Antlaw

Just thought I'd share my Z story with you all. Last year (March 2012) I bought my 03 350z Track from someone on this forum. I was super excited. It was supposedly fully built and blah blah blah. Was supposed to have a JWT 700bb TT kit on it. At first, I had no complaints. The car made great power. The previous owner assured me everything worked in the car the way it was supposed to. Oh, I also should add the fact that I'm military and I was stationed in Belgium when I bought the car. I paid $1200 for a plane ticket all the way to New Jersey just to buy this car, drive it to my sister's house in Alabama, then fly back to Belgium. On the long trip to Alabama it was perfect. I was so happy to have my dream car. Well, 3rd day of owning the car, the turbo blew. There are no shops in my city that have experience building modified vehicles. I called 5 different shops and finally came across one who said they could fix it. I stayed in touch with the shop while I was still in Belgium and they assured me it would be done when I returned from my overseas duty. I got back home in the beginning of September and my car wasn't even touched. They didnt even pull my turbo off. I had to overnight my turbo to JWT to get repaired and over night it back which cost me $1700 total after shipping charges. The shop cost me another $1300 in labor. Oh, here's the good stuff... the turbo wasn't from the 700bb series kit. It was the smaller 530bb kit. At this point I'm pissed. After that my car is cutting off at boost like it lost the tune or something. Turns out I needed a new alternator ($448). My car was barely ready in time for me to drive it to California to report to my new duty station. I get to Oklahoma City and hit a bad spot in the road, pop my tire, and bend a rim ($300 later I'm back on the road). After getting to Bakersfield, CA my engine took a dump...spun main bearing. At this point I want to set my car on fire. 4 Months have gone by and I was finally able to purchase a stage 1 motor from IPP. This is where my car sits at the moment. Pulling old motor, waiting for my IPP motor.

Total cost of this vehicle so far... initially $16,500, $3000 blown turbo repair, $4900 for new motor, $300 new tire/rim repair, $448 new alternator, $500 for Osiris flash, and just guessing at around $1000 for tune after its put together.

All in all almost a $30k car by the time I'm done. Oh and it wasn't built properly. I'm finding **** loose everywhere, clamps missing...I hate and love this car.

werdnash2002

sorry to hear about your experience man. I have had friends buy cars/ jet ski's etc modded and its always turned out the same way as your experience (costing almost as much or more than starting from scratch). It will always be cheaper to buy a modded car than to build one yourself, but the problem is most heavily modified things either are not done right or are going to be significantly less reliable than an unmodified car.

deeno

iTrader: (1)

That's why alot of people refuse to buy modded cars

Best of luck OP

Cux350z

iTrader: (162)

hence why you build it yourself. Even the best built cars will still have hidden treasures just waiting to be uncovered.

Also why modded cars do not add value. 16k was a good price for a stock car with a tt kit...much less being built. Should have known something was up.

Who was the member?

zakmartin

My grandfather used to say, "When you buy a used car, you're buying someone else's problem."

I guess he was right.

SR71

iTrader: (1)

https://my350z.com/forum/cars-for-sa...ilside-nj.html

superchargedg

iTrader: (4)

Man that sucks to hear about the problems...but good luck.

TuckerE36

iTrader: (3)

Yeah RYG388 sold the car to the OP! No wonder he wanted to get rid of it! Damn thing was a ticking time bomb to fall apart!

Sorry for the Z you bought from RYG388 OP.

jv350z

iTrader: (6)

Buying any used car is a huge gamble. Buying a used TT Z is gambling with live grenades.

V1P

Comically i feel your pain and i have a very simmilar story

Bought my 03 with a Powerlab turbo, everything checked out and was amazing for the first two months. Then the car began misfiring like crazy, went to two seperate shops and after quite a bit of money for repair bills and nothing done (One shop got it running a bit better but was still missfiring), long story short i drove it for another 3k miles and blew the motor

Spun rod bearing like you and here i was ... blown motor .... dreams of a built motor ..so i started saving ...saved quite a bit of money over a few months (Im military also btw so u know how its unrealistic to save money with our sallary especially if ure married) and there i was ..found a stage 2 block for sale ...was doing some prep work before buying it and found out that my turbo is gone aswell (1 inch shaft play)! Probably got messed up when the engine blew ... all probably due to UTEC ECU (I guess there is a reason they discontinued them?)

Along with numerous other things that i needed to do to get the car running right, oh and i needed a new trans since 1 month after i bought the car 3rtd and 5th gear started grinding ...


Anyways similar storie bro, what i have found out is that moding them is extremelly expensive....with a built block and a nice turbo setup u need a hell of alot other reinforcing mods .... i myself after this experience am out of playing with moding 350s, taking her back to stock and selling her,

Do your research, decide which engine management u want and if u want to spend the 400+ for tunes every time u do something. Besides...Barsdale, are you Airforce?

