Money pit: yay or nay

[Jon325i]

Ask a group of car enthusiasts what they consider a "moneypit" and you will get a lot of different answers. It all boils down to you and if you feel that what you have put into the car is justified. I've talked to some owners of E30 M3s who have well over $30K into their cars and they feel its been totally justified.

There simply is no concrete answer here. Its all a matter of opinion.

Jon

[shahe]

i have almost 20k into my car, so your not doing so bad :)

[MR 325]

When I bought my 86 in August, I started keeping a tab of how much money I spent on it but one day, I noticed I had spent too much and deleted the list off of my computer. If I feel like spending money on my cars, I will do it, fuck it. It makes me happy so that's all that matters to me.

[randomtask37]

when my car hit about 160k it bit the shit. everything seemed to break. i was getting very frustrated because about every week i was dropping 100+ to fix (in my mind) stupid stuff. but after what seemed like fixing an endless amount off stuff... it just kinda stopped breaking. and from about january until the wreck the only things i had to maintain was oil.

... to make a long story short. fix what u need to and it will eventually work great.

p.s. in total, since i bought the car about a year and a half ago, i personally have dropped at least 2g's and my dad has also dropped about 2.5g's. so between mods and matenence these cars are not always gona be cheap.

[clavinZERO]

compared to a NEW car and new-car INSURANCE.... that maintainence $ is nothin. once its done, it SO long before you need to do that stuff again. I bought mine for 5k and have thrown about 2k or so into it, maybe 3k. not a PIT at all. its so close to my goals I set for it and it runs better than new. one thing that really makes me ignore the costs is so simple. fun.

[llll1l1ll]

Word, this thread made me feel better.

[nando]

last year I spent around $3.5k on my car, in mods and repairs.. $1300 is chump change! I likely won't spend anywhere near that much this year, as the suspension is already done, the engine runs fine and nothing else on the car needs work. Only things I need are wheels (paid for and waiting!) and a tint..

[Brew]

$2600 since I bought the car in October.

That includes GC Springs and Koni shocks, a new clutch, guibo, and machined flywheel, and 4 new Yoko ES100's. I think I'm actually doing alright. I've got a lot more planned... M50, Mtech 2, new paint, some nice wheels, exhaust.

[iXer]

Before the end of the year I will have spent close to $3.5k including purchase price ($2k) since I got it. I guesstimate $4.5k when I'm done repainting it and I will then have two recaro sport seats, a new suspension, custom exhaust with extractor manifold and engine overhaul (new cam, porting) along with many other upgrades and replaced parts.
This is cheap in my opinion. Too many of my friends buy new cars where, in just a few years, the value of their car has decreased more than I ever will spend on my car. I have no regrets when it comes to putting down money on this car.

[Erick]

My car is in the 150-200k mileage range. The car is surpringly good and it hasnt given me the amount of problems it normally should ( thank god, for I am a broke ass teenager )

I spent about $1.1k on my car so far in mods... and in parts for maintenance and labor for some jobs that I could not pull off myself, I think I am in the $1.5k mark in spending on my car.

I would love to keep spending but lately I've been trying to let myself detach from my car a bit..... and try to get a job so I dont have to spend money from my savings on the car.

[bmw_e30]

Over $9k has been 'invested' into my '84 318i.

What kind of condition is the car in now? If it's really nice, then I'd say that you've done a pretty good job.

That's the stupidest thing I have heard in a while....

You have put in 9k for a car that you can buy mint for less than 1500.00 here in Socal.

What exactly ended up being 9000.00 dollars that got put into your car?

[shahe]

hahah, so ture, he could have had a nice e30 m3.

Over $9k has been 'invested' into my '84 318i.

What kind of condition is the car in now? If it's really nice, then I'd say that you've done a pretty good job.

That's the stupidest thing I have heard in a while....

You have put in 9k for a car that you can buy mint for less than 1500.00 here in Socal.

What exactly ended up being 9000.00 dollars that got put into your car?

[M42Technik]

Bought my car for a solid $2,750. Needed new tires for $320, new brakes and pads for $500, and fixing a faulty idle unit that cutoff in neutral, came to a total of $4,780.

I've got alot of graduation money so I'm paying back $3,100.

I've put $1,550 into it, including repairs that were important to the actual running of the car, ellipsoids, SSK, euro stuff, M-Tech II valence.

Getting into the E30 game, I've made $475 in sales. So $1,550 minus $475 = $1,075.

Much, much more to come into my car.

[KenC]

Over $9k has been 'invested' into my '84 318i.

What kind of condition is the car in now? If it's really nice, then I'd say that you've done a pretty good job.

That's the stupidest thing I have heard in a while....

You have put in 9k for a car that you can buy mint for less than 1500.00 here in Socal.

What exactly ended up being 9000.00 dollars that got put into your car?

Probably half of that $9k is labor. Mechanically, the car wasn't in good shape when I bought it. Nearly everything under the hood has been replaced, including the engine. Considering I'll never sell the car and it gets 30+ mpg (in the city), I don't think it's too bad of a ride. Plus I'm getting some M-tech I pieces soon.

[Den]

My E30 was paid in full and I enjoy the lack of a 250-450 note per month.

Exactly.
$1300 = about 5 months of payments on a new Honda. A new car is the only kind of car on which you won't have to spend $ for new parts. Would you rather spend $1300 / year on parts(annual amount should decrease after you get most stuff replaced) or $3-4k / year in payments on a new car that decreases in resale value by several thousand $ each year?