Give me strength, Oppo

"Jayhawk Jake" (jayhawkjake)
04/24/2015 at 10:11 • Filed to: None

I want one so bad it hurts. I briefly considered making a terrible financial decision, but I just can’t. Only one more year or two and I'll have one, I hope

DISCUSSION (16)

E. Julius > Jayhawk Jake
04/24/2015 at 10:15

It always kills me to think that, realistically, I should probably keep my Civic for another five years or so. Just think though, more time for depreciation, and if you’re smart with your cash that’s more money for even better Corvettes down the line.

d1ck > E. Julius
04/24/2015 at 10:25

I understand your reasoning, however it only works when you’re actually saving some amount of money specifically for the new thing while you’re using the shitty thing. Also, the logic is never wrong, so theoretically you could spend your whole life saving for something better.

DoYouEvenShift > Jayhawk Jake
04/24/2015 at 10:31

Dude you and me both. Right now, I could budget one, but it would be pretty tight for a while. Probably not a smart choice. But damn it I want one so bad. I drove one a couple months ago at a lot. That glorious glorious 7 liter!!!!!

ly2v8-Brian > Jayhawk Jake
04/24/2015 at 10:36

Same here

Jayhawk Jake > DoYouEvenShift
04/24/2015 at 10:37

If I sold my CRX (which I will be doing anyways) and traded in my Sonic I could probably finance a C6 and afford it. But I really shouldn't

E. Julius > d1ck
04/24/2015 at 10:50

Well you have to think about interest, both in terms of what you gain and what you lose. If you wait a bit to buy a car and can put more money down or buy it outright, you’ll avoid paying extra money in interest. If you have other debt, putting that money towards paying it down can save you lots of money in interest payments as well. For example, if somebody has $30k in student loans at the average rate today, and you add the equivalent of a typical car payment for a $15k four year loan, that would save you over $5k in interest payments, not to mention you’d be debt free in less than half the time. That’s $5k more to put towards the car or whatever else you want.

You could also make the argument that investing $15k in retirement savings when you’re young and then buying a $15k car in a few years will net you higher lifetime earnings than $15k car now and $15k invested later, but the difference isn’t super huge (maybe $10k after 50 years). Still something to think about.

Like you said though, you can always logically justify not buying something you don’t really need (e.g. a Corvette), so it’s all a matter of deciding what’s important to you and how much money you really need. Personally if I was in the former scenario and could nuke my student loans and have $5k extra in four years, I’d probably do that. If I was in the latter scenario, I’d probably say having fun now was worth more than a bit of extra coin when I’m 80 years old.

trmoore09 > Jayhawk Jake
04/24/2015 at 11:06

Great memories are usually worth making poor financial decisions for. Go for it. In all seriousness, or as serious as you can be saying this, “yolo”.

JR1 > Jayhawk Jake
04/24/2015 at 11:12

You know what is worse than waiting a year or two? Having to sit by through college and just watch. I won’t have the finical means to buy a car like that for at least 5 years. *sigh

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > Jayhawk Jake
04/24/2015 at 11:15

If you ever think about selling that CRX I would like to be the first to know

Jayhawk Jake > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/24/2015 at 11:25

It's for sale. I haven't listed it yet but I plan on selling it before the end of the summer.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > Jayhawk Jake
04/24/2015 at 11:25

!!! But why, sir?

Jayhawk Jake > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
04/24/2015 at 11:37

I dunno. I never intended to have it for a long time, just to have fun for he summer and get a little bit of experience with an older car. I don’t have that much time to drive it as is and when winter comes around it will inevitably just sit in front of my house.

It's a really fun car and is in fantastic shape, but I don't have much use for it long term. Gotta make room for that Vette!

CAcoalminer > Jayhawk Jake
04/24/2015 at 11:41

Isn’t that a Pratt & Miller C6RS?

Moves-Like-Senna > Jayhawk Jake
04/24/2015 at 11:43

Out of curiosity where do you live and what’s fantastic shape mean?

Meatcoma > Jayhawk Jake
04/24/2015 at 12:16

I’m with you Jake.

Jayhawk Jake > Moves-Like-Senna
04/24/2015 at 12:59

Wichita, KS.

When I said fantastic shape I meant mechanically it’s in fantastic shape. Runs very well. Has just under 135,000 miles. Just replaced the timing belt, water pump, spark plugs, plug wires, distributor cap, new tires on the front, got an alignment, and repaired the exhaust. It’s extremely quiet and smooth and the clutch isn’t showing any signs of trouble.

In the interest of full disclosure it’s not a perfect car on the outside and inside. It’s not a showroom new model by any means, but it’s certainly not in bad shape. As far as I can tell there’s no rust.

The car was painted when under previous ownership, and this is where the only downsides of the car. The paint itself is fine, it’s in good shape and looks great. The CRX has a side moulding that sits in a channel on the doors and fenders and for some reason the owner that had it painted decided they didn’t like that feature so the channels were filled and there are no mouldings. I have replicated the look with vinyl, and no one has noticed the missing mouldings besides myself. When it was painted they also neglected to put in the mouldings around the rear windows. I actually do have new mouldings ready to go in, but doing so involves cutting the window adhesive and it’s not something I’m particularly comfortable doing myself, but a glass shop could do it. It’s not a problem per se, just an oddity.

The windshield really should be replaced. It has a crack up at the top next to the mirror and is generally scratched and scuffed pretty badly. It is certainly still driveable, but if I was planning on keeping it for a while that’s the first thing I would have done.

The hood doesn’t want to pop. I don’t know why not, I’ve tried everything I can find to fix it. I replaced the hood release cable, and the latch works like it should, but the hood won’t pop out of the latch so when the cable is released it just latches closed again. I rigged a wire so you can open the hood from the front bumper. Again, it’s not a major problem by any means, more of a quirk of a 25 year old car.

The interior is in pretty good shape considering it’s 25 years old. Admittedly the seats aren’t in particularly great shape. On the drivers side the bolsters are worn down and the passenger side seat bottom has a gash. I have been wanting to swap the bolster cushions from the passenger seat to the drivers seat to have one really good seat, it’s not a particularly difficult job from what I’ve seen I just haven’t gotten around to it. The luggage divider is broken around the latches, so it doesn’t really stay up if you put it up. The latches themselves are fine, it’s the board they are fastened to that is broken. The lock cylinder for the hatch is missing, you can only open it with the lever by the driver’s seat.

The speedometer bounces under 40 MPH, the fuel gauge acts a little weird, the connector on the stock radio I just put in isn’t working properly but I have a new one on the way to try. The front left speaker is broken and the front right is terrible, but I only use the rears. The sunroof sometimes needs a little help, it’s catching on something. I plan on looking into it.

I realize I just wrote an essay and that can be a little frightening, but I want to be upfront about the car. It’s not perfect, but finding a CRX SI in as good a mechanical shape as mine is tough these days. It would be a fantastic autocross car with some suspension work, and if I can’t sell it that’s what I’ll do. It’s a hoot to drive and gets a surprising amount of attention.

I’ve seen super clean CRX’s go for as much as $6k on eBay, I’m asking $3800. I think that’s a reasonable price considering it’s a rare version of a rare car. I’d love to see it go to another Opponaut.

I will share some more pics soon, I can’t from this computer.