ford as first car...

[PHATR32]

man, go for a laser or a mazda 323, same engine, differant shell.

steve

[saff_cossie]

Probe - steer away from. Not much in the way of aftermarket parts unless you import from the US. Exactly same scenario as the UK has. Next door neighbour but one had one and had more than his fair share of problems despite the car being brand new. Wouldnt recommend one.

[Rekin]

Thankyou all for your honest opinions.

I was thinking of purchasing a manual probe to drive for 3~4 years until i am off my P's. The probe matched my requirements as its cheap and still looks nice Purchasing a $15,000 car would cost me an extra $8000, which could go towards the skyline in the future.

What are my chances of the car lasting 3 more years without any performance enhancing modifications?

Im sure the probe would be more reliable than an excel?

Thanks

- Patrick

[Viscount]

My toaster is more reliable than an excel.

[racsov500]

more reliable than an excel? are you serious?

i agree with revhead. stay away from the korean cars (i think) like daewoos kias ect. i have a friend who has a kia carneval. they were driving along and the fl wheel came off. this could happen to any car, but..

probes arent a bad looking car. theres one down the road from me, and it looks quite good. its blue so i like it.

whats ur budget? for around 10g, id get something local but of japanese backround. like a r31 sedan! there alot cheaper too....

[racsov500]

hmm. on second thought, there is probably a good reason why excel's sold so well. they appeal to...hmm...lets say, young ladies.

but there still crap.

[Viscount]

How about an older 180sx?

[racsov500]

thats not bad idea, although this formula-

import=high insurance, police attention, repair prices......

[OKBANANA]

Probe's arn't worth it all i've heared is bad things about them, such as what people have already said..., why not consider an older pulsar or something?

[boj01]

I bet all the people who bag Excels/Korean cars have never owned one or anything similar. I had one for 2 years when I first got my license, did the usual wank mods to it and drove it like Skaifey and it is still going strong. It was driven hard day in day out, but I also maintained it. So don't knock it till you try it.

It was was also good because it gave me a chance to save for my DR30. I admit that the earlier X3 Excels which weren't DOHC had a bad build quality, but some people talk out their arse some times about how bad cars when in actual fact they really aren't that bad at all!

[KILL HSV]

y not an 88 twin cam corolla, good first car, and for that money u could get wheels and system, and that way doesn't matter if u crash it cos u don't lose much, so many ppl crash their first car, also their fairly quick for what they are, and almost unkillable engine (almost), mate had one with 250 000km's and engine still ran well

[KILL HSV]

they are pretty bad, the reason they are cheap is because they use cheap parts and made in korea, would u buy korean parts for ur skyline? hell no, because they're crap.

the engines start to rattle at like 40 000 k's

[paulr33]

1989 r31, still a skyline, heaps of parts and easy stuff to give them some more power and cheap for full comp too, spend a few $ to make it nice inside then save for the R32,33,34 skyline later on. you could even find an r31 with an rb20det or rb25det or rb30et

[predator]

I bet all the people who bag Excels/Korean cars have never owned one or anything similar. I had one for 2 years when I first got my license, did the usual wank mods to it and drove it like Skaifey and it is still going strong. It was driven hard day in day out, but I also maintained it. So don't knock it till you try it.  

but will it still be doing that in 5 years and 200,000km ?

lol - regular servicing could help true, i think female drivers could have something to do with the high death rate

[Revhead]

Boj - Look at things from a mechanical point of view. They're built to a budget. Anywhere they could skimp, they did. They even put the cheapest, skinniest, nastiest tyres they could find, on the car. These things are dangerous in an emergency situation. Build quality is a foreign concept to them too. Look in/under a Kia/Daewoo/Hyundai etc and you'll be thankful you were never involved in an 'incident'...

Actually, there was a recall for Excels a few years back (and how's this for sound engineering practice?). The front subframe (which locates the suspension, brakes, just about everything in the front actually) is spot-welded to the floorpan, and in a few cases this had fallen off, leaving the driver with absolutely NO control of the vehicle. Hyundai's official fix for this? Drill one hole through this plate and the floorpan, put one pop rivet through. Omfg. Yet another example of saving a buck wherever it's absolutely possible.

And people wonder why I'll never buy one.

[predator]

just think of it this way - the thrill and danger of driving an Excel at 100km/hr with the chance of catastrophic failure will prepare you for the excitement of driving a turbo skyline at 200km/hr one day!

[LOW25T]

na dude, probes arn't all that bad, nice lookin car, go reasonably well... the only reason u don't see many around is cause they never sold well when new (way to pricy).

if u do go ahead with one, find one with lo-ish kays and u should be good as gold:)

[LBR33]

How about a EF XR6 they are about 10k

[racsov500]

still rekon a '89 rb30e r31 sedan. good value for money, and almost driftable. (LSD, suspension ect). Cheap as chips too.

[JezR31]

The R31 skylines are great cars, reliable, good potential, rwd, decent size, power is ok.

Its hard to find one with low kms these days, alot are around the +170,000km area.