Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

I'm looking at aquiring my first Stagea within the next month. It will probably involve a road trip to QLD (as the prices here near Sydney are horrendous in comparison). In order to maximise the (very) limited time I have to pick the right car, is there any advice you guys can give me on what possible problems I need to look out for and how to detect them?

Also, I will be trying to test drive a few around Sydney before I head north. What should I expect from a stock Stagea? Firm or sloppy handling? Hard ride or cruisy? Where should I notice the boost coming in? etc...

Any advice you guys can give would be GREATLY appreciated!

TIA

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/60978-traps-for-the-unwary/
Share on other sites

G'day Tia,

I found the hadling to be a bit boaty around corners but firmish over bumps (if that makes sense !). Saying that they are really easy to drive.

With the boost, it's very linear in the Stagea when they are on stock boost. There isn't any rush of power or anything so at times it's hard to notice that your using it. If the boost has been wound up it'd be different though.

I'd check all the usual things when buying a car. Compare KM's on the clock to the wear of the interior and general condition. Get the car into a mechanic and up on a hoist so you can check it for wear on the suspension and oil leaks. Check for rust in all the usual places. Check all the electricals and A/C to make sure they are working etc..

J

make sure its what they say it is. there is now some rwd models available in aus i believe so if they say its awd check for the button and look for a transfer case one of the guys in NZ got burnt he bought a car thinking it was awd wife picked it up while he was away and he got back drove it and discovered he was short a few awd bits. you can guess his reaction. :)

just check all the usual things you would check on a car. check for all the bits like a cargo blind tool kit and a space saver spare tyre and check the treadwear on the spare test all the electrics. Listen to the engine to see if its running ok or if sounds a little rough which may suggest a non factory tune. check to see if there have been any aftermarket guages removed from the dash which may suggest its been tuned. Remember that the fuel here isnt up to the japanese specs so if it has been tuned in japan it may not run so well on our crappy fuels. Look to see if the passenger footwell kick panel has been removed and if so ask why and if the ecu is stock.

Check the colour of the exhaust emissions you never know there may be smoke when there shouldnt be. Just be very thorough and dont let the sales people puch you into the deal until your satisfied thats what you want.

good luck

Glenn

As Glenn said, make sure all the stuff is there. If I was buying one retail I would (for example) demand a cargo cover, they are so expensive to buy if you don't get one with the car.

They are 4wd so best to check the drive shafts and CV's, turn it in a tight circle a few times, both clockwise and anti clockwise in forward and reverse. This picks up the drive shaft issues. That said (like Skylines) Stageas have big drive train components, gearbox, diff drive shafts, wheel bearings etc.

Stageas are used a lot in snowy area in Japan, so check for snow chain damage in the wheel arches.

Mine had the usual in dash CD, radio, cassette plus a CD stacker in the boot. The CD in dash sKips badly, the stacker had no CD carrier so can't be used and the radio (even with a converter) is not so good. So I would suggest a good check of the sound system is in order.

That's about it, I have been using ours everyday, 7 days per week for the last month and it runs like a clock, everything works everytime as I would expect it to.:D

PS; My 2 local Subaru Forester GT owners hate me! :wassup:

Very true point on the standard head unit, take a cd along to test it all out, mine is a bit funny at times but when i first got it wouldnt work unless i turned the volume knob whilst i put the cd in! Mind you in most cases and like mine all that woudl need to happen is a laser clean...

Ill be putting a single DIN headunit in shortly, so then I can get aus radio stations as well :D

If your looking in Brisbane call the following guy to inspect a car for you, he charged $125 for my stagea and did an awesome full inspection, better then ive seen from racq and the alike.. His name is Michael from Automotive Vehicle Inspectors or something like that, they do a lot of inspections for fleet cars etc - 0418 729425.. Anyone in QLD write down this number, it will come handy for you :D

Also be certain to checkout AJM Motorsport if your in brisbane, I bought mine from there at a great price and great people to deal with.

If you can afford it get a Series 2... Neo6 engine and tiptronic auto and much nicer facelift. I have test driven a couple of both types and the ride and cornering of the Series 2 is supremely better than the Series1 - apparently they really tightened it up with the extra 30 or whatever stock kW from the Neo engine and introduction of manuals and tiptronic options. I took at right turn at a T-intersection on a test drive at just over 60km an hour and got hardly any body roll - justglued the whole way through the corner. :) Go the Series2!

If you can afford it get a Series 2... Neo6 engine and tiptronic auto and much nicer facelift.  I have test driven a couple of both types and the ride and cornering of the Series 2 is supremely better than the Series1 - apparently they really tightened it up with the extra 30 or whatever stock kW from the Neo engine and introduction of manuals and  tiptronic options.  I took at right turn at a T-intersection on a test drive at just over 60km an hour and got hardly any body roll - justglued the whole way through the corner.  :D  Go the Series2!

OK, I wil try and balance this, just a bit......

Our S1 cost ~$16K, for a similar S2 I would be looking at ~$30K. For the ~$14K difference I could get my S1 performing and handling better than an S2. In fact for less than half that, I'll bet I can.:)

OK, I wil try and balance this, just a bit......

Our S1 cost ~$16K, for a similar S2 I would be looking at ~$30K.  For the ~$14K difference I could get my S1 performing and handling better than an S2.  In fact for less than half that, I'll bet I can.:)

Im with you on that one as well, IMO not worth the extra $$ when they could be spent modifying your own to get some good go out of it and handling as well, and still be left with extra $$

Hence why I said "if you can afford it"... if you have the $$ - then always advisable to get latest model,lowest kms + highest specs your money can buy. Everyones purchase motivations are different - I aint gonna be engine modding mine that much - and very unlikely to go a bodykit - so for me it is the extra stock power, newer engine and its stock tuning/mapping capability, better stock look, better resale (as u said - series 1 ALREADY dropping to $16,000 while s2 is being quickly realised as a way to get a R34 Neo engine and 4WD for $5000 less than an R34 skyline RWD).

No way id go series 1 the way prices dropping unless u cant afford a series 2 - so just my opinion - go the series 2. Its like someone saying buy a stock commodore and whack heaps of mods on it rather than buy an SS... good luck with the resale comparison!

good luck with the resale comparison!

Too easy...........

For our S1, I paid $16K

They sell in yards for $20K

I keep it for 3 years

and sell it for $10K (50% retained value)

it cost me $6K to own for three years.

For an S2

Cost $30K from a yard

I keep it for 3 years

and sell it for $20K (67% retained value)

it cost me $10K to own for three years.

I do $5K in mods to the S1, but they all transfer over to my new $16K S2 in 3 years. I kept all the standard bits to swap them back, most of stuff isn't going to wear out. Except shocks and Bilsteins are easily serviceable.

Should I add interest on $30K compared to $16K? Either foregone or paid, it is the same result.:P

PS; I used 67% on the S2, which is a very generous retained value. I suspect it might be closer to 55%, but even at 67%, the S1 still is better value.

Hey, Rust under mirrors discovered, now what?

Anyone know if its just surface rust or is it the more serious cancer from the inside out type?

I'd like to know before I start digging.

If you can't see the source of the rust, then it is likely to be an inside job. Like bubbles with intact paint over them. If it is rust you can see (as in yellow/orange) with no paint on it, then it is surface rust. Clean it up iwht w wire brush, undercoat and paint.

Post up pictures if you can:cheers:

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


  • 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...