Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

hey all i was just wanting to know about

1990 NISSAN SKYLINE GXE

im thinking about it for a first car money is very tight at the moment so needing something cheap and reliable, so i thought i would ask here if they are good, reliable, strong, cheap to fix, low on fuel, cheap rego, cheap insurance, all round good cars?

here is a few pics of the ones i have been looking at

post-30287-1154347369.jpg

post-30287-1154347388.jpg

post-30287-1154347432.jpg

post-30287-1154347455.jpg

post-30287-1154347493.jpg

post-30287-1154347509.jpg

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/128331-first-car/
Share on other sites

There is no doubt, it is a good car. You need to do some budgeting though. When i got my first car, it was only a four cylinder. This saved me a lot on petrol. Not saying that the skyline chews through fuel, (nothing like a 5.7l V8) but I did feel the difference of six cylinders when I got my R33. I think its worth paying a little extra for, but the final decision is up to you. I'd say its a good first car. Good luck with the car hunt, let us know how you go. :happy:

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/128331-first-car/#findComment-2371825
Share on other sites

Yes the R31 is a nice reliable first car, one of my mates got one about 6 years ago when we we're still in school - looks exactly the same as the second on in those pics. He still drives it today. I've been thinking of getting one myself lately and getting an LPG conversion so I can run it as a daily.

Just take your time and wait until you find the right one :happy:

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/128331-first-car/#findComment-2371852
Share on other sites

better than what i had, but in terms of fuel costs, nothing beats my little "dune buggy" aka 1982 honda civic. If I recall correctly in 35 ltrs i had achieved around 500klms (which is around 7ltrs per 100). It would probably have been better when it was aroudn 10 years old, but hey cant complain.

The only down side apart from the space and all that is the power. The 1.3 took ages to get to 100km/h - so when I got the r33, it took me a few days to get used to the rapid response of the throttle....

If you want to get a good 80's skyline, make sure that the car has been regularly serviced - you dont want it eating up fuel - not now anyway....

Edited by emsta2003
Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/128331-first-car/#findComment-2386255
Share on other sites

r31 probably not a bad choice... Just being an old car get it checked out, find out what needs doing to it, and how much its going to cost before handing over any money. The fuel cost wont kill you, fixing stuff will.

A corolla wouldnt be bad either. Cant kill them. Same thing tho hey. Old car need to know what needs doing.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/128331-first-car/#findComment-2386265
Share on other sites

Yeah great car, i previosly had a R31 silloutte burgandy over silver, got it off parents who owned it since new, had 500,000 k's on clock and still was running awsome, not a problem exept power steering pump gave up, had some mods, extractors, 2.5 inch custom exhaust twin pipes and power and torque chips in ecu, got bout 400k's a tank, you cant go wrong with the r31 i think, they can take a beating, we looked after that car well it looked after us great choice and you will be very happy with it and if need parts the gxe and all that are good with finding parts unlike the silloutte and gts. But you got a great car there mate

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/128331-first-car/#findComment-2393387
Share on other sites

I had an r31 GXE when I was about 20 for my second car.. did me well..

back then they were in the daggy basket that nobody cared about. Now it seems they're a popular first car.

I had a VL commodore, dont buy one of those. They share the same engine and trans as the R31. Awesomely reliable! Although the commodore rusted out and had a terrible interior. Things to check are power steering racks ( i think , make sure no leaks) and if its an auto, check the overdrive works and engauges gears correctly.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/128331-first-car/#findComment-2399910
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • I came here to note that is a zener diode too base on the info there. Based on that, I'd also be suspicious that replacing it, and it's likely to do the same. A lot of use cases will see it used as either voltage protection, or to create a cheap but relatively stable fixed voltage supply. That would mean it has seen more voltage than it should, and has gone into voltage melt down. If there is something else in the circuit dumping out higher than it should voltages, that needs to be found too. It's quite likely they're trying to use the Zener to limit the voltage that is hitting through to the transistor beside it, so what ever goes to the zener is likely a signal, and they're using the transistor in that circuit to amplify it. Especially as it seems they've also got a capacitor across the zener. Looks like there is meant to be something "noisy" to that zener, and what ever it was, had a melt down. Looking at that picture, it also looks like there's some solder joints that really need redoing, and it might be worth having the whole board properly inspected.  Unfortunately, without being able to stick a multimeter on it, and start tracing it all out, I'm pretty much at a loss now to help. I don't even believe I have a climate control board from an R33 around here to pull apart and see if any of the circuit appears similar to give some ideas.
    • Nah - but you won't find anything on dismantling the seats in any such thing anyway.
    • Could be. Could also be that they sit around broken more. To be fair, you almost never see one driving around. I see more R chassis GTRs than the Renault ones.
    • Yeah. Nah. This is why I said My bold for my double emphasis. We're not talking about cars tuned to the edge of det here. We're talking about normal cars. Flame propagation speed and the amount of energy required to ignite the fuel are not significant factors when running at 1500-4000 rpm, and medium to light loads, like nearly every car on the road (except twin cab utes which are driven at 6k and 100% load all the time). There is no shortage of ignition energy available in any petrol engine. If there was, we'd all be in deep shit. The calorific value, on a volume basis, is significantly different, between 98 and 91, and that turns up immediately in consumption numbers. You can see the signal easily if you control for the other variables well enough, and/or collect enough stats. As to not seeing any benefit - we had a couple of EF and EL Falcons in the company fleet back in the late 90s and early 2000s. The EEC IV ECU in those things was particularly good at adding in timing as soon as knock headroom improved, which typically came from putting in some 95 or 98. The responsiveness and power improved noticeably, and the fuel consumption dropped considerably, just from going to 95. Less delta from there to 98 - almost not noticeable, compared to the big differences seen between 91 and 95. Way back in the day, when supermarkets first started selling fuel from their own stations, I did thousands of km in FNQ in a small Toyota. I can't remember if it was a Starlet or an early Yaris. Anyway - the supermarket servos were bringing in cheap fuel from Indonesia, and the other servos were still using locally refined gear. The fuel consumption was typically at least 5%, often as much as 8% worse on the Indo shit, presumably because they had a lot more oxygenated component in the brew, and were probably barely meeting the octane spec. Around the same time or maybe a bit later (like 25 years ago), I could tell the difference between Shell 98 and BP 98, and typically preferred to only use Shell then because the Skyline ran so much better on it. Years later I found the realtionship between them had swapped, as a consequence of yet more refinery closures. So I've only used BP 98 since. Although, I must say that I could not fault the odd tank of United 98 that I've run. It's probably the same stuff. It is also very important to remember that these findings are often dependent on region. With most of the refineries in Oz now dead, there's less variability in local stuff, and he majority of our fuels are not even refined here any more anyway. It probably depends more on which SE Asian refinery is currently cheapest to operate.
    • You don't have an R34 service manual for the body do you? Have found plenty for the engine and drivetrain but nothing else
×
×
  • Create New...