P.S Anyone want remains of a powerlab kit? everything comes including a blown turbo.... Original MSRP is 8k or something like that ... willing to let go for fraction of that cost. (new turbo is 1k)

Theres my 2 cents...sorry for invading ur topic with this rent but i completelly feel you, my suggestion is just take her back to stock and get rid of her ...honestlly it has been a complete nightmare for metoo

terrasmak

iTrader: (8)

Thats why i build my own car , and a TT Z is a play toy , not a daily driver. You should haved been towing it to your next duty station with your truck.

WSchli1672

Feel bad for you on the bad buy.. I am also military USMC 22 yrs. I bought my 350Z Track Model brand new. It's modded, but by one of the best - ZCargarage.com (Rob 0wner). He builds, mods, does regular maintenance on Z's, GTR's, roadsters, G's, etc. He fully backs his work and is a great place to have the car done. Too bad we didn't know each other then, I could have helped you out greatly and save you $. I have 491hp and is CA State Legal, which is where I'm at. Never any problems at all. If cars are done properly by a good garage and "want a be shops" then they will not be a problem. I do annual runs to/through Carmel Valley/Pebble Beach with buffets on Pebble Beach, which this year will be in Oct 2013. We've had 100+ cars on the run. I am the Area Representative FOR ZONC (Z Owners of Northern California) for Santa Cruz/Monterey County. Many people know my car and the great garage I use in Santa Clara. By the way I am in Salinas, approx. 20 miles from Monterey if you ever want to get together. I can introduce you to excellent places for engine work, body work, sterio shop, etc. that will get you discounts on many things as they are sponsors of mine. Just pm me if you need help or anything. It's a tough story to hear about the jwt turbo. I even acquired 8 JWT Twin turbos for members on forum straight through the distributor back a few years ago at a big discount shipped straight to them from a shop in Chicago. Lastly people do like to mod their cars, but bottom line is they take short cuts, or think they are experst --- "bad news". Mod engine, includes much more additional things to be done. I really enjoy mine and I put the money into it to have it done right.

Jah70

Honestly man, this is why I would never buy a car that someone else modified or from someone I knew was within my age group. I'd rather pay top dollar for a completely stock car that a old guy drove than a car with 500 horsepower that a 21 year old modified. I hope everything works out for you man.

Nismo350z#0310

iTrader: (1)

Could have guess you were in the military. I'm also guessing you've blown a lot your deployment money. It's the same sad story over and over. A vast majority of military member coming out of the armed forces are broke, some of those homeless. 43% of all homeless males are veterans. 400,000 veterans are homeless at some time in a year. This spawns from several things including young and foolish age, bad financial decisions, inexperienced financial responsibilities and poor education. You are no different. My advice- cut your losses and move on from the car. Look inside and see what corrections need to be made, take your experience and learn from it and then move on.

Think about it, you have a 10 year old car with no real 'collect-ability' value to it. It's private property value is around $10,000. So far you've tripled that and have put $30,000 into it.

The money you are making needs to support you in the future. Otherwise, you are going to come out with no education, no prior working experience and no money to support you in whatever endeavors you deal with in order to live civilian life. I've seen it first hand with a couple of friends.

Drop the car, sell it, save your money.

oldschool350z

iTrader: (1)

I can't agree with this more.

I would NEVER buy a modded car.

Antlaw

Whether you meant to or not, you're more or less saying I'm bad with money because I'm in the military. One, I've never been deployed so I didn't "blow" my deployment money on my car. Two, when I purchased my Z I was 100% debt free. I'm a Staff Sergeant and I still have 13 years left in the Air Force until I retire. Planning for my future has been done and things are in place to set me up for civilian life. I already have 2 CCAF degrees, and I'm working on getting ASE certs now. I probably could have made a better decision buying a Z, but I don't 100% regret it. I would've done these mods to a stock Z anyway.

jes_96

So I'm guessing now should be the time for this old guy to list his bone stock 03 Touring for $20k? Sorry to hear your woes. Best of luck.

NebraskaZ

This comment really upset me. Ease up on the dude. He's a grown man and can make his own decisions. It's a big assumption to make there-you don't know his financial situation or his job. Don't assume something about a person just because you think he's some 18 year old Army soldier, making poor financial decisions, and then going on to tell him that he won't get a job because he has "no education, no prior working experiences, and no money". In reality, many of these military guys have far more work experience that I ever will, and it makes them highly competetive in the civilian world. He got a little in over his head with the Z, and it's a life lesson that we all have/will learn at some point. But it's no time to bash him based on the fact that he mentioned he was military.

On that note, thank you for your service to our country. Coming from a military background myself, I have a huge respect for what you do.

JCat

iTrader: (4)

I often say that I have learned everything the hard way.

Fortunately, I think I have learned important lessons from my mistakes.

grimm66

I agree with the ones that said building it yourself is the way to go because it is. If something breaks you will know how to fix it rather then waiting for a "shop" to repair it. Most shops are shady anyway, like OP said his car wasn't even touched. I just don't understand why people are so afraid to read the instructions that comes with the FI kit since that's what the "shops" do when they install the kit. They way I see it if you don't want to tackle the job of installing a kit yourself and learning about your car, don't complain about waiting long periods of time to get something done on it.