So Bastomatic's post got me thinking. I don't necessarily have friends or family that purchase E36 M3 vehicles all the time, but I have a few people who buy really nice vehicles and destroy them.

The winner is my childhood friend. Most of the cars he has purchased have been in really nice shape, a couple, not so much.

He has destroyed (in no particular order):

1984 Toyota 4-Runner (met a telephone pole due to driver error)

198? Dodge Caravan (engine failure)

1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais 5-speed (blew the clutch and too lazy to replace it)

1983 Mercury Marquis (engine failure)

1985 Toyota Pickup 4x4. (Truck wasn't in awesome shape, but the engine started leaking out of the front crank seal and too lazy to replace it)

There are a few more I can't remember, but the list is in a 10 year span.

Anyone have somebody similar?

*EDIT - I don't know where "new" came from in the title, but if a mod could remove, thanks.

I have cousins who do this. They can kill ANY car in less than six to nine months.. this included a volvo 144 that the older cousin hated so much he purposely grenaded it.

You would think at almost 50 years old and not making a lot of money, he would do some maintance rather than spending a couple grand a year on cars.. but nope, no maintance and drive them till they die.. lather, rinse, repeat

mad_machine wrote: I have cousins who do this. They can kill ANY car in less than six to nine months.. this included a volvo 144 that the older cousin hated so much he purposely grenaded it. You would think at almost 50 years old and not making a lot of money, he would do some maintance rather than spending a couple grand a year on cars.. but nope, no maintance and drive them till they die.. lather, rinse, repeat

Me too, except it was my sister and her family that did this. They had a continuous stream of cars that fit one of two main sets of criteria:

1) Cheap, reliable, appropriate, and in very nice shape for the age/price.

2) Not as cheap, highly unreliable, completely inappropriate for the task, and utter piles of crap.

No matter which way they went, I don't think they had a car more than 2 years without utterly ruining it. And with most thing in their lives, they throw what little money they have down the rabbit hole in pursuit of some weird off-beat vision of their ideal bohemian lifestyle.

I mean seriously, if you're 20, have ZERO money, a recent shotgun wedding, and a 1-year-old kid, do you really think trying to street-legalize a Myers Manx in one of the most fascist car states on the east coast is a cost-effective solution to the problem of securing daily driver transportation?

Buddy that I know whose parents had some money did this to a few cars back in the day.

1. MkIV Supra TT A/T. His first car...

-Car was a clean bone stock black car with chrome wheels and tan leather. -Kid immediately threw on a fart can, some neon lights and an unpainted body kit. -Doing some donuts he hit a pole with it and had a shop patch it up. -Parts of the body kit kept falling off, so he affixed them with screws. -Neon lights gave the car electrical problems, so he took it to the Toyota dealer and they returned the car to stock order with neon lights in trunk. -Eventually the car got a set of expensive 19" wheels and was primered -Shorty after, something broke and the car was parked in his parents garage, where it has been for the last 7-8 years

2. 1991 Eagle Talon TSi AWD M/T. His winter car.

-Car was a mint 90k car -Previous owner installed an ACT2600 clutch and the kid wasn't too hot at driving a stick -Clutch started slipping after a month of ownership, probably due to real bad novice launches and the hell that 2600's can give to the factory TOB fork. -He beat on it for another month with the slipping clutch until the motor started making a metalicy noise. -For some odd reason, he felt compelled to remove the valve cover. -The car then sat in his driveway with the valve cover off and THE WINDOWS DOWN for about 3/4 years before the previous owner came and towed it away for 20% of what the kid payed...

3. Brand New 2006 WRX STi. This was his graduation gift and spiritual replacement for the neglected DSM

-Sometime after owning it for about a year, he let some 16 year old kid drive it. The kid launched it into oncoming traffic, totalling it.

This happened right around when the 2008 STi was being rolled out... His parents ended up buying one of the first ones sold in our area. It has survived to this day. Somehow...

Duke wrote: I mean seriously, if you're 20, have ZERO money, a recent shotgun wedding, and a 1-year-old kid, do you really think trying to street-legalize a Myers Manx in one of the most fascist car states on the east coast is a cost-effective solution to the problem of securing daily driver transportation?

Yes.

bgkast wrote:

Duke wrote: I mean seriously, if you're 20, have ZERO money, a recent shotgun wedding, and a 1-year-old kid, do you really think trying to street-legalize a Myers Manx in one of the most fascist car states on the east coast is a cost-effective solution to the problem of securing daily driver transportation?

Yes.

If it were any 2 of those 4 strikes against the project, OK, maybe... but all 4?

Let me add that neither she nor her husband had a shred of mechanical ability (or even sympathetic understanding)...

