Great news!

Sometimes you have to love it when you get a car that the previous owner messed up.

In my case, I picked up an engine donor from an insurance auction. From the photos, it appeared as if the car had been curbed, hard.

When it arrived at my house, the wheel had worked a bit looser and was wedged in the fender. I really couldn't see in there at all.

Today, I went ahead and threw it on jack stands. This is what I found:

The suspension components look to be pretty straight, but whoever put on the lug nuts did it wrong, wrong, wrong. The car might still have been curbed, as there is some damage to the front bumper cover and the front rim is cracked, but what I thought was massive rear suspension damage just looks to be sheared lugs and a cracked rim.

So, instead of a dead engine donor, I might be looking at a car that just needs new wheels in order to drive. All because somebody doesn't understand torque specs.

Sooo....

Did you get it for $2013 or less?

Nice score. Here's hoping it's a proper 3-pedal car.

It is a three pedal car. I'd have to sell some stuff to get under $2013, but not all that much.

You'll note that the car has an AEM intake, a Greddy cat back and some sort of aftermarket suspension. That stuff would sell pretty quickly.

Score! Probably has a salvage title though, yes? Surprising nobody bothered to look to see what the damage was before they sent it to the insurance auction.

Curbed American History X style.

Ewww.

Brett_Murphy wrote: The suspension components look to be pretty straight, but whoever put on the lug nuts did it wrong, wrong, wrong. The car might still have been curbed, as there is some damage to the front bumper cover and the front rim is cracked, but what I thought was massive rear suspension damage just looks to be sheared lugs and a cracked rim.

And they also managed to crack the brake rotor... That's gotta take some doing.

Swank Force One wrote: Sooo.... Did you get it for $2013 or less?

Unless that auction is open to the general public, I'm not sure it would qualify for the Challenge.

depends on how it happened... if it slid in hard enough to crack the studs I would suspect the subframes of being deformed.

I guess the only way to tell is to put new studs on and try to align it (unless you can get some datums to check)

nocones wrote:

That's what I expected to see when I clicked the link.......

If you part it out, I could use the ECU cover in the engine bay. Does it have a mid-pipe too, or just cat-back?

dyintorace wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: Sooo.... Did you get it for $2013 or less?

Unless that auction is open to the general public, I'm not sure it would qualify for the Challenge.

It'd blow up anyways, its a renesis after all....

In reply to nocones:

Yes, the NC Copart auctions are open to the general public. It will have a salvage title, but so what?

Yes, the brake rotor hat is also cracked.

Brett_Murphy wrote: Yes, the NC Copart auctions are open to the general public. It will have a salvage title, but so what?

Once I'm in a place with a bigger garage and am done with the work on the Elky, I plan on trolling the local Copart auctions for RX-8s- when I have to do a full frame-off on the D in a few years, I would LOOOOVE to engineer putting a Renesis into it in place of the lethargic PRV...

I may have spoke too soon. After getting the tire all of the way off (required BFH) it looks like at least one lateral link is broken and the knuckle itself might need help.

Still better than I thought, though.

Can you tell us a little more about buying from Copart? Is this the first car you bought from them? How was the process, did they kill you with fees?

I have looked at the site and there are some pretty decent deals there. Some, like this RX8, seem to just need some minor repairs to be drivable.

I've bought two cars from Copart.

In some states (Virginia!) you can't bid on items unless you have some sort of license (junkyard, car dealer, etc).

There is a fee. Fees vary by location. Expect $350 or more of fees.

If you just register with them, as just a regular person, you can bid up to $1,000 on something. If you want to bid more than that, you have to have a deposit on file equal to 10% of your max bid. Registration is easy. Each facility will have a weekly auction, and you can bid in person or online in real time. I use internet bidding (fee for that!) and pay the delivery fee, which is usually cheaper than having a tow truck haul it to my place.

Facilities will usually let you go inspect cars before the auction starts. It is worth doing this, for sure, as the pictures can hide a lot. If you ask really nice, they might even pick up a car with the fork truck so you can look underneath.

People from all over the world can bid on this stuff. I've seen cars go at auction for more than I'd thought possible.

Copart has a few videos on the main page that you can watch that explain some of this, too.

Woah, had to check my driveway to see if mine was still there. Then took a second look. Nice catch. Looks just like mine, same color and all. Except mine is a sunroof car.

wae wrote: And they also managed to crack the brake rotor... That's gotta take some doing.

It takes very little effort to crack a brake rotor. Smack with a hammer and it breaks like glass.

It appears that the previous owner hit some fents and maybe a crub or two.

Good score, Brett!! Ive been looking on and off at minivans over there.

So what would you rather have, a curbed RX-8 or a Dacia Sandero?

RX-8.

This is a sunroof car, though. Otherwise I'd be rebuilding it.