El Cheapo, the beater econobox

These kinds of threads are what keeps me coming back to this place. Love it.

This is getting me more motivated to throw some money at my beater / daily use vehicle to improve it just a tad beyond 'appliance' status. 

In reply to DjGreggieP :

Glad to hear I'm encouraging something/someone with this silly thread!   I just looked at your profile and discovered that I was born 5 days before you on the other side of Canada.  Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to be exact.  Weird.

I'm randomly thinking that this car would be a fun Challenge entry.  If I add a turbo.  And leave it looking just like it does now.

VQ! VQ! VQ!

Mine definitely could have been done for challenge money, yours could too.

I'll bet a stock VQ is faster than whatever a stock bottom end QG could muster too...

In reply to Run_Away :

No doubt you are correct.  I love VQ cars, I'm a big Maxima fan, and I can only imagine how insane this thing would be with that much power!  But I've never built a turbo setup, or even owned a turbo car, and I just think it would be fun.  And I think I could do it much cheaper than a VQ swap.  All while still being my DD.    Anyway, it's just an idea for now...who knows if it'll ever happen.  I haven't even painted my steelies yet.  3 young kids and lots of house projects keep me a bit busy.

Gotta love the budget on a beater car! Spend a day on the cleanup and you will like it. WE call them spa days. Wash and wax, extra time on the windows, get them door jambs and weatherstrip areas too. Polish the lights, paint touch up (I use bed liner under the windows and running board area), maybe find some cool wheels!

The ones I get are often badly neglected so pulling the interior out for a good powerwashing is often part of the plan. Clean and shiny really do make a difference!

2 current projects are at $1148 (03 Focus) and $519 (04 Mustang).

Bruce

I'm with Bruce on this one. A good weekend cleaning and wash and wax would make this look really nice. As far as performance parts I've had really good luck on model based websites and C.L. Nice example was on vwvortex I picked up a nice set of H-R cup kit springs and shocks for $350 shipped to my door. That"s better than half price and they had a little over 15k on them. Then found a C.L add where someone had some GTI swaybars for $20. So for $370 I updated the stock suspension on my base model 09 jetta and it handles great. Can't even buy nice shocks for that price. I feel making slow cars fast is much more fun that buying one all ready done.

In reply to brad131a4 and egnorant:

I agree with both of you 100%.  Once I get rid of my flip car and have a few other things done, I'm going to spend a Saturday cleaning this thing: seats out, carpet out, scrub and pressure wash carpet at the car wash, maybe steam clean the seats, clean crust off all the plastic parts, etc.  I actually like the steel wheel look, and I plan on scrubbing them up and applying some primer and gloss black.  Paint touch up is useless on this car, most of the clear coat is gone from the roof, hood, trunk, and tops of doors.  

Finally got around to painting the steelies.  Well, 2 of them.  There was a discount weekend at the junkyard, but I struck out there, so I grabbed some spray paint and started on the rear wheels.  A bit of sanding, cleaning, a coat of primer and 3 coats of Rustoleum gloss black.  They aren't perfect, for sure, but are greatly improved.  And I only got a couple small spots of paint on the tire!   I figured out a better trick for the other 3 so that won't happen.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

And here's a left side pic of the car, finally.

Did you deflate the tires a little before inbserting the cardboard?

If what I am seeing is bad clear coat paint, my Quest Van had similar problems..  I spent about $150 in Vvivid Brand Vinyl bought off Amazon.  I wasted about $50 worth in rookie mistakes so by claimed budget was just $100 for the electric blue ($75 more for the side graphics, professionally applied)  I applied all the electric blue bu myself, in my driveway, over the course of a few days.  It was fun and interesting.  I learned how via Youtube videos.  There are tons of them.  

The Sentra has similar lines.  I bet you could achieve the same/similar.  After The Challenge, I removed the side graphics and continued on with just a 2-toned van (with no exposed bad paint) 

If you don't want to be racey or bold, you could even choose another tan/brown and just have a two-toned car.  

In reply to Indy-Guy :

I did on the 2nd one and I didn't have any problem.  I was kicking myself for not thinking of that at first. 

in reply to John Welsh :

Vinyl would be fun.  This definitely falls under the "peeling/missing clear coat" category, although there may be spots that are even worse.  Honestly, I don't know if I care enough to spend the time to do the vinyl.  I've never been one to worry about paint too much, and I like not caring if it gets bumped in a parking lot or the kids scratch it up when they're riding around it in the driveway on their bikes/scooters/skateboards.  I've owned it since November of last year and I've never even washed it.   If I could figure out something cool to do with the bumpers I would strip the whole thing down to bare metal and clear coat it.