Hello all!

I am the new guy here. One or two of you may know me from AOL, but for the rest it's all new.

I have a red 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse GS. Almost 90k miles. I am trying to decide what to do with it given the car's current history.

When I received it, it read as a clear title, but later on I noticed it had been wrecked and they tried to hide the minor imperfections. The right front fender is kinda like dented in and has a rip under the fender...the front bumper near where fender attaches is bent a little and the rear bumper left side has a hand-size small dent. The airbag top left corner is bent upwards(was told it was from sun) and the "vents" ? at the top of the dash are popping out kind of. oh and the top of the headliner is falling from the front a little, but i was told i can fix that with some sort of spray on adhesive. The paint is chiping from rocks or something and the spoiler and hood are both kinda chipped(more like a big chunk).... umm.. oh yeah they tried to repaint it to hide everything and apparently did really bad on the clearcoat...cuz it's stripping and oxidizing all over.

So now I gotta get it repainted... and I wanted to add wheels and a body kit since I'm painting anyway. The problem is, I don't want to invest all my money in something that won't pan out. For example, if I just get it repainted and fix the rattles inside of the car on my own, and whatever other small things I can take care of, then I could sell the car and get a 97(?) or something and then use it as the car I mod. The point is I am wanting a project car to start my modding on.

Hard to explain, sorry...it's like putting all my mods into a car that has a bent frame or something, only to find out later and be stuck with a project car with a bent frame so the body looks weird?

Trying to get a feel for the amount of defects if it is worth keeping to mod or what. Oh yeah and like most other people I am on a limited budget.

BTW... I'm sorry for this sounding confusing or stupid or something... it is late. I'm sure I'll get flamed some, so sorry in advance.

Thanks

hey man i know what your going through. im also pretty new here so i know what its like but believe me if u love DSM's then u have come to heaven..
anyways i to have a 95 eclipse gs that is red in color.
got it about a year ago and im pretty happy with it as of now im replacing the headgasket, clutch, timingbelt, idler pulley, tensioner pulley, installing an AFX UDP, oil pan gasket..and blah blah blah..it never ends..
well enough about me on to your question...
ok..how badly was your car wreck?
do you have any aligmen problems? check clearence of the pulleys (ac and power stering as well as cranck shaft pulley.
im talking bout excesive tire wear, when your on the freeway your steering wheel shakes like a wall on a HOTEL 6?
and is there a way u can tell if your chassy is bent in any way shape or form?
so is the damage only on the body such as the fenders front bumper or rear..check for any broken peaces in the suspension?
and if u can get a report from WWW.CARFAX.COM it will help u inmensly in desiding if your car is worth your effort in putting money into it or if you should sell it.
the reason im telling u and asking u so much is because i know first hand what its like to have purchased a lemon. Not my eclipse but my lil brother's 93 ACURA INTEGRA, the tittle said it was clean but found out that it was smashed against a wall or something and the whole drivers side was totaled and they fixed it pretty god until u check the under body and find out little details that lead u to believe that u have been fucked.
so if u got any more questions post them up theres lots of cool guys in here who share the same pasion and if i cant answer your question im sure some one else will
take it easy and decide if your car is not messed up badly and if it is sell it before u put aftermarket parts on it. believe me you will save yourself a lot of headaches and money..
c-ya
oh yeah and also how much did u pay for it?

welcome to the board.. and good choice on a red 95 gs :-) seems we all have something in common

yeah first bet would be www.carfax.com and find out more about the history of the car. hopefully the damage from a previous accident didnt hurt the strutual integrity of the car and most of the other stuff is just what happens to 7+ year old cars.

did you just buy it? also, did you get it from a dealer? either way, you could try to sue the person you bought it from b.c its illegal to try to purposely hide problems with a car.. i don't know all the details b.c it was just something we talked about in my business law class... but it might help..

also, my brother got into an accident a while ago, i don't know if it would compare the same way with yours but he had it fixed up and all but the frame was bent.. then after 2 or 3 years he started having different problems so he sold it and got something else.. if you can get rid of the car with no loss or a little loss, then i'd say try to find one that's accident free...

