ericdwong

OK I know you guys are sick of hearin me but this is a discussion forum and this is the internet so if you dont want to read this, click back on your browser.

As you all know my transmission blew up on me for yet the 3rd time within ONE year. This car has spent more time on jackstands.
I with I was a full time working man or I would have pitched my car long ago. It all started when I put in the imfamous ACT clutch and the Quaife differential. The situation is- I am in college probably 3-4 years away from getting my engineering degree. So right now I do not have a job. Even if I had a job it wouldnt pay didldly for my tastes. So right now I have to rely on my parents to pay for things. They are willing to pay for the repair of the maxima and provide me with a new car up to a reasonable amount. So of course my first thoughts were:
Nissan 350z
Toyota Supra TT
Corvette
LS-1 FBody
Honda S2000

However each of these cars are deemed to wild and impractical for my parents with no style and no taste (my dad drives a 94 Quest or a 90 Camry- my old car; my mom drives a 98 Camry v6 which I stole while my car is broken)

So I think my realistic options are:
Acura Integra
Honda Prelude-both mods up the yazoo
Nissan 240sx- but its another nissan and its slow as *****
turbo Mitsu Eclipse- but reliablity once again and no room for subs
Maybe a WRX- but those blow trannys too
Maybe a 328i

But even those cars may be considered too flashy. My dad said he would buy me a honda civic no problem because its reliable transportation and wouldnt have the power to break itself. But a Honda Civic???? And of course, they wont want me racing it or doing motor swaps on it, since Ill most likely be away for school in the next year. Id be darned to be driving a honda civic, so Dave B if you're readin this you may be right and Ill be drivin the max forever. I'd rather take the money and store it in the bank to collect intrest then buy a honda civic. Grrrr I never win. Either way that ACT clutch has gotta go.

O yea another thing- the tranny is rebuilt but I forgot to tell them to pull the Quaife differential out. If I tell the tranny shop to do that It will be another few hundred $ and the parents WONT pay for it cause they consider it my fault. If I open it up myself, it will void the 1 year and 12k mile warranty for the tranny (definately dont want to do that!). I'm screwwed.

--Eric
The madd driver and the most indecisive owner

Sprint

iTrader: (10)

get an NA Supra then with the money left over a turbo kit

Sprint

iTrader: (10)

FYI: open up the damn tranny and get your **** out.. wtf do you care.. you are not keeping the car.. and thats an extra $$$ you can use to your future car..

maybe an NA Supra Turbo Kit

92vemaxse

If you have a 1 year warranty on it, why is it costing you (your parents) money?

CKNY

iTrader: (1)

what do you want us to say? you already know your options. it's civic time my friend.

i hate to be the one to say it... please don't take this personally but if no one else will say it - i will... maybe, just maybe, you NEED a civic. maybe you're not responsible enough to own those other cars

AntGVR4

Whatever car you buy is going to break if you drive it hard.
If you can't afford to break then don't race.
Buy a slow reliable car and drive it trouble free or get another fast car and get ****ed off in a month when it breaks again.

If my parents offered to buy me a WRX or new 328 I would be so gracious. He!l if they offered to buy me a new civic I would park my car and drive the civic.

At least with a WRX, 328, civic you will have a warranty for a couple of years.

Ant

MChapel

iTrader: (1)

I don't want to be considered a "hater", but basically you're saying...

" mommy and daddy won't put up $30K to $50K for a new car for me and I don't wanna spend $200 or $300 to get my differential taken out - and I don't wanna get a job to pay for anything myself."



Time for a reality check, Eric. You're way better off than 95% of the people in North America.

Most 21 year-olds would give vital body parts to have someone else pay for, insure, and maintain a '97 Max SE - even with no mods.

IMHO, your folks need to give you and nothing else - except for moral support and tuition costs for school.

There's more to life than getting all the toys you want.

Stephen Max

iTrader: (59)

You already have a great, reliable car. You just need to change the way you drive. Seriously, maybe you should just do the manual to auto conversion. I've got an auto tranny sitting in my garage I'll trade you for the Quaife.

