Help buying Evo 8
 

Hey Alright. Welcome aboard

The pics look OK. How many miles?

For sure the EvO has been tuned w/the AF gauge. Curious what turbo is installed. Look at the turbo area, including the radiator fins to see if the turbo has been replaced

No big deal, but the front coilovers & camber plate are not set correctly. Front alignment & camber needs checking. If the front end was aligned, they did it all from the bottom & should have corrected & matched up at the top camber plate (as noted no big deal)

Got to see the undercarriage to make sure its not a snow car (check for corrosion damage)

Throttle cable is not in its fwd mount (no big deal) @2006EvoIXer

Joe :beer:

53K is very low miles so its likely this was not used as a DD. My notes are just minor issues. Hopefully it hasnt had too much engine mods & maybe realtively stock. There was nothing else I could see in the bay that concerns me (stock intake, exhaust mani & diverter valve)

Wonder if the car has its maintenance records?

Ask to have this car put on the lift & have your friend inspect it

@kpt6

You should take a look at my black evo 9 restoration project. Interior will be like new (seats are all in amazing condition). Exterior will need some work (spoiler and paint chips and dings).
Chassis has around 78k miles and I'm putting in brand new evo 9 short block from dealer with upgraded head (pocket port). Valvetrain will all be oem. It will be mostly restored to stock with little upgrades (FMIC, licp, uicp, maybe fuel pump). Turbo will be freshly rebuilt and will have O2 housing and TBE.

​Where abouts are you? Oceanside?​​​​​​

Is there a reason why you want a 6 speed? It's a nicer transmission but it is weaker than the 5 speed version.

You will always find something wrong. Lol
That's just how it is with evos. Like Joe said, check around car for hidden rust and verify that all parts have same VIN sticker (hood, bumpers, doors, trunk, engine, transmission rear differential, etc). If any are missing or don't match, then it was replaced. With coil overs take a look to see if it was installed right. Watch out for bandaid fixes and look for misaligned panels. Get a compression test to be safe.

It appears to have been driven in salt, when looking at the engine bay. I wouldn't want to buy one driven in salt unless I planned to do that with the car myself.

Headlights also don't have fogs, so those are regular halogen headlights then. That particular car should have HID's and fog lights. HID headlights w/fogs on these cars are expensive used, and super pricey new. Also, it's possible that the car was in an accident in the front, considering those were replaced.

That's about all I'm seeing/finding regarding the car. Given the gauges and the coilovers though, this car more than likely had other mods on it too, like an intake, FMIC, etc. It would make more sense to me that it had more mods and was returned to the condition it is in now, than that the current mods on it were all the mods that the car has ever had.

Really really really have your friend check the undercarriage and suspension for rust coming from that area. Would be nice to know where the car was from originally or if it's been from the Great Lakes area it's whole life.

What about this particular car has you so set on it?

A Carfax showing no accidents doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't been in any. Another thing that actually could support a front end collision theory is that it could have lost the aftermarket FMIC in the accident (if it had an aftermarket FMIC), and a stock one replaced it. It's possible. I don't know if it's been in an accident or not, but you can ask for pics of the close-up VIN stickers on the hood and bumper and you can see if they've been replaced that way.

As far as whether or not things might go wrong, it is tough to say. No one here knows how well this car was taken care of by prior owners. It's a crapshoot with these cars. Personally, I view this car as being likely more problematic in the future vs. an ultra-clean Evo. This car isn't all that clean IMO.

And being "worth it" is subjective. The car has been FS for almost two months according to cargurus. If it was so "worth it", it would've sold long ago before you even had a chance. Also keep in mind shipping will add to the cost of this car. You're probably looking at $1200-$1500 or more on top of the price of the car, to ship it to you from IL to CA via open transport.