300K Budget for 2nd Hand Car

[renzo_d10]

^ 05 model ? Parang hindi ata yun kaya ng 300k eh. Nasa 450k - 500k pa yata yung ganun.

[Starex_Gold]

nasa 450-550k na yung MMC Civic ES.

actually yung Civic ES okay naman. pero ang layo ng Handling nya sa Civic FD. nagpang abot yung FD ko at ES ng kapatid ko eh. syempre 2.0R yung sa kanya mabilis talaga dahil sa makina.

based sa post ni Niky, Lynx RS na! :clap:

[niky]

I'd get a Honda Civic. Count how many RS is in the streets. Now imagine the support for parts and service down the road (say 3 years). Sure meron pa rin but it will be rarer, more expensive and hard to come buy. Which is what Ford parts are. Overpriced, hardly available and cheaper when bought as a "Mazda" part.

They stopped producing the Lynx six years ago... and you can still easily find common parts for them. Electronics parts, you have to buy in Banawe or at the dealership... but this is true of everything nowadays... when my cousin had his Altis overhauled, they had to wait quite a while for engine parts from Banawe.

I had a Mazda 626 before, and the parts were not easy to find, but you could find them. The big problem was parts were freaking expensive, because the 626 was a midsized car... so the cost of maintenance was like an Accord or Galant... too much trouble for a car that isn't worth so much, anymore. I could have still kept it running, but it wasn't worth it as a third or fourth car... and when we got the Lynx, it became redundant, since the Lynx was basically the same car, just a bit narrower and 100% better in every way.

The Lynx is based on the 626 chassis, BUT: there are a ton more Lynxes on the road. There are only 250 RS's on the road... but everywhere you look, there are Lynx Ghias, GSis and LSis. They're everywhere. (heck... every time I go out... even if I go out to places I don't usually frequent, I see at least three or four different Lynx RSs and dozens of Ghias or GSis).

Suspension and brake parts (except the five-lug hubs, but RunStop carries cheap aftermarket rotors for the Lynx) are interchangeable between the 1.6 and the 2.0. The engine is completely different, but many of the electronics are interchangeable, and the 2.0 engine is common in the US, Australia, Japan, Singapore... and even China... (Haima cars use the same parts as the Lynx and RS) and the factory is here in the Phlippines. Parts aren't the nightmare to find that 626 parts were (and they were hard to find because Mazda left the Philippines after they stopped selling the 626) and they're not horribly expensive like in the 626... another reason that I stopped using the 626 when I got the RS.

(Hey, I kept that 626 running longer than my friends did their similar aged Galants and Accords... )

It's not the piece of cake to maintain that a corolla 4AFE or a Sentra GA16DE is... (still... you know how hard it is to find Exalta-specific GA16 parts? It drove me nuts when we were fixing our flooded car... many "Nissan" suppliers could not point me in the right direction...) but then, nothing is. Again... ever try to find Altis engine electronics and accessories? Or Even D17 or R18 Civics? (and R18 parts are more expensive than Lynx parts) Not as easy as it used to be.

Overpriced? No. Hard to find? Are you nuts? And what's wrong with buying them as "Mazda" parts? These cars aren't european-based models like the Astra and A4, for which you really have to hunt for parts. And unlike those two cars, the Lynx/Protege is regarded as a reliable car in other countries. Throughout its whole run, the BJ Protege (same as the Lynx RS) earned a "Recommend" from CR. Handy feat for something that's not a Corolla or Civic.

The owner of TrueDelta, a car reliability ranking website and fellow blogger / internet-based auto-journalist drove a Protege/Lynx for a while and was quite satisfied with it, and reports that the car got great marks in his surveys.

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In the end, though, yes, the RS is more expensive to run than a 1.6. That's because it's a 2.0. But it's nowhere near as bad as running an Accord or similar midsized cars. Still, your ownership experience will depend a lot on the quality of the secondhand car you buy. If you buy one that's really worn down or abused, it will give you nothing but trouble. Sometimes it's not what kind of secondhand car you buy... but what condition it is in that seals the deal. Remember, a secondhand car is cheap... but it's also old. If the previous owner has used up too much of its serviceable life, it's not worth the upfront savings to buy and keep it for the next five years, whatever the car is.

I may appear to be a zealot for the Lynx, and maybe I am... but the RS isn't for everybody. If you can put up with its quirks, then you'll like it. If you can't, then go ahead and get a Civic 1.7 (just watch out for the condition of the transmission if you get an AT...) or whatever else catches your fancy.

As long as it isn't a Daewoo.

[p_borj]

not in your list, pero kung 300k, I'll go for the Nissan Sentra.

[dieselNUBI]

streching ur budget a lil bit. how about hyundai matrix? 1.5L crdi engine. lots of HP n torque. fuel efficient. 05-06 model na. around 360k to 400k.

