A thought excercise in Challenge rules/ethics, if you will.

So, in preparation for the 2012 challenge Mx6 mafia showing, I've been reading through the rules, and would like to clear something up. Specifically about the budget.....

Parts that are not used may be traded or sold up to the initial cost of the car or parts deal. In other words, if you buy a $500 Challenge car, you can recoup up to $500 of your budget by selling parts. (If you do turn a profit by selling parts from your car, we suggest that you take your significant other out to dinner to compensate them for having a $2011 car hanging around the house.) Once the recuperation limit has been reached on a car or parts deals, trading is not allowed.

The way I read this out is, I can buy my Challenge car for say 400$ (and that's actually what it cost) and sell down to 0. Since it's 2012, I have a max selldown all in of 1006$.That means according to my math so far, I have 606$ left of my selldown budget. Pretty simple. But here's the argument 92Celicahalftrac and I were having, and it's in regards to "parts" car selldowns and the like.

Example- Say I buy a 600$ parts car.... a wrecked Probe GT if you will. I manage to sell down that entire parts car to 0, but still have parts left I like to use. Do I need to FMV the remaining parts towards my budget? Or am I allowed to consider those parts as more or less "free" (after the selldown of course) and not count them additionally towards my budget? IE, I sell down to 0. I've blown 600$ of the total 1006$ i'm allowed to sell back, but it's not going to cost me an extra 200$ or whtever a head on an f2t is FMV'ed at against my budget? So techically speaking, out of the 2012$ I'm allowed to spend total, i've spent 400$, or the purchase price of said challenge car (assuming I haven't sold anything off my challenge car itself, only off of the parts car) but only have another 406$ to be able to sell total before I can no longer sell/trade? Or am I shy 200$ because I have to FMV the head, which leaves me with 1412$ left in budget (400$ car+200$ FMV head) and 406$ left to be able to sell (600$ from parting said parts car).

Next question-

Let's say I buy a Greddy turbo timer for 75$. Some guy is interested in it, and is willing to trade me a full HKS FCON for it. (unlikely, but you never know), that HKS should theoretically cost me 75$ off my budget, since I only paid 75$ for the part I traded to him? Or am I going to have to FMV the remainder of said HKS (let's say it's 200$) and count 125$ towards my budget?

Pardon if it seems confusing, I've been up with a newborn for a looong time at this point.... we were just arguing semantics in the rules and decided we needed a thread.

To answer your first question - if you had bought a $400 Challenge car and sold off $400 of trim / seats / other stuff you don't need, and bought a $600 parts car and sold off $600 worth of parts, you're at a zero budget but have only $6 left of available sell-off credit (and a big pile of free parts). I seem to recall a couple zero-budget Challenge cars put together that way.

I think the second sort of deal is only allowed if it was something publicly available that anyone could have scooped up - if you found a "Want a turbo timer, willing to trade this FCon I can't use" thread on a forum, it would be fine. If it were your buddy giving you a special deal so you could run it in the Challenge - no.

Matt's got it.

In reply to MadScientistMatt:

Yeah, I get the open deal thing..... I know there's no such thing as an under the table special. I'm just talking logistics.... none of this has actually happened.

Ben claimed that my version of the rules (which is what MSM seems to be echoing) wouldn't work... and my interpretation was that sell off included whatever you managed to acquire, up to 0 or a grand total of 1006$, whichever came first.

Looks like i was wrong... for some reason i was under the impression that if you sold down to $0, you had to FMV it, and you were limited to recouping your vehicle, or $1006, whichever came first.

I'm not mad, apparently now i have more room than i thought, being that now that it's cleared up, i'm only sitting at $1651.

Simple version: You can recoup up to the purchase price, at which point, every bit of that car was 'free.' You can recoup up to $1006. This is where buying parts cars rules, not only in the case of the challenge, but in life. I can buy an imported jap motor for $500...or I can buy an entire wrecked auction car for $500 SHIPPED, sell some body parts, interior parts, etc., then squish it and MAKE money.

If only I had the room to own more than what I have now and strip them.... I shall. Some day.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: Looks like i was wrong... for some reason i was under the impression that if you sold down to $0, you had to FMV it, and you were limited to recouping your vehicle, or $1006, whichever came first. I'm not mad, apparently now i have more room than i thought, being that now that it's cleared up, i'm only sitting at $1651.

Untill you FMV the tires ya sneaky bastige.

I'm talking as it sits lol.

Since i've hit my recoupment limit, i'll have to figure out what to do about wheels and tires, since selling what came with it doesn't do me any good now.

I do have proof of what i paid for the FDs, though. I have plenty of room for those and some flares.

You should find a couple sets of DOT slicks, and find me some diamonds in a 15x8 or so with like a 0 offset. You let me worry about how those are gonna fit.

That reminds me, I need to go to the scrappy and see what I can get for piping to route the interfooler stuffs. That is if I'm not trying to trade my small little chinacooler for a giant greddy unit a buddy of mine can't seem to fit in his rx7.

Let me ask around about slicks... i have a couple ideas.

Cast off RA1s do in a pinch?

them'd do. I know you're in gasoline alley and all....

mndsm wrote: ....Say I buy a 600$ parts car....

