Thinking of trading in/up

[Micah]

Ok, Kooldino and a few others here are going to probably yell at me with "I told you so" and stuff like that - but here goes.

I'm thinking of trading in my 2002.5 Protege ES for a 2003(.5?) Mazdaspeed Protege. I just called a dealership that has one, probably will swing by there during the week.

My car currently has 40,000 miles on it, and while it runs fine - it's slow. I want something faster. I was planning on spending around 8k on a 2nd car, something old, but quick - but then there's maintenance.

So, I started thinking about picking up a used MSP.

Here's the things I'm curious about.

The clunk - was it ever fixed?

The firmware - how can I find out if it's been flashed.

And, the price - they are asking like 18k (better believe I'll be trying to beat them down on that price)

I owe like 6100 on my car, they are offering 8k on a trade in. Not great - but then - heheeheh - as some of you know, my car wasn't exactly babied.

The one I'm looking at is silver, and has 16k miles on it. What do you think, should I make the jump?

[NRRfrogmanP5]

i say go for it...i kick myself for not gettin a msp when i had the chance after my first p5 was totalled but yeah try and get that price down

[Protege52003]

good that you are not losing any money on your ES.....i wish that i could trade my car in and not lose any money on it.....especially to get a MSP

[Petes6669]

u shouldn't have bought an automatic...that's where all you're power is being lost...if you want a slow car come drive my '00 SE 1.6...ugh...it's 5 spd but still slow as shit...But if i had ur opportunity I'd say go for it..the MSP is definately a better car

[Micah]

I like the fact that I can just swap over all my stereo equipment - I know that's an odd thing to care about - but - it is important.

[Matthew]

what happened to the idea about the evo etc

[Micah]

decided I eventually wanna get a house - and I don't wanna spend all my money.

I work 3 jobs, make about 75k a year right now. I'm just going nuts with a slow car. I'm either going to hop on the MSP or just pay off my car, and buy something used like an old mustang or camaro (which I have experience with) or the Merkur XR4ti that MPNick has at the shop with like every upgrade known to man on it.

[Micah]

Unfortunately, the more I think about the money, the more I talk myself out of the MSP. My car is 6100 away from actually being owned by me instead of MAC. Then I can lower the insurance. If I buy a 2nd car, which is used - I can list the other car as the primary driver and my insurance drops even lower (in theory). The thing is, if I buy the MSP, it will have a warranty, and I won't have to worry about it much. Then again - being on this forum, and being close friends with MPNick, I'd end up modifying it for sure. I figure the MSP would take me right back into $300+/month car payments. Where as the Protege I currently own will be paid off by the end of March - possibly sooner (if I could stop spending money on toys and x-mas). If I keep my protege, then save up 8k in 4 or 5 months to pick up something else - probably the wiser decision.

The problem is self control.

Oh, and I'm at over 40,000 miles, still on the stock dunlops - gotta replace them before the snow gets on the ground. If I was to trade the car in, I wouldn't bother replacing the tires. Yeah, I know - I'm talking about a very small thing in the long run, but - it's on my mind.

[I_Vtec]

I didn't pay that for my new MSP. That's BS.

[LASERBLUE135]

OK, I own an msp and they rock, you want one. the 18K is crazy, a 5K mile silver PERFECT car sold on ebay today for 13,100, not that you should expect to pay that, but I paid a lot less for my brand new speed. Do consider ebay or autotrader.com. even if you had to pay 500.00 or so to ship it, or take a day off of work to pick it up you'd probably save a lot over what you would pay locally. That's the best way to go about it now ...(us lucky few got them very cheap new because of the rebates on the last few sold) so expect to pay around 15K total for a 20K or less mile car.

[Akaveli]

Don't get a MSP. But another ES model an turbo it. Your car will be faster then the MSP and you can easily work on the cars suspension to match the MSP or even make it better. Overall you'll still be paying less and getting much more.

[Akaveli]

buy*

[DiS]

Hey man, more power to you. I say do it(cool)

[lasermp5]

I say go for the evo if you can swing it... hell you only live once!

[Ryoga28]

The clunk - was it ever fixed?

The firmware - how can I find out if it's been flashed.

And, the price - they are asking like 18k (better believe I'll be trying to beat them down on that price)

The klunk is still not fixed. Most people, who are currently using the latest bushings (156E), are getting them replaced more than once. So far the most promising fix, is Micaspeed!'s klunk fix accompanied with the energy suspension bushings.

To find out if it has been flashed, you could either asked the dealership to hook it up to their computer to see which version is on the car. Or you could ask them to check the VIN to see what work was previously done on the car.

18k for a MSP is way too high.

Good luck with yopur final decision.

[J dragon]

Shoot for 18K you could get a used Mazda6 >_<...there is a number 1 rule in Car trading..NEVER TRADE IN A CAR YOU STILL OWE MONEY ON. in the end, you'll get cheated