1MAX2NV

iTrader: (5)

Buy an IS300 in auto.

maxger

I don't know. Why don't you just sell the whole transmission with the warranty and put a second-hand one in. Install a stock clutch, stick with the max, and drive the hell out of it. (go through clutches not transmissions)

Jeff92se

iTrader: (82)

None because you have complained about high price of repair parts. All of your choices will have parts that cost the same or more than the Nissan. ESPECIALLY THE BMW.

Sprint

iTrader: (10)

why tony.. because most of the "parents buy me everything" are in that class?


personally i think eric is an exceptional young man.. inspite all the stuff he has done in the past.. i will say it again.. not many people i know can pull down a tranny in their mothers kitchen..

also others say their parents wouldn't buy them everything like eric's did..

but you know what.. alot of parents would buy their kids everything if their kids were 21 years old and on their way to an engineering degree..

eric.. the civic isn't so bad really.. you still have your Bike (F4i) for speed

CKNY

iTrader: (1)

and any kid who has parents that will buy him a car and doesn't appreciate it is pretty irresponsible in my book.

Sprint

iTrader: (10)

who says he doesn't appreciate it? he just has had major problems with it and is pretty upset about it.. doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate it..

Lordrandall

iTrader: (4)

Why not get the Maxima fixed, and play it cool for a while? It's either that or the Civic, and I personally would pick the Max.

What is your decision?

Dave B

I too have a lot of respect for Eric even though I think many of his problems were mostly caused by his doing.


Eric-
Get a late model Prelude. Right out of the box and with intake/exhaust, it will be as quick if not quicker than your Max. It will handle better and it's stil pretty spacious up front. Like you said, mods are all over the place for the Prelude. I'd get a Jackson Racing SC and call it a day. While it doesn't offer nearly the power of a turbo, the SC will give you a ton more useable power and will have bulletproof reliabilty. Get the BASE Prelude. The LSD version of the Prelude (I forget the exact name) is slower and really isn't that much better. I'd steer clear of the WRX because it will make you too greedy and you'll end up breaking stuff. I wouldn't buy any car that you'd have to put a turbo on to get it to perform. Aftermarket turbos are fun, but they aren't reliable. Since you are so concerned about reliability then forget about boost except for a Jackson Racing SC.

Consider yourself lucky that your parents are willing to help you out like this. I'm surprised they aren't making you work while in college (most people do). I was one of the lucky ones because my parents paid my rent and half my bills. Most of my tution was covered by divends from my investements. Everything else I had to pay for (food, half the bills, party money, clothes, gas). When I bought my Z28 in college I had saved the money for about 2 years and my parents loaned me the rest. They easily could have bought me the Z28, but they wanted me to work for it. When you buy things yourself, you have a much deeper appreciation for it. Just consider yourself lucky. I know I do. Most of my friends were much worse off than myself.


Dave

95emeraldgxe

i'm in a similar situation - my parents dont want to buy me a "sports" car, even though many of them have less HP than most 4 door sedans today. The cars that they agree upon have very high insurance rates : ( - and modding the cars are completely out of the question - when i put clears on my maxima they flipped(i still left them on though )

Stephen Max

iTrader: (59)

Yeah, me too. My rents told me that at age 49 I should be buying my own car. Stupid parents!!!

Sprint

iTrader: (10)

with all the crazy stuff kids are getting into these days.. drugs.. guns.. gangs.. pregnancy..

most parents don't mind buying stuff for their kids as long as their kids are on the right path and have a future..

and if the parents have it.. they why not.. i mean i bought all of my own cars and i did everything for myself.. but i am not going to hate on someone who has it done for them.. if the parents have it.. then why not..

when i my children are ready for a car.. they will be paying the insurance.. but i will have no problem getting them a car..

blizz20oma

iTrader: (1)

*long post warning*

I think that can be deduced from statements in the past combined with things like:
"They are willing to pay for the repair of the maxima and provide me with a new car up to a reasonable amount. So of course my first thoughts were:
Nissan 350z Toyota Supra TT Corvette LS-1 FBody Honda S2000"

My parents made me feel like I didn't appreciate the then-12-year-old 85 Accord they bought me for crap. Always ragging on me..."You never wash it, you never take care of it..."

