Skip to main content

Featured Post

Now blogging over at Onemanmanyplans.com.au

It's been real, thanks Blogger! Hey thanks for checking out this page! After 10 years of posting here and over 600 posts, it's time to try something new at over possibly greener pastures. Which means you can now find me and all my random adventuring ways over at One Man Many Plans . 

Where are you all going?

They're the words no Rx7 owner ever wants to hear: 'I think it's the water seal'.

This is what happens when your water seal goes...
And this week as an Rx7 owner, I heard those exact words.

Which explains the constant flooded 13BT block and the acreage of sweet smelling white smoke that spews out constantly from the exhaust when I finally get it started after a couple of days of just sitting around. My mechanics words were something along the lines of 'The smoke filled the shop and then half the street...'

For Mazda's Rotary Xperiment Number 7, it's pretty terminal.

So it's off to the auto online classifieds to find a cheap runaround while I work out what to do with my ailing rotary - sell it, part it out or bury it, complete with moving ceremony and slideshow.

There's just something I've been noticing in a lot of ads that has me scratching my head...



And I have been a busy future runaround shopper, contemplating possible options that won't break the (limited) bank or my set of screwdrivers. Firstly I was ready to splash out on the AWD turbo fun of the Skylines more practical brother, the Nissan Stagea:

Practical!
But the wallet won't stretch that far just yet and I'd like something that doesn't stick its head in and guzzle wildly like a dehydrated elephant every time I pull up to the servo. No no, with the budget I have (not much) it cuts the options list right down like a demtel knife. It's full of early Nissan Pulsars, 323 Astina's and plenty of Hyundai Excels.

Occasionally though I do stumble across something exotic - like an Audi 80 for roughly 2 grand:

German ya!
But I'd shudder to think how much parts and servicing would be on this piece of German history. Speaking of German engineering though, I did also stumble across one of these, still in my price range:

Beamer!

It's a 1993 BMW 325i E36 which looks horn and would happily sit in my garage if it ticked two boxes 1. Cheap parts (no) and 2. It didn't have the words 'Needs a lot of work' in the ad (it did). Considering rough examples start around the 5K mark and the one I looked at was selling at 2.5K, a lot of work could translate well into the thousands...

Anyway the search continues on. And on. And on. And after a while of trawling through cars I'd probably only usually drive in an emergency, something kept popping up that gave me pause for thought:

"Selling because I'm moving overseas."

I'd understand this in a couple of ads as it seems to be a legitimate reason to sell a car cheap. However this popped up a lot. Now either I keep looking at car classifieds that are written by soon to be deported illegal immigrants or something is going on here. I don't know what yet as there doesn't seem to be anything truly exotic to lure me in a scam but it seems a lot of people are getting out of the country...or saying they are. Is it a trick to get you to buy quick before the car explodes? Are they truly going overseas? Does the car exist at all or did you just Paypal for nothing?

Hmm, strange. Maybe I am just overly paranoid but to me it seems like a lot of car ads are using it (maybe it's the new 'Only driven to church on Sundays' line?)
.
Still, it might work in my favour. Perhaps if I offer the BMW owner an mp3 player to listen to on the flight over to wherever, he might just swap the beamer for it. Given the aussie dollar is falling, it might just be what he's after since apparently he's not coming back here anytime soon...

Comments

Popular Posts