Good Cheap N/A FRs Or 4WDS

[alvin23a]

Hi it is nearly time for me to get my frist car. I was wondering what you guys think I should get. The only thing is it must be under 8 cyclinder N/A and I really want a FR or 4WD. Thanks. I was thinking less that $5,000 AUD.

 

[xNEVER-ONEx]

Specify "cheap", that is your budget

 

[alvin23a]

Specify "cheap", that is your budget

Sorry edited first post.

 

[CMvan46]

Why are you wanting those for your first car exactly?

 

[Luminis]

It's your first car, you're gonna put dents in it, you're gonna scratch it, you're gonna abuse the hell out of it... Go with something cheap, reliable and that's easy to fix...

I know, like everyone else, you'll claim that won't happen to you (much like I thought it wouldn't happen to me), but it will. You can go with whatever until you've gathered some experience and buy something you like when the time's right.

 

[niky]

Cheap, naturally aspirated all-wheel drive?

Get a Honda CR-V.

Rear wheel drive? Get a Ford Ranger.

 

[J-PaP]

Given you are in Australia. If the law hasn't banned it for a p plater then insurance will prevent you from being able to afford to drive it anyway.

One of the most underrated cars you can get yourself for under 5k would have to be a TH-TJ Mitsubishi Magna (manual). I know its not FR or RWD but I really hope you aren't one of those people who do "skids bro!".

4wd.. Maybe an old galant or liberty
rwd.. s13 silvia or r32 skyline. maybe a mx5.

 

[Paulie]

Commodore works too, cheap to own, FR, very practical. Don't buy a Falcon, just 'coz (but seriously if you want a Falcon, don't get an AU or later).

 

[J-PaP]

Insurance on commo's and falcon's is a fair bit.

 

[Paulie]

Insurance on commo's and falcon's is a fair bit.

If I could afford it when I was still working at Coles after school, and for a Ute.... in S Pack guise, then I'm guessing anyone can afford a sedan.

 

[Murcie_LP640]

The most abundant is the ol' Falcodores but to be honest I'd be staying away from them. Insurance isn't actually that bad (I was quoted about $1300 for a V8 VT, about as much as a ST184 Toyota Celica SX), but the more important thing is that they're cop magnets.

Now that I think about it:

It's not the quickest thing in the world (about 115kW from the factory I think), but they're very cheap, rear-wheel-drive, and the RB30E is a very, very sturdy motor. They're very comfortable to ride in as well. That there GXE is actually mine and it's been with me since I got my L's 3 years ago. Also, it's funny watching people's reactions when I tell them I own a Skyline. I'm just sayin'.

If you can get it though, try and find a Silhouette if you're looking at an old Skyline. They're the highest trim level and, among other things, come with a factory limited-slip diff.

My other two "podium finishes" as such would be a Subaru Liberty or a BMW 318i (E30 or E36 depends on your tastes really).

 

[alvin23a]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm very anti ford and anti subie ( EVO FTW). I'm a huge rally fan so I was thinking if these a n/a 4WD I can later get a bolt in turbo. But looks like a commodore is one I'll look in to and the CRX is nice and I like Hondas but I kind of want to get a FR as there more useable in many forms of motor-sports.

And how did you know I was one of the Do A Skid Bro guys. I'm only joking I'll leave the drifting on the track.

 

[Danoff]

[/thread]


Cheap? Absolutely. It's essentially free. You'll spend the money up front, but when you sell it, you'll get it right back. I'd expect the net cost to be ~$0 not including maintenance.
FR? Well... RR, but you can put weights in the front if you want
Reliable? There's nothing to break.
Repairable? Absolutely, they still make parts in mexico and nobody notices a ding
Fun? Absolutely.

You'll get to learn to drive stick on a very forgiving car. I had one as my first car, and when I hit a deer in the middle of the road, I fixed the dent with a 2x4 and a can of rustoleum. You'd be surprised at how much fun these can be to drive too. There are only three issues that I can think of.