I mean, I still got respect, because in some ways you do take care of the max what with taking repairs into your own hands, washing, etc. But I think we can all admit that you have also mistreated it to some degree.

You can't get any kind of job at all? I've worked in the corporate 8-5 world for almost 4 years now, since the summer before I started college...I'm still full-time in school, granted 12-14 hr semesters but I've worked 25-30 hrs a week through all those, all M-F 8-5 type schedule. Actually for 9 mos in there I worked 13-16 hrs on the weekends along with that. Granted, I'm spread kind of thin, and your engineering prog is prolly a bit tougher than my CS prog, and it'll take me 5 years instead of 4, but a scaled down version of what I do has to be possible. Weekend job even, or something to make some cash.

Then I'd say your options open up a little more...you could barter with the rents for something like a 5th gen lude, if you paid them a small bit every month. I'd say either do something like that for one of the rides on your "consolation list", or stomach it and take the civic for now. If the consolation list, I'm all for the 4th or 5th gen prelude...I'm still debating on a lot of fronts whether or not to go 5th-gen lude next year myself.

Anyways...mull it over. The sacrifice to the social life in having a job on maybe a friday night and saturday during the day might be better than the sacrifice it'd take to drive a civic. It really sucks that you've had bad luck with the max, but you're the one that chose to do all these mods while you were aware you weren't going to have a job for a while. I hope you get better luck with whatever you decide to get if you replace the max.

MChapel

iTrader: (1)

AMAF, my 20 year-old son IS on his way to an engineering degree. Our family, however, does not have the financial resources ( only $90K a year) to pay for 5 years of tuition AND a new Honda Civic - let alone a 350Z.

Our son didn't want to go to the local university (which has an engineering department to rival MIT) and live at home. So, in order to pay for his living expenses at a different university (admittedly, it also has an excellent engineering department) 150 miles away, he works every summer - 45 to 55 hours a week - doing landscaping; hot, dirty work - and he starts most days at 6:30am - for $12.50/hr.

Up until recently, he drove my old '89 Prelude (which I sold to him for 1/2 market value), which he drove into the ground. He now drives a 94 Sentra and I pay for the insurance. Yes, he borrowed about 1/2 the money from us, but he got a part time job while at school and is paying us back $200/month.

Am I proud of my son? Hell, yes!!! My son's a young man. Eric's acting like a 10 year-old - even if he can rebuild a transmission. Eric didn't even have the ***** to rent a place to do it; he used his mom's kitchen -

Stephen Max

iTrader: (59)

I have to agree with you Sprint, despite my earlier post. I'm planning on buying my daughter a car when she graduates from high school because she has done so well in school and is a great kid that I'm very proud of.

maxger

Eric here is a civic for you. I dont Know if the link works?\

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...&category=6256

CKNY

iTrader: (1)

ah the civic owners are gonna take offense to that one...

Lime

Agreed. it's really great that he can do all this work on his car; and he doesn't do a bad job or antyhing, but what he does to the car when he's driving it isn't so great.

Plus there's the ACT issue anyway; maybe a different clutch would work out better for him, the way he drives.

We all need to remeber these cars aren't sent out from the factory for racing. They are daily driving cars, right? Cars you see at the track, the pro cars, have completely built drivelines. They are not running transmissions from the factory. We all need to remember this as we floor it to pass that last guy before the exit (I am totally guilty)!

I met Eric at the JC meet, and he wasn't a bad kid at all.

Stephen Max

iTrader: (59)

Yeah, gosh, I feel bad about raggin' on him and all. Eric, if you're listenin', we love ya, man!

Dave B

If you're a good parent and you truely take part in their life, kids don't become involved in this kind of stuff. You can be rich as hell and be a parent, but it doesn't mean you're doing a good job as a parent.

