I've been looking for an evo for a while now and came across an 03 with higher miles but built well and very clean for a good price (11500). it has a step trans and transfer with lsd, coil overs, wheels etc. but 125000 miles. the price was perfect and then i came across an 05 mr with 27000 miles bone stock clean as a whistle for 17k. I'm torn any opinions would be great.

 

Really depends on what you want. You going to daily drive the car? What are you buying the car for? You going to mod it?

 

homie DO NOT BUY THAT 05 EVO MR! went and looked at it yesterday looks fine, they didnt let me test drive it because it had not been through the shop yet but that dealer is super shady! ran a carfax it has an odometer roll back, he claimed that it was a mis typing on someones part but i didnt buy his story. that evo has about 45000 miles on it, which isnt bad at all but the fact that they dont tell you anything about it made me wonder what else they are hiding in it. they bought it as a rolling shell then threw the engine in it, i almost made an offer but it just didnt feel right.

 

Thanks for the heads up, that does sound fishy, i hadn't ran a car fax yet but was curious, it kinda looked too good to be true. i'm looking for a good daily driver, i'll never get much more in depth than bolt ons and what not. I love having a fun car to get in every day and have always loved the evo's. i'll prob keep looking not in too big a rush, one question i do have is if the acd makes that much difference? that seems to be the biggest difference between the 03-04 and the 05.

 

I know, i about **** a brick when i saw that price, but it looks clean but im not going to take that risk on that one. And with the ACD i couldn't tell ya, haven't looked too much into it, maybe try a search.

 

keep searching, good things come to those who wait.
theres a lot of threads about the acd acting up. some love it some hate it. guess its just a toss up.

 

I didn't think it would be soo difficult to find a good one, i was originally planning on an sti since i've always been a fan but then i drove a couple evo's and that changed my mind lol.

 

yeah i bought an 07 WRX last winter and hated it, i have always like the evos but then my buddy let me drive his and i have been hooked ever since. but this is definitely the longest hunt of any kind i have been on.

 

If you are like me and plan on keeping this car a whhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllleeeeeeeeeee.
(I'm hoping 10 years at least!) Then buy the 03. At that price, you can afford to replace the bottom end if you need to and still come out at less than market prices.

The best non Evo I ever owned was a car with 220k miles when I bought it. I got a great price, and replaced the bottom end, swapped heads, new injectors, new transmission, new shocks/springs/bushings, and had the diff replaced with a road race unit. I had some money in it, but it was crisp! I hated to get rid of it, but I built parts of it for speed, thus affecting the reliability a tad, and the insurance value was out of wack for the money I had in it.

Anyway, long-story-short. Mileage isn't anything but a number. If you want a clean, Cars N Coffee/Club Meet queen, then find one with less mileage. If you want a daily-driver/road-warrior/race car, then get the car with a shep trans for around the price of a 5 year old Honda.

 

you have a good point on the mileage being just a number at the right price point, it's funny how hard it is to find a factory rally car that hasn't been abused i drove 2 this week with decent mileage and they were garbage! one with 65k the other with 80ish if i remember right. the one with 65k was an 03 at a dealer, he was asking 18 for it but the clutch was shot and it was beat to sh!$ i asked if he planned on doing anything to get it ready to sell and he said no he'll just knock a couple hundred off to make up for it lol it wouldn't even accelerate!

 

I bought mine for $10k with a running but on it's way out bottom end. Spent $4k on new Longblock and a few mods including turbo. I'm in it about $15k all total, and the car is THE WAY I WANTED it. I think she is about retail now. Takes work and time, but I think you would be more satisfied with something you have bought and done yourself.

 

^ This.

I'd rather have a car with a new longblock for $15k, than a $16k Evo w/65k miles.

Over 50k miles, plan on:
Rebuilding the Bilsteins or replacing the suspension.
Replacing the strut mounts (top hats).
Replacing the wheel bearings.
Bushing kit (Whiteline, etc.)

Plus you could be waiting on the clutch to go out, transmission to go out, diff to break, bottom end, turbo failure, etc. etc. so on and so forth.

Get in at the low price point and put some cash aside for maintenance, and when something fails, replace it with an improvement over factory. You'll come out ahead financially, and it will be exactly the way you want.

 

Was that the black one in lehi UT? If not that one had the same problem