I've had the car since Sept./Oct. '01. The only thing I have done to it is work on the engine, replace water pump, timing belt, tb tensioner, etc... Oops, hehe...umm the guy that was helping me work on the engine ... well he forgot to tighten the rear cam cuz we were bs'n and drinking beer...well that blew all the valves and so he took it to his jag shop and had a bunch of parts replaced, new valves, new gaskets, etc... free. like $2k worth of work. The engine runs really nice now. I also put on flowmaster delta flow 50 series muffler and it sounds real nice. (my friends bitch cuz they get headaches cuz it's loud, but I like it)




You can kind of see it on these pics.

Thanks

I don't have any alignment problems that I know of. The steering is fine...my dad actually thinks it's good for an eclipse.(he works at a GM dealership) The wreck doesn't seem to have been too severe. Something like a fender bender. The right front fender is somewhat dented, as well as the middle of the fender is scratched deep. The front side of the bumper is slightly bent also. But, they did not replace anything and just tried to straighten out the hood. The right headlight is kind of sucked in because the fender and hood are more severely overlapped there, than on the other side. I can't tell if the hood just needs more straightening or if the actual frame is bent. For the stuff you recommended to me, should I go get an estimate at a body shop and see what they think?

I paid $5,500 from a used dealership.

if your frame isn't bent, then your ready to go. what could be more perfect as a project car? if u wanna go with a 97 & up look, why not the 97 conversion. as long as u don't have any frame damage. i would fix that thing uP.

I have another thought as well. The trunk rattles a lot and the door panels rattle alot(well the doors rattle I mean)...anyway, I have the Chilton's repair manual and know how to take them apart, I just haven't done it yet. Do you guys think that just about any rattle can be fixed in-house for us DIY'ers?(Do-It-Yourself'ers) That's one of my complaints is that the rattles are really bad, especially when the windows are down...they rattle extremely bad. Now, I suppose there might be some cheap way to fill the doors with some sort of sound absorber or padding or something that would make everything seem more solid. Do you guys know anything about that? I'm sorry, I don't meant to get off track.

OH YEAH....my f'n door handle is broke now on my driver's side! I went to the movies with my g/f came out and it was broken. I just saw it hanging there. Someone jacked with my car, I am guessing because I didn't touch it. Oh well.

Thanks

additional front and right side views:

Well ghost what can i say...
my brother had the samething it seem like a fender ber too but it turned out to be worse after owning it for a while..
on my brother's car the previous owner was a japanese dude who by the looks of it had the car tuned out for dragracing(streetracing mostly:nono) and our conclusion was that this guy must have been racing it on the track or on the street lost control and slammed on the side guard or on to some other car (doubt it otherewise a report would have been taken and the title would have shown that it is salvaged) hes fixed so manythings on it since we bought it and many times hes been stressing about selling it but the financial state were in does not allow him to pay for a diff car..oh well thst our shitty luck.
well iw ould wait or take it to a body shop after u gat the carfax report and also check how many people have owned it and then figure out where it was first purchased new then youll get a good ides on what to expect in the futre.
but if your sure that its a fender bender the i think you should fix the body but not with the stock pieces...go for the good stuff like a carbon fiber hood aftermarket bumper and projector headlights along with z-3 fenders ..bealive me youll be a happy man once your done...
and your rattling is that hapen cause u got a sound system or does it do it anytime your driving the car at whatever speed or is there a specific speed range..
O lastly you know what is amazing...my brothers acura lemon was also ..$$5500..wow talk about coincidence..and it had 101000 miles exactly.. :wary :nono

no speed range really...just any sort of bump or non-smooth road surface and the car rattles in the doors and the trunk. I did look at the hatch and the latch is not secure. It is loose and can shift so the hatch doesn't ever get 100% shut, I am guessing that's why it can rattle. Too much room to play.

I don't have a system, unfortunately. I'm just starting to learn about imports and modding, however it's something that I am really interested in now. Money is tight, and you all know what I'm going through I guess... if you're going to mod it, ya want to mod it right and do it that way from the start, not get half way into it and learn your investment just went to shit.