I'm all for buying stuff for your kids if you can afford it, but Jesus, you need to teach them the value of hard days work and the dollar. If you don't, them expect money from you even when their grown up. I'll buy my children their first car, but it won't be new and it won't be fast. I will expect them to have some sort of part-time job in highschool so they can pay for the gas, insurance, and other things they want. When they get to college, I expect the same. My parents did this for me and I'm extremely grateful for what I learned.


Dave

Sprint

iTrader: (10)

are you kidding me Dave.. when you live in a metropolis such as detroit.. miami.. washington dc.. new york city.. it doesn't matter how much of a great parent you are.. kids get mixed up in stuff so easily..

especialy when in college.. it just takes one broken condom for pregnancy.. it just takes one group of buddies to start you on drugs.. it takes one bully to push you too far for you to shoot up a school.. parenting helps.. but it can't stop everything..

i think kids that are going the right direction such as Eric and MChapel's son deserve lots of credits.. its real easy to get mixed up in stuff these days.. REAL Easy..

Lordrandall

iTrader: (4)

It's all about Eric's choice here Sprint. He chose to race/burnout/abuse his Maxima, so now it's time for him to take responsibility for that. I'm sorry, but I can't feel sorry for the guy because he brought it upon himself. I think it's great that he can fix his car, but that doesn't give him the excuse to complain when his parents won't buy him a brand new sports car.

Now I understand that I read this thread, and don't have to read it becuase this is the web, but I like arguing, it's fun.

If you bring your kids up right, and they make the decision to get into drugs/gangs/relationship problems, that is their choice, and not something they should blame on others.

/me gets off soapbox

96max5sp

Your dad was ok with having the max right? You just had trouble with yours but other wise maximas are reliable. Just get a newer maxima. Trade yours in. If your still having problems then thats your falt and no car will do.

blizz20oma

iTrader: (1)

I sympathize because I know there's some Eric in me. But I made my point because if he's working on his car so much and goes out and whatnot (Read, leather coat jacking post), then it's not the end of the line as far as not being able to get a job. My bro had a rough go in an EE program at Iowa State, and in the 5 years, he needed money at times. He'd go get a job...the guy worked the graveyard shift at a gas station for $5.75/hr, so he could do his homework and make what was absolutely necessary. Best friend works crazy 12-14hr shifts when he can just so he can stay in school and pay bills at the same time. Sometimes you gotta man up.



I didn't expect the thread to turn into a guide on parenting. On that note, all I got to say is in response to this:
"especialy when in college.. it just takes one broken condom for pregnancy....."
first off, kids and people in general have always been presented with challenges like this, it's not like this just started in "these days". Secondly, who says pregnancy or mixing up with drugs, etc, etc is 100% bad? I'd argue that going to business school to become a guy that spends 24hrs a day working with no regard to family, friends, etc, is just as bad. Not to mention a business man ending up Enron-ish. They're just different types of challenges to overcome. I say parents don't need to spend all their energy telling their kids to just say no to everything - trying to prevent them from certain challenges in life...they should focus more on teaching them how to solve problems and overcome life challenges in general. I know how Sprint (and others) loves an argument, so that's the only reason I responded with the second part

Mizeree_X

iTrader: (9)

I am in grad school getting my master's degree in chemical engineering. I also went here for my undergrad degree. My parents NEVER, EVER, bought me anything as large in magnitude as a car, even though I am an exceptional student (not to sound arrogant). I see plenty of kids here, who are just as intelligent as me, who have been SPOILED ROTTEN because their parents reward them with cars and exotic vacations for "doing well". I have purchased all of my cars myself, paid for all insurance, repairs and mod myself (with the exception of borrowing money from my parents when I couldnt afford the repair bill up front), and have never asked for assistance. As much as I hated them a few years ago, watching all the "rich kids" drive around in their new Civics, Maximas and Beamers, I am soo grateful that my parents forced me to appreciate the value of money. I just hope that if I become successful, I don't fall into the trap.

