Austarion

Hey all,

Im faced with a dilemma...I've currently got a staz that i was gonna do up with interior stuff and a bit of engine work that would total up to around the 10-15k mark. My question is, do you think its worth it to modify this car realli heavily, or should I just pool the money and sell the staz and buy something else?

I realli like the body shape of the staz...so i think ill keep that. If you were in my shoes, what would you do?

Your shoes? make a dent in my student loan.

15K will build you a pretty damn nice staz, but your never going to make money on it, dont delude yourself thinking you'll resell it for what youve spent on it, you wont. Is it worth it to you? DO you feel a connection to the car? can you see yourself still driving it in 10 years?

Spending money on a Staz is not a sound investment.

What do you want to do with a car?

Got tools to lug around - buy a ute
Want kids, dog etc. - buy a wagon
Want to go 4wd ing - buy a 4wd

You can't fit anything in a Staz, you can't seat all your mates in it, it is not new and arts are getting harder to find.

That said, they are unique, they're not a 180/Silvia, they are fun to drive and pretty reliable once everything has been replaced. A nice one will always turn heads. If you like to tinker then this is the car for you.

For 15k you could do quite a bit to make it go harder and look pretty good. Or chat to Hoony and convince her to sell her latest aquisition :D

Does any of that help????

A starion is a starion - spend $15K - you will get at best $7K for JA/JB models if ever you come to sell it. The choice to spend comes down to a couple of things that I recently went through with Maries Car.

At the time it needed a new motor - cost $4- 5K

The choice was - do we spend $10K on the motor/body/wheels/suspension/interior and come up with a unique, sporty, well performing car that she "loves" or do we sell the starion and buy a $13K runaround buzzbox that is second hand and has a zero thrill factor. We amortised the cost of the work over 4-5 years, based on how long we wanted to keep it for, and came to the conclusion that the same priced buzz box over the same period will depreciate more than the Staz so there was no long term benefit financial benefit to go the buzzbox.

We did up her car, love it to death, have met great people, and own a unique, sporty fun car that performs better than a buzzbox.

We have never regretted spending the money on it. In your shoes, do it, just be sure the car is sound bodywise to start, dont do it to a rust bucket. Mechanicals can be fixed and replaced, rust cant.

Cheers
Greg

i would sell you staz, put that money with the 10/15 g you have an buy a widebody...there is one for sale atm...electric blue...NIIICCCEEE

sell your staz....


and buy the widebody in the for sale section!

rare as in australia and with an upgraded (imho) shape :P will hold its value more and then spend the leftovers on some nice mods :P

I like WANTSOM's response, very sound advice. But I also can't go past the above two - BUY A WIDEBODY!

buy the widebody and swap with me :D

15k is a lot of dough to spend on any car, a Stazz is unique, they're also very old, there are lots of potential things that can go wrong with them, parts are hard to find, and arms and legs only come in pairs, I'd save the money and buy something newer, like an EVO maybe or a 3000gt, that's just me tho' :)

Yes, there is a widebody for sale at the moment.

Buy it but be sure that for the money, you have to do absolutely nothing and I mean nothing to it to repair, replace etc otherwise it goes over the budget number quoted.

And, if you think Starion parts are hard to source in Aus, try a widebody for ease of parts. All will be US sourced and subject to the $USD +/-.

Mind you, if I had the money at the moment., there would be a certain blue widebody in my garage right now.

Cheers guys
G :D

just agreeing with what the others said.

If you can put up with the lack of space, and you want a performance car, then go the staz.

for $15, you could make it better in every way to some little hyandai or honda runaround - more comfy (i made mine heaps more comfy with a $350 interior), heaps better performance, more individuality (people spend shitloads on their hondas trying to make them look different from the crowd. The starion doesn't have much of a crowd to begin with, so you're allready one up on them. You wont beat em in fuel economy, but you can't have everything.
Then you take into account that they come stock with a 50/50 weight distribution, a strong driveline, air con, power windows, leather seats etc...

And a starion in good nik standard form wont loose any value from now on (in fact, i think their value has gone up slightly), though if you're spending $15k on it, then that's irrelevant, cause you'll never get that back. But in 10 years, it will be worth more than the hyundai that you could have bought with your money.

Please excuse me if what i've said doesn't make sense, a combination of too much work, too many uni assignments, and too many late nights. I can't even see the screen properly.

I am not necessarily condoning this suggestion... get a Ford Galaxy or some other huge tank, it may not look flash, it may not go fast, but it tells every other car to #@$^ off.

Man the Staz has heaps of room, limit the passengers to 1 + the driver and your set, you've got enough lugguage space to move the queen.

I fit a tv, ps2, about 4 large boxes and 3 20litre buckets in the back of the staz with the back seats down. must say the height of the car was where I wanted it too. :D

and as for fuel economy i am getting 10litres per 100km, mind you i have a new engine but thats with a mixture of town and highway driving.

exactly.. Why would you want anything else?

And as far as kids go, it reminds me of an add I saw for a porsche boxter which said "The more kids you have, the more practical it becomes"