Whoa. At least I didn't fix mine cheap right in front of the guy. 
Whoa. At least I didn't fix mine cheap right in front of the guy.
Stories like this one and the $500 MK2 MR2 remind me why I don't look at CL. I only have 10 acres and I'm already paying taxes on 10 vehicles and 2 trailers.
I've always wanted to be included in the awesome deal story posts. This time the Doctor included me so I didn't even have to brag.
When I went to get the MR2 I was really hoping "it needs a clutch" mean the clutch master was low on fluid. Even though it actually needs a clutch, I think I still made out pretty well.
My favorite story is someone on this board that bought a Fiat 850 for a ridiculously low sum because the car wouldn't start. The guy bought it, pulled the choke lever behind the seat, and drove it home.
Dr. Hess wrote: Stories like this one and the $500 MK2 MR2 remind me why I don't look at CL. I only have 10 acres and I'm already paying taxes on 10 vehicles and 2 trailers.
I check my local CL like it's a job and don't see deals like this. 
I check craiglist list daily myself but I think the reason I got this car so cheap is because it wasn't listed on CL. The guy didn't have a chance to compare his to the prices of other miatae. 
I have had a few other cheap finds but this is the best. I bought an 80' Mercury zephyr for $100 that I drove home in the rain with 20 year old wipers and no head lights. Sold it for $1k a year later after fixing it up. I also found a 96' Probe GT for $750 not running because the main fuse blew. It was a crap shoot but after installing a new crank sensor (which I ruined because I got it running and it hit the belts) and fuse it was a daily driver.
I put a new thermostat and top hose on the car today - I got 50% of the lower radiator hose. Apparently napa and autozone both have the same wrong listing for the engine side lower hose but I found one on the shelf that is damn near a match. I'll see how its runs friday after work.
In reply to dyintorace:
Nothing beats legwork for finding deals. My $500 miata was me knocking on a door and asking. I sold the hardtop for $900 a week later. The rest of the car is beat, but it runs fine! People always ask how I find these great deals. Legwork and facetime! Plus as a delivery driver I get to cruise the area.
Great find!
Bruce
Jensenman wrote: I bought a Spitfire with a 'bad clutch' which was missing 4 bolts from one rear axle flange. I drove it back past the guy's house an hour and a half after I bought it. I think that pissed him off.
It wasn't the driving back by the house that pissed him off, it was the celebratory donuts you did on his lawn.
I was given a beer (a good one even) to take a VW rabbit pickup with a pretty straight body. Stack of recipts including a 1.8L swapped motor and a 5 speed. If all goes as planned I'll be rockin the BABE rally with it this spring. :D I'm pretty sure that's where my luck runs out in life though...
Carson wrote: My favorite story is someone on this board that bought a Fiat 850 for a ridiculously low sum because the car wouldn't start. The guy bought it, pulled the choke lever behind the seat, and drove it home.
That would be me ;) Full story and pictures on my website at http://www.misfittoysracing.com/othercars/850.htm
My older brother had an eight fiddy like that except it was dark blue. Cool. 
I helped a friend of mine steal a Probe for $400. PO couldn't figure out what was wrong with the clutch so he replaced everything in the system, clutch, flywheel, pressure plate, even the pedal assembly. It needed spark plug wires...
I got my 92 GT celica and 93 Escort GT for steal deals, myself...
The Celica had sat for a year and a half after it mysteriously stopped running and wouldn't start anymore. The owner had JUST replaced the clutch in it with a toyota OEM disc and a clutchmasters stage 1 pressure plate. Like... 200 miles earlier.
I saw it pop up on CL for $1800, and even though it wasn't running, my interest was still piqued. It was a minty body with NO RUST, had 162k on body, 110k on motor, and a LONG list of recently replaced items in an effort to run. Such as: distributor, plugs, wires, starter, clutch, alternator, ecu, ignitor, fuel pump, fuel filter, map sensor, ignition switch.
I called him, arranged to go look at it. I pulled up in my white 93 celica gt coupe, running perfectly with 217k miles. (the 92 gt hatch is black) I saw the car sitting forlornly in the driveway, dusty, but straight and clean. Talked to him for awhile, verified that all the parts he said were new, were new, checked underneath for rust, found none. Found no leaks, interior wasn't great, but it was acceptable.