As to the relevance to the first post, be grateful for anything your parents hand you. Imagine if they forced you to pay for all repairs on your car? A new Civic is better than 75% of the cars I see adults driving when I'm not on campus.

Dave B

We got the same **** here as you guys do in the "Big" cities Hell, I personally know guys that have or are growing stuff in their backyard and basement. I'm not going to lie, I've tried and used "certain" illegal substances, drank in high school and college, became "active" early in high school, etc. I don't think my younger life was really any different from anyone else in the org either. I grew up in the late 80s and 90s. There were plenty of dead-end roads I could have traveled. Today is really no worse that 10 years ago. Let's get real, most of us are from middle to middle-upper class homes therefore gang involvement is not much a problem. The biggest problem these days is drugs just like it was 20-30 years ago. With youth in the 80s it was cocaine, in the 90s it was pot, and now it's X. Every generation has it's drug. My parents were great and never really stopped me from doing anything, but they always made me well aware of the potential consequences of my actions. What I really don't understand is why should we award our children when they don't get into stuff their not suppose to in the first place?


Dave

BriGuyMax

iTrader: (1)

You want some cheese with that whine?

Just because a parent buys a child a car doesn't make them "spoiled rotten". If they give their childern INCENTIVE to do well in school by buying them a car it still teaches them that they have to EARN what they get.

The problem in our society (mainly in the US) is that we have been so rich and successful for so long (as a country) that people have come to think that they are ENTITLED to have whatever they want. This is why this country is falling behind others in many ways...we've lost our sense of work ethic. Promotions are expected, not earned, and kids now EXPECT certain things from their parents.

If you think that NOT buying your child a car is the right thing to do, then more power to you. But if some parents decide that they want to reward their kids with a car for something that they worked hard at and earned, then more power to them.

The problem of "spoiled rotten" lies in parents that buy their kids everything they want to win their child's affection.

My parents bought me my first car for my high school graduation (used Jeep Cherokee), but I don't think they spoiled me in any way by doing that.

Dave B

I think you took Mizree_X's post a bit out of context, but your statement above is so true and I agree 100%. After being in the workforce for 5 years now, I'm amazed by how many adults feel they are entitled to promotions/raises regardless of thier ****-poor job performance.


Dave

BriGuyMax

iTrader: (1)

Maybe I took it a bit out of context, but I simply responded to what I read.

I read, kids are "spoiled rotten" if their parents buy them a car or pay for a vacation because they did well in school, or achived some other goal.

I also read, you aren't worthy if you didn't pay for everthing yourself without any help from your parents.

It's really sad that our society is becoming how it is.....but it will hit us hard when this country eventually gets trampled by others in the global economy.

zerofighter

my 2k2 civic coupe si-g is for sale (in canada,alberta), if you want. pm me

Frank Fontaine

First of all, engineering degree = 52k to 57k to start, as a 21-22 year-old. By age 25-26 you should be in the mid 70's. That doesn't mean you can't squander all your income if you don't act grown up. With such a job comes responsibility. it's like being in 6th grade and having size 11 shoes. You openly state you have no job. Isn't a Maxima a pretty good car for someone who doesn't work? Then you say your parents have no style and no taste. Isn't alot that they would buy you a Honda Civic? My dad could barely read when I was growing up but he pushed me and my sister to good schools. By example? No, but by encouragement.

I suggest you take the Civic. All Hondas are excellent cars. That Civic rear suspension looks just like a MB M-Class' rear suspension.

mAdD MAX

Why not just get a crappy car for now and live with it till you graduate and earn some money? Then you can go all out on it.

If you wait longer, you might be happier in the end.

Slider

Since you're going to school, just get something cheap that you won't have to worry about like a honda or a toyota. I wouldn't suggest on an Integra because they're the #1 most stolen cars in America. Especially the GSRs and Type R, if one of them gets stolen expect EVERYTHING stripped, all of the interior, lights, bumper, engine, tranny.