Hi all,
Been soaking up as much info from this forum as I can in preparation for buying a zed in December. The idea was to visit a few dealerships nearer the time so I can do a few test drives and get a feel for the car. That said I've been keeping an eye on the zeds for sale and one has just sprung up at a very tempting price that's within arms reach right now!
It's a 2008 HR (dat engine ) GT with just over 100K on the clock, asking price is just under £7K as the guy has had some rough luck in work and a job change has meant a large pay cut. He sounds like a classic sufferer of zeditus so I'm confident it's been well loved while in his care (ie he's run it on premium petrol, got that question in perfectly as he thought I was talking about running cost but I was actually checking for piston damage!). That said he's not had it for long so the previous owners will have had more impact on the car than he has. It's got a new clutch so that's one less thing that will need replacing. I've just read about the paper oil gallery gasket that might have wrecked shire350Z's pride and joy so I'll also be looking at the oil pressure along with printing out http://www.350z-uk.c...6-buyers-guide/ to run through each step of those 2 buying guides.
By the looks of things
15psi cold on tick over
3psi hot tick over, 50psi revved
Is a massive red flag, though perhaps something that could be seen to right away for the replacement updated gaskets.
A healthy zed should read
110psi cold tick over
28psi hot tick over 100 revved
(taken from http://www.350z-uk.c...ure-the-answer/)
It's all just random words and numbers to me at this point so please let me know how much I should take them for gospel or how much salt should be added. I'm a computer guy by trade and your typical tyre kicker when it comes to trying to spot a good car vs a bad car! Scares the bejeebers out of me knowing just how little knowledge I have, but at least I can swat up with this forum so I'm not as blind as I have been in the past.
I am a bit unsure as to the actual feel of the car. I've just got nothing to compare it with. Only had front wheel drive cars with mediocre power so far so everything is going to feel completely different.
Oh I did a cheap HPI check which came back with a big rack of green "we have no record of..." for all categories on www.mycarcheck.com. Did that before I picked up the phone just to check it wasn't a write off. Think I'll do an RAC or AA one with all the options. There are a few oddities, advert says 3 owners HPI says 4. He said it had been on autotrader all week but it only popped up for me over the weekend (been checking every day bar Saturday!). I think I might be able to squeeze one dealer test drive in today so I have 1 other zed to compare it to.
This week is going to be manic with work, I'm based in Kent, will be hitting head office in Hampshire, then it's off up to West Yorkshire and there is a 3rd place to hit that is as yet undefined and the car is in Wales! So my cunning plan which is so cunning you could pin a tail on it and call it a fox, is to try and fit a test drive in between head office and Yorkshire. Seems to make sense when I'll already be half way across the country at that point. The only issue is it will give me about 30 mins of daylight left unless I can wangle and early home time.
If it all goes well I could in theory buy it as early as Saturday!
The pics aren't too hot, but that makes me think more newbie with a phone cam than deliberately trying to take poor pics. Seen enough pics taken from mobile phones that are not rotated properly on dating sites for that not to worry me too much.
Anyway, that's a holy-wall-of-text-batman so I'll try to wrap up. I'm quite nervous about it all, not entirely sure if I'm thinking with my head. My plan of getting into a position where I have several zeds to pick from to get the best specimen seems to have gone up in smoke and I guess I'd just like some feedback from people who live and breathe zeds.
http://www.autotrade...s_old&logcode=p
That's the ad, the front tyres are new so no chance to check for feathering, but that sounds simple enough to fix. It's only got one key, I need to check if that is 1 key + the master, can anything be done without a master? As mentioned the clutch is new and the guy was over the moon with how much better she felt after that. What else am I missing before I see it in the flesh?
If your eyes haven't glazed over by now, thanks for reading