In the back, i found tons of spare parts. Starter, Eibach springs, rotors, alternator, fuel pump, clutch master cylinder, brake master cylinder, slave cylinder, new pressure plate.
I asked the guy what he thought it needed to run. He replied that he didn't know, so i offered him $600 on the spot. To my surprise, he took it! The shell ALONE in the shape it was, was worth more than that.
Towed it home... spent 45 minutes looking at it, poking around. The clips to the dizzy didn't clamp on to the distributor and didn't fit right. The dizzy DID fit in the motor, though. It was the wrong dizzy, for a later automatic 4-cylinder camry. Carquest gave him the wrong part.
Took the dizzy to carquest, explained the situation, showed them that it was still in new condition, and they let me swap it.
Put the new dizzy in, and low and behold... fired right up! One of the better sounding 5sfes i've heard... no valve noise, no ticking, no squeals, and NO LEAKS.
$600 buys a 1992 Celica GT hatch in perfect running order with all the common failure spares, with no rust, apparently. :D
It also buys a 1993 Ford Escort GT with 58k miles and no rust, perfect interior, new clutch, brakes, and battery, needing only a transmission mount, apparently. :)
I washed it in the rain the other day and I took a couple pictures of it today with my phone before work. I think a couple hours with a buffer would really make this thing shine well.
Got it running today too! Engine still seems to be good. Gave my cold hands, feet, and knees a break after taking a joy ride around the yard. Ripped out some E36 M3ty fog lights, and fixed the parking lights & dash lights with a 15A fuse.
What do you mean a couple hours with the buffer would make it shine?! That already looks great! Especially for $200.
Its got some scratches, dents, and discoloration (quarter panel & lower front fender) but it does look sweet from that angle.
I wish I could also get a running $200 Miata.
Here's my cheap deals.
I originally paid $500 for one of my Starion/Conquests 6 years ago. It wouldn't start, so I replaced the ignitor from a spare I had from another starquest and boom started right up. The motor only had 15k miles on it, so I drove it for a few years and later parted it and made over $2k.
Two years ago I bought a Mitsubishi Mighty Max for $300. Truck wouldn't start and the guy spent $400 in new parts. Towed it home and found the distributor electrical harness connector was dirty, so I sprayed some brake clean, hooked it up and bam, started right up. Drove if for 6 months and then did an engine & turbo swap from spare starquest parts I had. I sold the original truck parts I removed for about $700, so the truck ended up being free plus extra cash. I've got over $1k into since I upgraded and replaced suspension, brakes, etc.
skruffy wrote: I helped a friend of mine steal a Probe for $400. PO couldn't figure out what was wrong with the clutch so he replaced everything in the system, clutch, flywheel, pressure plate, even the pedal assembly. It needed spark plug wires...
This really needs a more in-depth explanation.
I've heard some crazy self-misdiagnoses but this takes the cake!
All of my cheap deals come from customers who don't want to fix their cars. So, they have full disclosure on what's wrong, except for my VW, because at the time, we didn't know what was wrong other than it had a nasty habit of eating ECUs and stranding people 50 miles from home. (Solved that problem, and I finally today got around to solving the wiper switch troubles, sort-of, by replacing certain relays with manual switches. Nice of VW to provide so many blank DIN-switch slots!)
My favorite was the $100 Subaru GL with a blown timing belt. Customer just plain didn't feel like spending $300 to have the timing belts replaced, so he sold it to me. $100 Subaru, $20 in timing belts, and I had a nice runner.
Misdiagnosis is a bargain hunters dream. Bad transmission that turns out to be a plastic clip on a cable end. Bad fuel pump is an inertia switch tripped. Blown engine is a leaking oil filter. Seized motor is a corroded battery cable.
On my Miata, the leaking rear main seal was of course.... cam o-ring thing.
My favorite in the last few years was 1994-96 Mustangs with 3.8 V6 with blown head gaskets. ($300-$500) $150 and they were all better. I even bought one that was still under warranty!!!!
This goes back to my fun of fixing what is wrong rather than just replacing components. My $500 Ranger pickup had sat for 4 years with a bad trnsmission. Stuck i second gear..free part from the junkyard fixed it.
My brother bought a fresh rebuilt T5 transmission that was "exploded". Guy removed the wrong bolt while putting synth oil in and dropped the 5th/rev linkage.
