Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Hey Guys,

I have had my Stagea for about a year now.

I live at Lewiston and travel to Regency Park every day for work, traveling about 480KMs a week.

I am about to hit the 150K mark on the stag, Most of the cars i have every had have had under 150K as i usually sold them by that mark.

The problem is, i really like the stagea, and happy with mine, even thinking about getting new wheels.

The question i have is, how many KMs on a stagea is too much, how may KMs most people have, and the amount of problems that come up when they start clocking up the KMs.

I have coilovers, and all new sway bars, sway bar links and rubbers.

Most of the motor is stock, just a pod, intercooler and shift kit

Any advice and insight would be great.

Thanks

Kris

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/443376-kms-how-many-is-too-many/
Share on other sites

If you've spent some money on maintaining it, and you love it, why not just drive it until it dies? Keep up the fluid/brake pad/rotor/shock absorber changes over time and it'll serve you well for years. If the engine dies it's not like RBs aren't thick on the ground, and autos can be rebuilt and strengthened. Really I see no reason not to hold onto a car until its chassis is consumed by tin worm.

We've followed this policy with our VS Commodore, and now it's worth practically nothing but only costs us maybe $2-300 per year in maintenance for another year or so of bogantastic motoring. There's no way you're going to treat your Stag as badly as we treat the Commie so expect at least 300,000km out of it.

TL;DR: A lot more than 150,000km if you maintain it.

If you like you could get your odometer set to 200,000ks now so you can see your car won't explode because of a number on the dash :)

its not that, i just know of certain cars that as soon as ya rack up the KMs shit fails.

I don't plan on keeping it till its done 300ks, but as soon as the KMs get up there i am also worried about re sale value, from looking at the net the c34 has dropped in value a lot in the last year

If you like to change cars every few years for something newer, theres no way around the fact that you will pay for that luxury, with taxes and inspections, rego changing and depreciation. I figure its most economical to buy a good 2nd hand vehicle, maintain and run it until it dies.

Of course you can never be 100% sure whether you will get a vehicle that will have many problems in its life. Even though the stagea is quite heavy on fuel, the old technology seems to be simple and rugged.

If youve done major work on the engine or suspesion, like the 100k service, then you might as well get your money's worth out of the components.

Its not going to all of a sudden fall apart. but obviously components do wear out, so you replace them.

Resale value is going to depreciate no matter what car you have, so kind of a non concern really.

If you want a car that wont devalue, buy one for $1000 and get your money back in 5 years =)

Bushes get worn, distorted and loose. The suspension arms aren't difficult to fix, but something like the rear subframe bushes are much more difficult. If you haven't installed polyurethane subframe collars, that would be a good idea. The reduced movement of the subframe should help extend the life of the factory bushes. However, if you need to replace completely torn ones, you have to take the subframe out.

My Stagea just had its 240,000km service (every 5k oil and filter).

Only things that's let me down is the rad started to leak from the tanks.

I've done timing set and seals as a precaution, and water pump.

Other than that it's the tightest and smoothest running car I've ever owned. No rattles or squeaks.

Agree with everyone on here, k's don't mean anything. its all how the cars been looked after. My Stagea is nearing 230k and has (while in australia) been really well taken care of and you can tell. Seriously they are cheap cars for what they are, well worth fixing and keeping longer than 2-3 years.

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 think the concept is highlighting the various scenarios where thicker oil helps, and thicker oil potentially doesn't help and only generates heat and costs power, in turn for safety which isn't actually any safer (unless you're going real hot). If anything this does highlight why throwing Castrol 10w-60 for your track days is always a solid, safe bet. 
    • Jason should have shown a real viscosity vs temp chart. All the grades have very little viscosity difference at full operating temperature.
    • Oops... I meant to include the connector  view... BR/W - power from fuse L/W - motor negative to fan control amp (and off to HVAC pin19) OR/B - PWM signal (from HVAC pin20) B --  ground  
    • Yep, if you are applying filler it sounds like there is something wrong with the body lol. Safe to assume there is going to be a lot of sanding going on if your still applying fillers.  Picture a perfect bare metal panel, smooth as glass. You lay down your primer, it's perfect. (why are you going to sand it?) You lay down the colour and clear, it's perfect. No sanding at all took place and you've got a perfectly finished panel.  You won't be chasing your tail, sounds like you were prepping to start laying filler. If your happy with the body after the sanding, there is some bare metal exposed and some areas with primer, no issues at all, start laying the filler. You are safe to lay filler on bare metal or primer (of course check your technical data sheet as usual for what your filler is happy to adhere to).  This isn't a 100% correct statement. There is primer that is happy to adhere to smooth bare metal. There are fillers that are happy to adhere to smooth bare metal. Just make sure you're using the right materials for the job.  Typically if you are using filler, you would go primer, colour and clear. I've never seen any instances before where someone has laid colour over body filler (maybe this happens, but I haven't seen it before). So your plan sounds pretty normal to me. 
    • I don't think there's any way someone is push starting this car.. I honestly can barely move it, and moving it and steering it is just flat out not possible. I'm sure it is, but needs a bigger man than me. I have a refurbished starter now. The starter man was quite clear and consise showing me how nothing inside a starter really should contribute to slow cranking, and turned out that for the most part... my starter was entirely fine. Still, some of the wear items were replaced and luckily it didn't show any signs of getting too hot, being unfit for use, etc. Which is 'good'. I also noticed the starter definitely sounded different, which is a bit odd considering nothing should have really changed there.... Removed and refit, and we'll pretend one of the manifold bolts didn't fully tighten up and is only "pretty" tight. GM only wants 18ft/lb anyway. I also found a way to properly get my analog wideband reading very slightly leaner than the serial wideband. There's Greg related reasons for this. The serial output is the absolute source of truth, but it is a total asshole to actually stay connected and needs a laptop. The analog input does not, and works with standalone datalogging. Previously the analog input read slightly richer, but if I am aiming at 12.7 I do not want one of the widebands to be saying 12.7 when the source of truth is 13.0. Now the source of truth will be 12.65 and the Analog Wideband will read 12.7. So when I tune to 12.7 it'll be ever so slightly safer. While messing with all of this and idling extensively I can confirm my car seems to restart better while hot now. I did add an old Skyline battery cable between the head and the body though, though now I really realise I should have chosen the frame. Maybe that's a future job. The internet would have you believe that this is caused by bad grounds. In finding out where my grounds actually were I found out the engine bay battery post actually goes to the engine, as well as a seperate one (from the post) to the body of the car. So now there's a third one making the Grounding Triangle which is now a thing. I also from extensive idling have this graph. Temperature (°C) Voltage (V) 85 1.59 80 1.74 75 1.94 70 2.1 65 2.33 60 2.56 55 2.78 50 2.98 45 3.23 40 3.51 35 3.75 30 4.00   Plotted it looks like this. Which is actually... pretty linear? I have not actually put the formula into HPTuners. I will have to re-engage brain and/or re-engage the people who wanted more data to magically do it for me. Tune should be good for the 30th!
×
×
  • Create New...