1) They're not exactly safe. No seatbelt pretensioners, no airbags, no weight at all.
2) Top speed. Your'e going to be limited by gearing a bit, so if you cruise down the road at 80mph all the time, expect to throw a rod eventually. On the bright side, when you do throw a rod, it's not expensive to fix (been there, done that).
3) No airconditioning. Yea that one sucks. But I still think it's a good choice.

 

[J-PaP]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm very anti ford and anti subie ( EVO FTW). I'm a huge rally fan so I was thinking if these a n/a 4WD I can later get a bolt in turbo. But looks like a commodore is one I'll look in to and the CRX is nice and I like Hondas but I kind of want to get a FR as there more useable in many forms of motor-sports.

And how did you know I was one of the Do A Skid Bro guys. I'm only joking I'll leave the drifting on the track.

Bolting on a turbo on a n/a car isn't as simple as just bolting it on. If the car has a version that is a turbo you are better off selling your n/a car to get the turbo version instead of converting.

Why can't you use a FF? Civics and Integra's can be amazing handling cars. They would do circles around any FR boat. Like I mentioned, look into insurance because anything that's p plater legal and is "cool" costs an arm and a leg.



Paulie: Must be different in SA because when I was on my p's a commo would have costed me 1800 odd per year to insure when the magna costed 800 and my mate is paying about 1200 a year with a perfect driving history and he's 25.

Edit: Were you talking full comprehensive or 3rd party?

 

[Jim Prower]

*bug*

[/thread]


Cheap? Absolutely. It's essentially free. You'll spend the money up front, but when you sell it, you'll get it right back. I'd expect the net cost to be ~$0 not including maintenance.
FR? Well... RR, but you can put weights in the front if you want
Reliable? There's nothing to break.
Repairable? Absolutely, they still make parts in mexico and nobody notices a ding
Fun? Absolutely.

You'll get to learn to drive stick on a very forgiving car. I had one as my first car, and when I hit a deer in the middle of the road, I fixed the dent with a 2x4 and a can of rustoleum. You'd be surprised at how much fun these can be to drive too. There are only three issues that I can think of.

1) They're not exactly safe. No seatbelt pretensioners, no airbags, no weight at all.
2) Top speed. Your'e going to be limited by gearing a bit, so if you cruise down the road at 80mph all the time, expect to throw a rod eventually. On the bright side, when you do throw a rod, it's not expensive to fix (been there, done that).
3) No airconditioning. Yea that one sucks. But I still think it's a good choice.

Uh...Yeah. Unless it's different in Australia, VWs are kind of hard to find for the right price. Bad ones in the states are $3800-$5,000 - and that's with the floorpan rusted through. Good ones are starting to top $10,000, some models going for $20-30,000, and more. It's only going to get worse as time goes on, too. They've become collectible, these little cars...

The only hope is that we can find a Hippie who's actually taken good care of the car, and snipe it before a collector tries to get it.

Granted, once purchased, they can be made to get up and go for not a whole lot of money - so long as it's a 1600 Dual Port.

 

[Eric.]

By the time you can afford to use a car for "motorsports", you won't be driving your first car anymore.

 

[alvin23a]

Bolting on a turbo on a n/a car isn't as simple as just bolting it on. If the car has a version that is a turbo you are better off selling your n/a car to get the turbo version instead of converting.

Why can't you use a FF? Civics and Integra's can be amazing handling cars. They would do circles around any FR boat. Like I mentioned, look into insurance because anything that's p plater legal and is "cool" costs an arm and a leg.



Paulie: Must be different in SA because when I was on my p's a commo would have costed me 1800 odd per year to insure when the magna costed 800 and my mate is paying about 1200 a year with a perfect driving history and he's 25.

Edit: Were you talking full comprehensive or 3rd party?

Well the thing with a FF is drifting is some thing I can't do but it's the same with a 4WD. The thing is if I can get a 4WD I wouldn't car about drifting. But I also want to get in to rally and time attack. I'm a fan of the integra but only like the JDM model DC2. If I were to import something like a AE86 from Japan, insurence would kill me wouldn't it?

By the time you can afford to use a car for "motorsports", you won't be driving your first car anymore.