Just to be clear, you are not allowed to sell down a "parts" car right?

That is, you can buy the one actual "source" car and sell that down to 0, but if you buy another car for parts, you can not sell that down at all. Right?

Otherwise you could just open a junk yard and build an CanAm car.

You CAN sell down a parts car up to the $1006 limit...

Vehicle A cost you $1000.00, Vehicle B cost you $1000.00. You may sell parts off Vehicle A to recoup $1000.00 but only claim up to $6.00 from Vehicle B BUT the $996.00 you raise in selling the rest of the crap from Vehicle B could be used to pay your way down to the Challenge or maybe buy a round of Molson Export for your brother Challengers ;)

aircooled wrote:

mndsm wrote: ....Say I buy a 600$ parts car....

Just to be clear, you are not allowed to sell down a "parts" car right? That is, you can buy the one actual "source" car and sell that down to 0, but if you buy another car for parts, you can not sell that down at all. Right? Otherwise you could just open a junk yard and build an CanAm car.

Nope. You CAN sell down a parts car.

But you can't build a CanAm car, because your TOTAL sell down is limited to a maximum of $1006.

No matter how many parts you sell or times you buy parts cars, you can't credit more than a total of $1006 to the budget.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: I'm talking as it sits lol. Since i've hit my recoupment limit, i'll have to figure out what to do about wheels and tires, since selling what came with it doesn't do me any good now. I do have proof of what i paid for the FDs, though. I have plenty of room for those and some flares.

NEVER hit your recoup limit. Back out a few dollars of recoup from the budget.

That way, even though you can't sell them, you can continue to trade remaining parts from the parts car for whatever else you may need.

I have a question... Can you remove parts from a car (and remove their FMV) in exchange for installing different parts (for whatever their FMV is)? For example, if I buy a car with $200 FMV wheels, but decide I don't need/want them, can I remove them and install a set of different wheels for $200 FMV and end up at same overall budget?

SVreX wrote:

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote: I'm talking as it sits lol. Since i've hit my recoupment limit, i'll have to figure out what to do about wheels and tires, since selling what came with it doesn't do me any good now. I do have proof of what i paid for the FDs, though. I have plenty of room for those and some flares.

NEVER hit your recoup limit. Back out a few dollars of recoup from the budget. That way, even though you can't sell them, you can continue to trade remaining parts from the parts car for whatever else you may need.

Ahhh.... good point. Thank you!

We'll see what happens, i can't really think of anything else i'd do to the car besides make it look halfway decent.

darkbuddha wrote: I have a question... Can you remove parts from a car (and remove their FMV) in exchange for installing different parts (for whatever their FMV is)? For example, if I buy a car with $200 FMV wheels, but decide I don't need/want them, can I remove them and install a set of different wheels for $200 FMV and end up at same overall budget?

This is essentially trading. So you bought a car for 600$ and it came with said wheels. You trade them for other wheels and no cash output, your total expenditure so far is still the 600$ you paid for the car. Which is why buying parts cars is so attractive, you can trade all the stuff you want off that car AND the challenge car, to get where you need to be. As long as you don't hit your selldown cap, of course.

My biggest question is with trading, does making a trade hit the recoup at fmv?

WillrunifChased wrote: My biggest question is with trading, does making a trade hit the recoup at fmv?

trades do not count against the budget at all, but both sides of the trade must be similar FMV. so forget about trading the OE steelies and whitewall all-seasons for that sweet set of Volks and R1's you've got stacked in the corner...

John Doe has no mechanical skills/tools. I pull a motor and transmission out of a truck for him. He gives me the motor for getting him the transmission out. Motor is priced at full FMV and my labor does not reduce the cost...correct?

I have another question.

Let's say that like so many people on the board, contestant X has been collecting car parts for years and has a bunch of stuff laying around.

Realizing that part Y sitting in the back of the shed would be perfect, it is put on a challenge car. Contestant X has no idea how much the part was bought for 10 years ago, but he did buy it used.

Looking on Ebay, he finds that the same part is available for $100 used in very good condition, $250 new buy it now and that a used one with scratches on it sold last week for $75.

Am I correct in understanding that the part can budgeted into the build at $75 since his was used and has scratches on it?

Likewise, if a part like a turbo manifold is fabricated out of $10 of stainless steel, the budget on it is $10, even if purchasing a manifold at retail costs $500, right?

I've decided I'm going to build a Challenge car. It's going to be slow and take a couple of years, but it is going to happen.

In reply to Gasoline:

AFAIK, labor is "free" You'd have to FMV the motor. Likely, you'd be better off paying a nominal fee for it, IE 50$. That works out better for you most likely.

Brett_Murphy wrote: (1) Am I correct in understanding that the part can budgeted into the build at $75 since his was used and has scratches on it?

YES.

(2) Likewise, if a part like a turbo manifold is fabricated out of $10 of stainless steel, the budget on it is $10, even if purchasing a manifold at retail costs $500, right?

YES -- unless you're the manufacturer of the retail part, and then it's gotta go in at retail pricing. that hasn't come up in the challenge AFAIK.