I have a cousin who has been wrecking cars in a spectacular fashion since he was a teenager up until maybe 4 years ago (not sure he's over it yet, but this is a new record). His parents had money before, but then they won a monster settlement in a medical lawsuit and now he's REALLY loaded and will never have to work. He competes in stage rally and offroad TSD, he hasn't wrecked his rally car but whenever I've seen him drive, it's like he wants to win or wreck the car trying.

shelbyz wrote: Buddy that I know whose parents had some money did this to a few cars back in the day. #1. MkIV Supra TT A/T. His first car... -Car was a clean bone stock black car with chrome wheels and tan leather. -Kid immediately threw on a fart can, some neon lights and an unpainted body kit. -Doing some donuts he hit a pole with it and had a shop patch it up. -Parts of the body kit kept falling off, so he affixed them with screws. -Neon lights gave the car electrical problems, so he took it to the Toyota dealer and they returned the car to stock order with neon lights in trunk. -Eventually the car got a set of expensive 19" wheels and was primered -Shorty after, something broke and the car was parked in his parents garage, where it has been for the last 7-8 years #2. 1991 Eagle Talon TSi AWD M/T. His winter car. -Car was a mint 90k car -Previous owner installed an ACT2600 clutch and the kid wasn't too hot at driving a stick -Clutch started slipping after a month of ownership, probably due to real bad novice launches and the hell that 2600's can give to the factory TOB fork. -He beat on it for another month with the slipping clutch until the motor started making a metalicy noise. -For some odd reason, he felt compelled to remove the valve cover. -The car then sat in his driveway with the valve cover off and THE WINDOWS DOWN for about 3/4 years before the previous owner came and towed it away for 20% of what the kid payed... #3. Brand New 2006 WRX STi. This was his graduation gift and spiritual replacement for the neglected DSM -Sometime after owning it for about a year, he let some 16 year old kid drive it. The kid launched it into oncoming traffic, totalling it. This happened right around when the 2008 STi was being rolled out... His parents ended up buying one of the first ones sold in our area. It has survived to this day. Somehow...

...and this is exactly why I hate hearing about wealthy parents showering their kids with fast cars.

In reply to gamby:

Yea, I went to high school with a lot of dumb rich kids.

I thought of two more headshakers from my HS days.

-One kid had a real nice LS1 Camaro Z28. One night after an after school street racing session with the above mentioned Supra, the kid got drunk and slammed the Camaro into a tree. He ran home and his parents "hid" him so that he wouldn't get a DUI or whatever they give to underage drunk drivers.

Another kid, had his parents give him a brand new 2005 WRX. He drove it to school on his 16th birthday and on that very day he ended up t-boning a minivan while street racing another kids CTS after school...

Apparently my son and his wife are pretty hard on them.

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/another-one-bites-the-dust-aka-dont-hit-a-dump-truck/61543/page1

The above was his 6th car. Notice I said, was.

1. Was free junk, a 89 T-Bird. He didn't destroy it, but it made it through BS judging at Lemons and they almost gave us extra laps rather than taking them away.

2. Was another T-Bird a 90s era. He didn't destroy it either and actually sold it for cash.

3. Nissan Sentra. Rear ended by a drunk driver sitting at a red light. Totaled.

4. Ford Escort. Great little car. It killed three deer, a boat trailer and was rear ended by a Jeep while he had it. The boat trailer finished it off. I'll give him a pass on the deer, the boat trailer was all him.

5. Saturn something 4 door. It ended it's life shiny side down in a salt marsh. His wife.

6. Mercury Sable. See the above thread. This happened today. His wife.

Those are his. He also totaled my wife's Dodge Caravan when he was in high school and hit another deer with his work van. Now you know why Curmudgeon calls him Deer Slayer.

It's not so much he is hard on them, but if there is a car god in this world, he has it in for my son. I lent him my Super Coupe this afternoon to get home. He made it about 5 miles and the shifter bushing died the rest of the way leaving it stuck in 5th. When it comes to cars, if it wasn't for bad luck, he'd have no luck at all.

mad_machine wrote: You would think at almost 50 years old and not making a lot of money, he would do some maintance rather than spending a couple grand a year on cars.. but nope, no maintance and drive them till they die.. lather, rinse, repeat

One of the people who comes around the shop opined that he was too poor to do things like buy snow tires or maintain a car, so he just buys a new one every two years.

Given how cheap it is to buy a new car nowadays, he's probably not TOO crazy to think that. $200/month is only $2400/year. (But no snow tires is stupid.)

I should point out that our vehicle registration is a flat fee, not based on the value of the car, so it's $50/year whether your car is worth $500 or $50,000...