I have been to see a 2000 JDM(?) for sale near me in the Dominican Republic.

The car looks fine and seemed to drive well on a short test, but I wanted to know what I should look for.

It has been changed to left hand drive (supposedly done in Chile before it came to the DR), but other than that, looks pretty stock. However, it does seem to be riding quite low (not a great thing given the state of the roads here!).

As it has been changed to LHD (as claimed by dealer), there is no way of knowing if the showing ~250K kms are real or not (claimed not...).

Also, how abrupt should the change be when the VTEC kicks in? Car revved willingly to its red line (when driven by the demonstrator), but the couple of times I took it past 6000K, didn't seem to be a huge 'kick' on... Could be something to do with fuel quality here?

What I would like is to attach pictures I've taken and get some general views on what I should look for. I can return to get any other pictures if that would be helpful.

Thanks

Rabid

 

Too low?





Tags





Cockpit badge (sorry about quality!)

 

Heart and soul?





Rear suspension left





Rear suspension right

 

Interior





Attempt at front suspension right

Speaking of front suspension - how tight a turning circle should the car have? Seemed pretty awful to me: difficult to do a u-turn across a road with one turn, and the tyres were rubbing what the dealer claimed to be the mudflaps... Just wondered if that was normal.

How difficult / expensive would it be to return the car to original ride height (should it be as I suspect lowered)?

The dealer has offered to have the car raised up so that I can inspect the underneath properly, so if it is worth pursuing, this is something I will do.

 

What does the VIN on the firewall say?

 

Why is the BuddyClub suspension rusted? You sure this car wasn't in the 2011 tsunami?

Or did it come from a place that uses road salt in the winter?

Quite honestly, I wouldn't even buy that car if was dirt cheap unless I had something to swap the motor into. With the rust and LHD conversion, I'd look at another one.

 

Looks rough, 250k kms is high so I wouldn't worry about that being fake. Front tyre looks pretty flat too...

 

I have a JDM RHD Type R that I just imported from Japan. Ill be honest the RHD is not for me, so im debating putting it up for sale. It does need paint as it has MINOR surface rust in some spots, and some scratches and minor dents (from someone leaning on it). If interested, lemme know and ill give you some info. Im located in Toronto... no idea where you are. A clean paint refresh will bring this car up to speed and have it looking real good. The underside is mint. Runs amazing. Ive done the timing service and put new General Tire AS03's on it.


Oh and only 85k KM


EDIT: I see you are in the DR.. OOPS lol never mind.

 

Thanks for the replies!

Didn't realise there was a VIN on the firewall - what would that tell me?

I'm guessing that the suspension is rusted from sea air: not really a winter here! (Or from some time in its past...) 'BuddyClub' is a type of aftermarket suspension (excuse my ignorance)? The LHD conversion is a necessity here: RHD cars are illegal.

Was hoping that the 250K kms was fake high, haha! I didn't actually think that the car looked in that bad a way for 14 years... (Front tyre flat and would be replaced by dealer)

As for the offered RHD JDM - I'm in the Dominican Republic: a little far away from Toronto, and as stated above RHD here is illegal.

Taking on board the above, perhaps it's not a good idea. Shame: interesting car, and felt like great fun on the short drive I took. Cars here are very expensive and hold their value. He wanted just north of $7K, though would have changed tyres, added security and offered 3 months warranty (for what that's worth here!).

Thanks for the advice, perhaps back to the drawing board!

 

I would buy it in a heart beat consdering this must be very rare to come across in DR. Undercarriage isint that bad - for a 250K km's it looks amazing. Mine is 170KS, never seen the winter in Canada and looks pretty much the same as your pictures.

Ride height is same as mine, Buddy club suspension is a good setup and expensive, I would leave it as is personnally. But it is also ajustable, so you can raise the height with this setup to your liking. Don't raise it over another inch or so though, cause you will look like you have a 4x4 (you've bee warned). Just need an alignment afterwards.

Make sure the vin on the firewall matches the one in the front lower right windshield and blue radiator support tag to make sure it hasn't been chopped up. You want the shell to be intact on this car. Dash and pedal swap is not too big of an issue considering your national regulations on RHD. The motor looks to be fairly stock, which is good considering the mileage. I would definatly buy it, unless you can get your hands on a Silvia S15 where your from

Also, as for vtec, you might wanna check videos on youtube, it's supposed to kick pretty hard.

If you want it, deal the price down claiming you don't like the high km's, other esthetic flaws, etc... Good luck

 

check the condition of the fluids. that will tell you if the previous owners cared about it

 

Thanks, guys.

Car is still there, so I'll have a look for videos of the engine kick and perhaps go back for another look. Then I can do all the number checks that you mention.

The dealer's reasoning is that because the dash has been changed for LHD that the kms are not accurate so that they are actually less. However, there is no way of proving this one way or the other! The drivers seat bolster is pretty 'used' though.

How strong are the gearboxes? The clutch seemed to be very long (though the biting point wasn't that long). The gearbox had quite a mechanical feel I thought, but when the dealer demonstrated how fast the car could go (including incredibly quick changes), he did miss one rather spectacularly...

Again, thanks for the tips. I'll look up the BuddyClub suspension, too. No idea how long it has been on there for, though!

Cheers

 

I would certainly be interested in that for $7K (USD); see if you can get him to 6500.

As for the VTEC, maybe check the oil levels. It won't crack right when you're low on oil... or if the car is still cold...

 

My observation:

Missing header heat shield
Missing screw on passenger side front strut bar
Two drill holes at two ends of front strut bar
Lots of wear on the seats
Lots of wear and tear on the armrest delete
Lots of wear and tear on the steering wheel
Front sway bar end link look very sagging
Aftermarket fuel pressure regulator
Lots of wear and tear on the aftermarket suspension adjusting rings

With that out off the way, I would say this caR is thoroughly used. The listed mileage reflect my observation. A compression check is the least I would do before you hand over your hard earned money. So, buy it for what it worth. Good luck.