Hey all.

First of all I want to say you guys seem to have a great forum here, and I'm happy to have joined. I have scoped around it these past couple weeks, researching the car, and it's easy to see the massive amount of knowlegable info.

Anyways, I'm looking at getting into a newer car now that I'm out of college and finally have hooked a job. Coming from driving GM ecno-boxes since I got my license 5 years back, AWD and boost made there way onto the wishlist for my next purchase. I began looking at at Speed6's, as there are 2 for sale in the province, but they are up there in price as well, and all seem to have a problem with the factory turbos failing early. Then, I came upon this '09 RA locally, 29K Km's for 22K

http://www.nlclassifieds.com/classif...subishi/651255


The ad isn't too descriptive, but it looks to have the Recaro premium package from the first picture. It's a lot more appealing to me than a Speed6 haha. Does this seem to be a reasonable price for this year and KM's? Looking elsewhere in Canada, this seems to be priced well, and that's usually the opposite, as we have a smaller population, and you don't see many of these types of cars on the used market here.

Beyond that, are there any inherent problems that have came about with this cars? I've done a fair amount of reading, but out of the box, these seem to be quite stout from a reliability standpoint. Also, are there any things I should watch out for or pay special attention to when I go to take a look/test drive this car?

Sorry for being such a newb, but I'm just trying to get a good feel for what I'm getting into, before now I've never spent more than 5K on a car, being a student and all. Thanks in advance,

A.Hodder

 

Okay questions

1) Do you have the cash to buy the car outright on hand or are you gonna be financing. If financing, how much of it? If you need to finance all or almost all of the cost, I would say look at a new RA with no options that can be haggled down to around 25-26 grand range with the low interest. That 22 grand will cost you the same after interest and you have a new car.

2) Does the seller have EXACT records of when things have been worked on? If the oil has not been changed every 3750 miles at a minium, don't bother (yeah the manual says 5k miles for normal driving...but a RA not driven hard...yeah that's funny) unless he is willing to drop the cost by another 4 grand (cost to replace the dead turbo). At 30k miles he should also be spring for a tranny flush. If he says he did it himself...just pass.

3) Some of the 09 had issues with the timing chain getting loose.

4) Even after all this you need to be careful. Maybe he did a lot of clutch dumping and the tranny is trashed. Was he in a crash? Did he dick around with the ECU and damage the engine and void the warranty? You have to be very careful here.

5) Are you planning on moding and tuning and how much? You can be more loose with checking things out if your gonna be doing heavy modification and tuning anyways.

 

I will be finacing the total cost of the car to the tune of 5.5% interest. Also this is 30k kilometers, not miles. As well, canadian pricing is a bit different than in the states. A bottom line RA is around 32 or 33 before additional costs. I am not looking to mod the car, at most it would be a new intake exhaust and a proper tune to acompany those, but that'd be about it. Thanks for the guidlines on what to check, I'll definatly follow through with those so I can be more sure of what I'm getting into. If anyone else has anything come to mind, please post it up. Thanks again, Hodder

 

You can kind of tell how hard the car was driven by looking at a few things:
1) Tires. If they are stock and look new then he changed them out and swapped them back to sell. Otherwise they should be about bald.
2) Brake pads. As a daily driver at 30K kilometers there should be about half pad left. If drove hard (as all ralliarts should) he should have had to replaced them before selling.
3) rear sway bar links. On my 09 the stock rear links are bent from hard cornering. This will just give you an idea of how it was driven.
4) Is the engine bay clean? Or only the vacuum lines where the boost pill goes. Are the bolts on the exhaust new or rounded off because he swapped everything back before selling.

 

found this topic while searching for some info myself.... i had this car out for a road test.... wanna see how it looked before they repaired it??













the complete front end had to be repaired, this car was totaled by insurance, the alignment is all messed up, steering wheel is wayy off center, check engine light is on, and so is the service TPMS light.... the guy that had this car when it got totaled was VERY hard on the car.

 

Oh your in canada...well that changes prices somewhat...but remember that 22k at ~6% interest is the same as about 26-27k at .9%. I would say go and see how close you can reach that amount at your local dealership. Not sure how sales tax works tho in canada for person to person sales (that could make a difference in price as well). Also if you can get that kind of line of credit, have you thought of buying one from the US and importing? Considering how strong the canadian dollar is to the US dollar, might be worthwhile. SoCal has some 2010 ralliarts on lot for around 22 grand and no need to worry about abuse of previous owner.

 

Person to person, or private sales, here in Canada go to the tune of the sellar writing the selling price on the bill of sale. When you go to the DMV to register the car, you pay the tax (13%) on that price. However, if the price seems suspicious for that year of car, they'll just go by the blue book value.

As for importing, the thought crossed my mind breifly, however I don't know how much hassle it would be, having to get the DRL's on the car and having all the paperwork in order when I got to the border. Plus the flight down and the drive up (Time off work)

I'm considering just holding off until late in the fall to get a car, to give me some time to bank some cash for a good down payment. That way it'll be no trouble to get a new one from the dealer if I can put 7K-10K down. However, this will depend if I can go that long wiothout my own ride. Have to see how it goes I guess.

 

Well if you can't save on sales tax, like I said, you may wanna look at dealers around you. They maybe desperate to move a unit, you never know. And if they ain't just walk away and come back in a couple months like you planned.

Or for importing...well make a vacation out of it. SoCal is a nice place to visit for a vacation actually. And compared to the 13% tax, the 9% we have now, even with the import fees will more then cover time taken off work and the cost of a mini vacation. But then again, it is a bit of a hassle to import, and you wanna do ALL of the wheeling and dealing beforehand. Have all terms of the sale in writing faxed to you before you head down if you go this route. A lot of dealers will get you with added fees and add unless you have this because they know they kinda have you by the *****.