How many miles on your upgraded suspension since install?
I just looked it up- installed at 66606 on 27 February 2012, so almost 80k miles. They've served me well. I've had no complaints other than the crappy plastic insulators between the springs and upper seats on the front struts that are supposed to act like Torrington bearings to eliminate spring twist noise but do nothing except crack and fall off after 100 miles. One of the shock inserts might be dead though. They're less than $100 each from BC, so a rebuild would refresh the whole set for another 80k+ miles for under $400, or even under $100 if you wanted to just replace one. I'm not sure it's bad yet though.
Hi! Bye
Sad to see you go but it's about that time. I'm in a similar situation. I'd say take off what's "easy" and sell the rest as a whole. There's effort/time/cost to list stuff and biggest risk "out of sight, out of mind"... Then again, why not just keep it as a beater car?
EDIT:
OTOH, it is much easier to sell a stock car. What you may consider a tasteful and well executed mod is seen by the typically buyer as "this car ain't right". First hand experience when I sold my manual '08. Once all mode were off, sold in 3 days (granted, price was also lower but not that much, IMO).
Yeah exactly. Much easier to sell a stock car, especially on the open market. The only people that'd want it as is I imagine are the readers on this forum, and only then if they want the exact mods that I put onto it. What price did you sell for? I didn't post any expected sale price on mine. As for effort, it's not a big deal to me. I have all the stock parts, except for front rotors and pads. I don't consider anything that I have on the car as a large effort item to remove- the stereo will probably take the longest to return to stock out of all of them. The mods all WENT in with a bunch of pictures and pausing to make sure all the angles were good- I'll still write up everything at a later date. The NC Miata wheels will stay on simply because it's not worth the cost to buy OEM wheels and put tires on them- but if anyone wants to trade me out so I can make sure the nice lightweight 17s go to someone that'll appreciate them, I'm game.
As far as keeping it around for a beater, this is what the garage looks like now, with hopefully one more change within the month:
2016 Kia Soul MT <-- this replaced the MZ5, big pile of boxes sitting in the house to go into it since MT Souls come with no goodies
2008 Nissan Frontier Crew MT 4x4 with 33s and a mini leveling lift, tons of stereo, and useful bed mods <-- this is the beater
2003 Honda S2000, will hopefully turn into a 2013-2016 Scion FRS or Subaru BRZ in a few weeks
1990 Honda CRX <-- mad scientist project car
Yeah no need or even remote desire to keep the 5 as a beater with all the rest of the stuff hanging around the garage. Although I did have a grand master plan to get a beat up 5 and turn it into a traditional front engine rear drive setup with mega power- seemed like there was enough room in the dash area to accommodate the front of a transmission tunnel, and enough room in the rear for a pumpkin and RWD suspension transplant. That would be a fun 6 seater with sliding doors...
Bummer.
There are only a few of us long-timers left.
What's on the replacement short list?
To be truthful, your finished project will be more in demand in Lower Texas over the next few mos than it would be otherwise as other modded cars ended up underwater and starting over sucks. You know you won't get full replacement costs out of the mods, but considering the effort to remove everything...just some considerations to weigh.
Replacement short list- pull coilovers, put stock suspension back in. Guessing 2 hours. Rear camber arms and sway bar, maybe another hour. Pull brake upgrade, put new rotors and pads in up front (already bought), replace brake lines back to stock and bleed. Maybe 2 hours if I can get my son/wife to help turn the bleeder screws. Pull Pioneer head unit, amplifier, and speakers- another 2-3 hours since getting the dash tweeters out sucks and the rear 6x8 access really sucks. Plus gotta pull the huge 4 gauge wiring out. Maybe leave the head unit since it adds bluetooth phone capability, and there's a bluetooth flaw that won't come up until after the sale since it only happens once every few days, but then that's more work since I have to connect it to the stock speaker lines in the dash harness. Not too bad though. The HIDs will take all of 5 minutes to yank (need to buy cheapo bulbs), and the K&N will take about 30 seconds.
Why are you considering parting it out? Is there something significantly wrong with it? How much do you think you'd be looking to get if you sold it as it sits?
Considering parting out since selling a complete modded car is usually a losing proposition- you make more money back selling a stock car and then the mods separately. Nothing wrong with it, just aging and wife wanted something new and taller because the roads are starting to really look like crap around here. Oh, I do have that damn clunking sound in the front passenger side. I think it must be one of the BC shock cartridges since I've already replaced the sway bar bushings.
Altogether, I'd sell the whole thing for $6k to someone on the forums, since I know it would be appreciated with all the gear that's in it. Interested?