Well I would use the car as a all rounder or when I get my second car keep the first car and turn it in to a full out race or rally car.

 

[Danoff]

Uh...Yeah. Unless it's different in Australia, VWs are kind of hard to find for the right price. Bad ones in the states are $3800-$5,000 - and that's with the floorpan rusted through. Good ones are starting to top $10,000, some models going for $20-30,000, and more. It's only going to get worse as time goes on, too. They've become collectible, these little cars...

The only hope is that we can find a Hippie who's actually taken good care of the car, and snipe it before a collector tries to get it.

Granted, once purchased, they can be made to get up and go for not a whole lot of money - so long as it's a 1600 Dual Port.

Well I was assuming it would be in rough condition. I found one for $800 that looked just fine on autotrader.

 

[Prosthetic]

Well the thing with a FF is drifting is some thing I can't do but it's the same with a 4WD. The thing is if I can get a 4WD I wouldn't car about drifting. But I also want to get in to rally and time attack. I'm a fan of the integra but only like the JDM model DC2. If I were to import something like a AE86 from Japan, insurence would kill me wouldn't it?


Well I would use the car as a all rounder or when I get my second car keep the first car and turn it in to a full out race or rally car.

Yeah insurance would probably kill you in with that.. After buy the car, and later importing it. This isn't exactly a video game... Get something cheap, since its your first car its going to be fun pretty much no matter what.

I've been driving my Focus for quite a few years now and I haven't gotten bored of it yet.

Get a small light front wheel drive car that can seat 4 easily. Less you spend now on it the more you can spend on your second car.

While I'm not going to jump to conclusions that you will hit something because I have to hit something, but chances are you will get hit. That repair cost can hurt. I got backed into by someone who didn't have insurance, they only paid $500 of $1200 in repair costs. Had to get a new door and rocker panel. And that's on a 04' Focus, not some rare drift beast.

Who the hell cares if you can drift it or not. If you don't have money for it, don't worry about it. Because if your price range is less then 5k then the only thing you should be worried about is cost efficiency.

 

[alvin23a]

Well I was assuming it would be in rough condition. I found one for $800 that looked just fine on autotrader.

Maybe not with a bug but with many cars the prices in the USA are heaps cheap compared to the prices here. I heard you can get a 70's musle car there for under a grand were there like $50,000 here and on the smoking tire they said you can get a 90s NSX for under $10,000. You'll be like to find one he and it'll cost a lot more.

 

[Prosthetic]

Maybe not with a bug but with many cars the prices in the USA are heaps cheap compared to the prices here. I heard you can get a 70's musle car there for under a grand were there like $50,000 here and on the smoking tire they said you can get a 90s NSX for under $10,000. You'll be like to find one he and it'll cost a lot more.

Whoever told you that is full of hot air. And it depends on which muscle car where talking. But you aren't getting much under $10k as far as I'm concerned. And they can run up to $500,000 grand, obviously for mint amazingness.

As for a NSX under 10k? AHahahahaa. Hah. Ha. That's funny. The only ones under 20k are ones that are getting close to 200k miles. In which case your going to be spending some dough to keep it going.

A decent early NSX will cost in between 25k-30k. Newer ones with good miles are all above 40k.

 

[CMvan46]

?

Well I would use the car as a all rounder or when I get my second car keep the first car and turn it in to a full out race or rally car.

I think your thinking this is gran turismo here. It's not. Do you have any idea how much it costs to fully convert a car to a legal race car?

My dad and grandfather both raced street stocks and let me tell you that's a "cheap series" by racing standards and it's really not cheap.... Let alone getting the car in race ready shape. And if you want a competitive car? You can pretty much double the entry level car cost.

By that time your first car is no good for any sort of motorsport anyway and it's likely cheaper to buy one either converted already or pre-gutted.... I wouldn't plan on this and highly suggest going for a sensible first car.

By the way 1200 is wickedly cheap for insurance. Mine is 1800 no collision and been driving 5 years with a clean record....

