daddy, thats just the way you have to do things. A working man/woman has to go in debt to ever have anything. I mean there's no way I could have bought that new truck or that race car and paid cash for it! No way.

You just got to know your limit and you have to be responsible enough to know when you just can't get something even though you technically could with a credit card.

[Mad_Maxima]

Originally Posted by eps

The first time I drove an RX-8 the ebrake was up the entire time. I stalled it at LEAST 10 times. I was thinking to myself "Damn this is a sensative clutch" Didn't notice until we got back to the dealer...

[CassiesMan]

Originally Posted by Gotian

Tuning from GIAC for the current parts I have now

Damn, the 8 by Kahn, the Jetta by GIAC...


Go big or go home, eh? What do you do for a living, cuz I wanna do it.

[Right_LiRrr]

Originally Posted by chevytrucks92

True facts.

And I'm sure Matt would agree with me on this too: it DOES NOT matter how much money you make, you'll still wind up with credit card debt if you have one. That's just the way it goes. The more you make, the more you spend. That's so cliche, but its so true.

I'm in debt, big time, lol. I've made 5 payments on a $36,000 truck, lol. Got 57 more to go. I've made 2 payments on that new race car. Got about 26 more to go, lol. I'm actually still paying on that 383 I had built for my other car back in the spring, lol. That $4875 all went on a credit card (Plus $400 for rocker arms, plus $250 for lifters, plus $100 for gaskets, etc. etc. etc. it adds up!). I think I owe like $1000 on it right now. Sometime before next spring, I'm going to buy a new car trailer. That's goign to cost me anywhere between about $2200 to $6000. Just depends on what I get.

Anyways, like Matt said, its real easy to pile up a big credit card bill. Real easy. But, the reality of it all is unless you have a rich daddy, thats just the way you have to do things. A working man/woman has to go in debt to ever have anything. I mean there's no way I could have bought that new truck or that race car and paid cash for it! No way.

You just got to know your limit and you have to be responsible enough to know when you just can't get something even though you technically could with a credit card.

I think that is very much a matter of personal preference/personality.

I don't think going into debt is a necessity but is very much a part of western culture now.

I for one stay awway from debt. Do I have a credit card? Of course. But I use it as a means of minismising free cash laying around - because to me, cash laying around is interest that should be made but not. So any debt i have on my credit card is backed up by cash in some kind of highly liquid investment. I never spend my credit card beyond a point where I can;t pay it all off within 3 working days. i.e i use a credit card for convenience not as a form of debt financing. And I wouldn't use my credit card at all if it didn't have an interest free period.

As with buying things, I would never buy anything on instalment plans except for a house or a car. As with the car, I would never buy one that I can't pay off in 6 months.

buying something on an instalment plan is just so bad in my eyes. free cash is bad enough as interest u can make is not being made - paying instalments is even worse as the interest you could be making is being paid to someone else. I would just save and wait. You should be able to put at least 60% of the value of a vehivle down up front would be my rule.

So I understand where you're coming from, but debt is just so bad in my eyes. If I was in as much debt as you, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night. Cos if u lose ur job, everything goes. So eveyrthing u have, u don't actually own, ur just borrowing it until u can't afford to anymore.

[CassiesMan]

I use my credit card sparingly, only for school purchases or serious emergencies (I was stranded at Lambert once flying home, and I wasn't gonna get on a flight, I had no way to get back to school, so I needed a hotel room for the night). Its a managable thing, you have to know what your getting into before you make any leaps. However, as you can see from my 335i coupe reveiw...I would love to go into debt right now, lol.

However, the myth that no credit is worse than bad credit is just that, a myth.

[Gotian]

Originally Posted by CassiesMan

Damn, the 8 by Kahn, the Jetta by GIAC...


Go big or go home, eh? What do you do for a living, cuz I wanna do it.

Well the tuning of the 8 is gonna hafta wait cause I am going to go for a few suspension things first, and the only reason for me to get tuned by steve would be if I went forced induction and I am waiting for petit racing to release there stage 3 supercharger so I can decide if I want stage 2 or 3. (thay havent realeased any yet but those 2 are the ones I'm looking at, stage 2 is 270whp with 190 wtq which was already tested and stage 3 is going to be well over 300whp.)

as for the jetta its 500 to get the tuning done and about 250-300 for the exhaust.

[Mr. Luos]

Well...looks like I will be doing the Bilsteins after all.
Just gonna go ahead and do it.

Eating ramen for the win.

[Mad_Maxima]

Originally Posted by Mr. Luos

Well...looks like I will be doing the Bilsteins after all.
Just gonna go ahead and do it.

Eating ramen for the win.

haha, right, thats what im doing, trying save for some goodies.

grilled cheese sandwiches on the george forman grill ftmfw