Question about milage

[spikey]

hello. I'm planning to buy a S15 and and doing stage one tuning when I got the car. (exhaust, intercooler, increase boost etc). what's is the 'save' millage on a car for doing these modification. i mean is it save for me to do it on a 100,000km car? or should i spent a bit more and get a car with lower millage around 50-60,000km maybe? Another question, what is your take on buying modded car? mostly mild mods, nothing involving engine internals (intercooler, piping, coilovers). right now I'm looking at a 100,000km modded car (around $2500 worth of parts) and 51,000km standard S15. both have the same price. also, i live in japan, so MOT, importing, etc wont be a problem. thx in advance

 

[Nicely]

Depends how hard a life its had really. Mine had 99000km when I got it and has been very reliable running what it has now for over two years

 

[Ozone]

I'm currently living in Japan.
I bought my Silvia from a friend. The car came with full service history, low mileage (50k km) and no mods.
Having had my AE86 modded last time I lived in Japan and my mate having his S13 modded too I personally would steer well clear of any modded car unless they were mild or done by a reputable tuner.

In my experience they are either totally professional or boggers - they make things work but it isn't nessesarily working correctly.
My mate's S13 gauges he had fitted have all stopped work due to some mysterious electric problem. He also had the car running funny in Japan, tuned out the garage removed and forgot to refit the Apexi Power FC boost controller so he was getting about 1.8 bar instead of 1.1!
My AE86 had 2.5k spent on the engine but power only went from 120 to 140bhp, it went from 30 to less that 10mpg, spat fuel out the exhaust at idle and when cold would spit flames out the induction system at more than 1/2 throttle! I wasn't too impressed having waited for 5 months for the work but the car had a boat to the UK to catch. BTW we didn't go to any old tuner, this garage had actually been recommended to us!

 

[spikey]

Looks like I'm skipping the 51000km one and save sum money that i can spend on mods \o/, because I read Nicely's tuning guide, and it pretty much what I'm planning to do on the S15. . Thx for the story Ozone, your AE86 sounds just like my R33 , it's my 'experiment' car though, did everything myself . Also, now I'm DEFINITELY going to stay away from heavily moded cars, always thought Japaneses are the most honest peeps :/.

 

[meddler]

IMO if you want it done properly, get a stock car and mod it yourself. You can never be 100% sure of what someone else has done. The down side is that it will cost you more money and usually a lot of time..

 

[JEZ 8553]

My car was totally standard from Japan which i was more than happy with. Ive had no issues whatsoever as i know exactly what has been done on the car as ive done it all myself, no gremlins etc

 

[Nicely]

The recommendation of s15oc is to buy standard or near standard (exhaust, filter, front pipe, etc - stuff which can't be fooked up).