 

[J-PaP]

Well the thing with a FF is drifting is some thing I can't do but it's the same with a 4WD. The thing is if I can get a 4WD I wouldn't car about drifting. But I also want to get in to rally and time attack. I'm a fan of the integra but only like the JDM model DC2. If I were to import something like a AE86 from Japan, insurence would kill me wouldn't it?


Well I would use the car as a all rounder or when I get my second car keep the first car and turn it in to a full out race or rally car.

If you won't care about drifting so much because you have a 4wd why not the same with a ff?

Thing is, whatever car you get for under 5k that is n/a you will struggle to spin the wheels whether it is ff or rwd so I'm not sure how drifting will work no matter what you get. Drifting will be more like just yanking the handbrake.

Actually in all likelyhood whatever car you have will have that little power the most wheel spin you will get is a chirp off the line so regardless of what drivetrain it won't really matter.

Also even getting into casual track days isn't exactly cheap to get into let alone the maintenance costs on top. You will tear through tyres and brakes. Let alone the extra servicing required. Also you will need to fix the car up in the first place to not have any oil leaks or fluids leaking anywhere or any rust etc. Most older cars under 5k will likely have one of those.

 

[alvin23a]

WOW I have learnt so much. I will probaly end up with something like a civic. I would love a Type R or a AE86. but none of them look like a possiblity.

 

[disinfected]

Get something cheap and easy, then when you get older, save up, and get a true performance car. Best way to go with a first car.

 

[niky]

Naturally aspirated AWD cars aren't great projects for turbocharging... Whatever Mitsubishi is offering in AWD on the Lancer/Mirage/Cedia platform without the turbo is definitely not using the 4G63... and whatever is in there is likely using differentials that would shatter like glass given that much torque. Same with anything but a Subaru... but then you would have your own special set of problems with turbocharging a naturally aspirated Subaru, unless you get a recent generation Impreza that already has the naturally aspirated 2.5 in there... and that's likely not in your range.

To echo what's been said: FF.

If you're planning to enter rallycross, hell yes FF. A cheap, banged-up FF hatchback will be better at that than a heavy, underpowered Scooby or Magna. For one, it won't understeer as much. If you want your AWD car understeer-free, or at least less understeery than a cow on rollerskates, you either want an EVO with a good set of differentials or at the VERY least a newer Scooby Impreza WRX with the center differential control (again, out of budget). Otherwise, most AWDs understeer as badly as FFs, or worse.

You can have a lot of fun driving a small, low-powered, lightweight front driver on the dirt. Just make sure to get one that's properly sorted from the get-go, like a Civic, a Focus or a Mazda Familia SP20 (probably not in budget on the last two...). As a bonus, less crap to break. On the local rallycross series, there's a guy with an FD Civic who's absolutely monstering the runners in EVOs on the tight and twisty little tracks they run on. All with less investment than them, as he's merely running a turbocharged stock K20.

Hell, you even get some decent old-school Lasers over there that are pretty sporty, but it's probably better to go for something a bit more sedate or the insurance agents will be chortling with glee when you go out for a quote.

 

[J-PaP]

WOW I have learnt so much. I will probaly end up with something like a civic. I would love a Type R or a AE86. but none of them look like a possiblity.

A early-mid 90's civic will be fine. Type R would be out of the question for now. But with a civic there is heaps you can do later on including easy engine swaps and s/c-turbo options. I'd probably still suggest save your money and just buy a new car when you are 21 though.

 

[Cale]

GC Impreza? You can do some rally/field racing stuff.

 

[Paulie]

Paulie: Must be different in SA because when I was on my p's a commo would have costed me 1800 odd per year to insure when the magna costed 800 and my mate is paying about 1200 a year with a perfect driving history and he's 25.

Edit: Were you talking full comprehensive or 3rd party?

I've always had comprehensive from day 1. I think it was originally like $1200/year when I was 17, it's now around $1000 with all the modifications I've done.

 

[Turbo Lag]

It's a shame alvin doesn't like Subarus as there's plenty of them around for under 5k in somewhat decent condition. They fit what you're after (AWD), haven't got too much power to get you in trouble, and you won't feel bad when you make a mistake with it.