[davecrypt]

If you want better performance than the 1.8, the RS is the way to go. Fuel consumption won't be that bad compared to the 1.8, since it's an MT... when my car was stock, it could get 7-8 km/l in the city... even up to 10 km/l on weekends when the traffic was light... and 12-16 km/l on the highway when driven at 80-100 km/h. (16 was on the NLEX, two hour trip up north)

Reliability is okay compared to other cars of the time. There doesn't seem to be a single common thread to problems with the car's electronics. (In other words, the specter of sure cam position sensor failure as with the 1.6 doesn't seem to exist). The only common issues seen on stock RSs is a dirty IACV and PCV system that can cause rough idling, but these are easy to replace and fix.

When test-driving an RS, these are the things to look out for:

Quality of the idle.

Clunking from the suspension (this is true of any secondhand Japanese compact... and the Ford Lynx RS is a Japanese car).

Oil and coolant condition and level (again, true of any secondhand Japanese compact).

Crunching into 3rd gear (signals that 3rd gear synchro is wearing out and may need to be replaced soon. Part is cheap, but you have to order it from the US.)

Shuddering on clutch application (sign of a warped flywheel or a glazed clutch).

The last two problems can be signs of abuse, so they will tell you how the owner drove the car and you can ask for discounts accordingly or look at a fresher unit.

The only big reliability problems with RSs we've encountered have been with guys with modified units that have been abused.... 300+ hp turbo-builds can blow the engine up and if you engine-brake it to 7000 rpm on the race-track or drive it at 220 km/h for half-an-hour straight... or every single day, you can blow it up. Guess what? You can blow up a Civic, too, if you drive like an idiot. The only difference is that a K20 Civic can be turbo-boosted to silly levels.

My car has been on the track, drank half-a-liter of oil driving at over 6000 rpm on the NLEX and SCTEX... straight... topping out at 225 km/h for five kilometers or so... has been on the dyno numerous times... has been run on LPG at over 160 km/h... has run lean at times when I messed up the LPG and Unichip maps (I've been experimenting with it...) and has been "enjoyed" to death for over 97k kms. My compression is still good, and when we cracked open the head for port-and-polishing a few months ago, my gaskets were still okay and my pistons and valves were spotless. My car is proof that you can abuse the car and it will still stay alive as long as you change the oil regularly and follow proper warm-up and cool-down procedures. Of course, I've destroyed clutches, ruined brakes and had to rebuild third gear... but if you drive on the racetrack and drive hard like I do, you can expect these things to break. My previous car, a Sentra, broke a drive-axle on the drag-strip. That's how hard my cars' lives are.

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If all you're going to do is drive around the city and occassionally wring it out to 220 km/h on the NLEX, there's no issues.

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For the Civic, in addition to the suspension and oil/coolant, check to see if it was included in the cam position sensor and gas tank recalls, and if it was, if those fixes have been done, already.

Also check for rust. Older Civics were notorious for rust, and I'm getting some scattered reports that it can happen on newer ones, also.

Do note: if either of these cars have accident damage, rust can form, so check for thick spots in the metal or weirdness in the paint surface that may indicate crash damage. I've not noted a propensity to rust in the Lynx, but it can happen with the sunroof panel, since the steel frame of the sunroof glass isn't treated as well as the rest of the car. The frame-rails of the sunroof, though, are aluminum and immune to rust, and the body steel around the sunroof is well-protected and insulated.

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The RS is much more fun to drive than the Civic. Only issue is that driving it in traffic can be a pain sometimes, since it's a manual. It looks great as stock and all the dress up you need is often a bigger set of wheels. The Lynx can actually fit up to 19" of wheels with the right off-set, and many tuners use 18's as everyday wheels. Only dress-up needed on the inside is leather seat covers and a better head-unit.

Thank you very much for this info sir! big big help, will definitely test drive a RS available. for this I'm leaning more on RS. Thanks sir nicky! very helpful advice!

[davecrypt]

streching ur budget a lil bit. how about hyundai matrix? 1.5L crdi engine. lots of HP n torque. fuel efficient. 05-06 model na. around 360k to 400k.

Will look into this, though im not too keen on compact cars, but i think this is worth a look. Thanks for your advice sir. =)

[davecrypt]

^ 05 model ? Parang hindi ata yun kaya ng 300k eh. Nasa 450k - 500k pa yata yung ganun.

Meron ako nakikitang mga ad sir, 2005 model for 350k - 400k Lynx RS. sa Civics mostly kapag 2004-2005 model 400k++ na po. kaya mas kaya po ng budget ko ang Lynx na newer model kaysa civic.

[renzo_d10]

^ Yup. I was referring to the Civic anyways. Ganun talaga ford, medyo bagsak ang resale value, pero atleast hindi kasing worse ng Chevrolet.

[davecrypt]

Mga sir, whats your take on cars that have gas saver devices installed? may maaapektuhan bang part ng car sa pag lagay ng ganito? or wala naman dapat ikabahala?

I was asking kase I found RS with chaos gas saver installed. so ask ko lang what to expect kung meron ganito ang kotse.