Bruce
Before there was CL, there were UU Newsgroups such as houston.forsale. I got the MR2 for $100. "Cracked Head." The head was fine, but running it without water pretty much cratered the motor, then letting it sit in Houston for a year with no spark plugs in it finished it off. Needed a 20v anyway.
Next up was a 92 Toyota Truck with "bad computer" and 200K miles. Computers are a grand from the dealer, so I got the Truck for $350. The guy was an attorney in Galveston who lived somewhere in the Hill Country and drove 200 miles a day to work and back. He put 100K miles on it in 2 years. My friend wondered if he used in-flight refueling. Anyway, I got it home the usual way (tow rope across Houston with me in the towee and my wife in the tower) and it had the usual: New plugs, wires, rotor, cap, air cleaner, and a low pressure mini fuel pump spliced in the line with a wire running under the cab, through the door and jammed in the fuse box. A little fiddling revealed the timing chain had slipped a couple teeth. I put a timing kit on it and drove it 2-3 years and 30K miles before it finally chewed through the water passage and cratered. It's now spares for the 86 until I ever get around to a 1uzfe for it.
Oh yeah, I once scored a sweet #2 pencil for free! It did have some chew marks and the eraser came out so the top of the pencil acted like a flesh-hole-puncher but it was free. Sheesh! I don't know why everyone is going gaga over HIS deal, mine was free.
Ok, seriously man, sweet deal. that inspires me to ask about those cars I see sitting around for years. Heck, there's a NA red miata on Daisys that's been sitting in this dues driveway for at least 3 years. Looks nice.
noisycricket wrote:skruffy wrote: I helped a friend of mine steal a Probe for $400. PO couldn't figure out what was wrong with the clutch so he replaced everything in the system, clutch, flywheel, pressure plate, even the pedal assembly. It needed spark plug wires...This really needs a more in-depth explanation. I've heard some crazy self-misdiagnoses but this takes the cake!
I'm pretty sure at some point the car did actually need a clutch, but the plug wires were so shot they just fell apart when you touched them. After hearing the PO say he'd tried everything he could imagine trying to get the thing to run right (it had a new air flow meter, ECU, etc...) I can't believe he never even attempted to look at the plugs. He would have easily discovered the completely destroyed plug wires. Oddly enough, the last thing he tried to do to get the thing running was to replace the ENTIRE clutch system.
His diagnostic procedure apparently started with the most expensive and complicated components first and didn't even include basic maintenance items.
hotg54b wrote: Two years ago I bought a Mitsubishi Mighty Max for $300 ...did an engine & turbo swap from spare starquest parts I had. I sold the original truck parts I removed for about $700, so the truck ended up being free plus extra cash. I've got over $1k into since I upgraded and replaced suspension, brakes, etc.
"the truck ended up being free plus extra cash. I've got over $1k into since I upgraded and replaced suspension, brakes, etc" = challenge entry
My Probe ( a 95 GT) was free. The guy paid to have a new timing belt and water pump put on, and they reused the old (and failing) tensioner. Not surprisingly, a month later it jumped time. $75 for a new tensioner and a few hours of work later, I had a new work car.
4cylndrfury wrote:hotg54b wrote: Two years ago I bought a Mitsubishi Mighty Max for $300 ...did an engine & turbo swap from spare starquest parts I had. I sold the original truck parts I removed for about $700, so the truck ended up being free plus extra cash. I've got over $1k into since I upgraded and replaced suspension, brakes, etc."the truck ended up being free plus extra cash. I've got over $1k into since I upgraded and replaced suspension, brakes, etc" = challenge entry
That was the original intent of the build, but when gas hit $4.00 I started using it as a daily driver. It gets better gas mileage then the rest of my fleet. Plus I lost a tow vehicle, since my brother got rid of his full size pickup. I still may enter it one day.
DrBoost wrote: Oh yeah, I once scored a sweet #2 pencil for free! It did have some chew marks and the eraser came out so the top of the pencil acted like a flesh-hole-puncher but it was free. Sheesh! I don't know why everyone is going gaga over HIS deal, mine was free. Ok, seriously man, sweet deal. that inspires me to ask about those cars I see sitting around for years. Heck, there's a NA red miata on Daisys that's been sitting in this dues driveway for at least 3 years. Looks nice.
This one has been sittting as long as I can remeber, if you are talking about the one in fenton. The guy won't sell it, unfortunately.
Joey
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