I am gonna check out the carfax reports and take it to a body shop for an estimate later today. Hopefully nothing is wrong with the frame.(the engine is really good according to dealers and my pro mechanic friends)

I take it you guys can't gather much from the pictures? You can kinda see where the hood is out of alignment I think...I heard that that was a characteristic of bent frame, but I don't know where I heard that. Probably imagined it. :-D


Thanks

well i supose that you may be right about the trunk im not familiar with that...
i do know what your going through money doest grow on trees and yes do it right the first time so u wont regret it later id say that before u buy sothing post question in here that way youll have some feed back on what quality of prodict your looiking at it helps a lot..
let me kow how it turns out once uget the report and form the body shop
also u might want to run a comprssion tes and maybe a vacum test there is a likn but i dont know it do it to your car and it will tell u the condition of your engine

My friend ran a compression and vacuum test on the engine while I was out of state....that's why he said I had a really good engine.

the title could be clear and there could still be damage to the car. What if the guy, or gal, was pulling out of someplace and tagged something whic resulted in a fucked up bumper. They just repaired it and never claimed it. No accident, no claim, clear title. As for the airbag, it is a common problem for the top left corner to peel up for some reason. I don't know why. I own a 95 Eagle Talon and the airbag is the same exact way, as are a few others on this board. Jus givin tha skizzy nizzy ;) :thumbsup

Thanks man...you're right, the bastards! The previous owner was some retard blond high school/college chick who probably didn't know crap about driving. She let her freakin' dogs and cats all over the car, I've been pulling cat and dog hair out for months.

By the way, is there any way to do anything about our problems with our airbags?

:rolleyes :'(

Sorry, I'm a little spaztic after being told that I should scrap my car. I wish some of you guys that know a lot lived close to me and could look and test drive it to see what you think. :wary

Just went to a local body shop. He said he could go either way with the car, as far as keeping it or not. The front right apron of the vehicle is dented and slightly cracked or something. He said that he thinks it's not enough damage to cause me any problems in the future, but not absolutely positive. He said he could straighten it out for $400 but I'd still have to get a new bumper and possibly a new fender. He said that if I was going the show car route that I'd probably want it to be perfect and that I should probably just sell it and buy a 97 or something. I don't know how trustworthy he is, a lot of his prices are way too high. Anywho, I'm probably taking it to a few more body shops for estimates. Since our cars are unibodies does that mean that since the apron is messed up, the rest of the body is equally shifted or something? Oh yeah, he said that it had a replacement hood and left fender so something could've happend over there too. Blah... about gave me a heartattack.

no comments, eh?? *sniff* *tear*

:rolleyes ... bump hehe :-)

STRAIGHTEN THE BODY!!!!! :nono
shit dude...i don't know..... :wary
Ok here goes, excuse me if it does not make any sense. My english sucks at this moment and i dont really want to proof read it. So here we go........
if something is wrong whith the car's unibody its no good
(i think, im probably wrong)
my cousin also has an integra a 91 i believe.
he hit a curv a while back, about two years ago or so, and he hit the pasangers side pretty bad. It was bad enought that the car was unable to move. the whole right side was out, the suspension components, the fender was slightly bent, i think he got a new axle, his front bumper also got messed up, and his unibody also had to be straighted out. After he had replace all the broken pieces he drove it like that for a while before getting it straighten out and it ran fine. So may be that is what happened to your car, maybe that blonde was putting make up on and BOOM hit the curv on a turn and messed it up and maybe this is why your title says its clean. Because the car still ran just needed some pieces replaced and no welding or major repair was done to it. I dont know. Why dont u check the door from the side that it was hit to see if it seals fine( do it with the window all the way up) and also check the gaps on that door and compared them to the good side of the car. If the window dont close good or if there is a huge gap difference in the doors then your screwed.
it would mean by my experience that the unibody is pretty badly bent.
Also if it looks fine then get the carfax report and let me know what it says ( i would spend 29 bucks on that report before spending $400+ on straightening the body)
My brother is having a tough time with the aligment on his car due to the bent unibody , i mean he has a camber kit that aligned it +3 degrees and it still eats the inside of the tire like it didnt even had one.
And if it turns out to be that the previous owner hit a curv then i would assume that your ok cause the samething as my cousing happened to my moms minivan and it runs like new (it too had to be straighten out for a wooping 2999 dollars, yes its by the thousands)
so check out the carfax report and if its good then get aftermarket pieces dont get stock ones cause you will probably pay more for the stock ones than the aftermarket
oh and one more thing........lower your car
good luck ( sorry that its too long but i have a lot of shit in my head and needed to let it out)lol
only trying to help dude :thumbsup
"let me help u for i shall one day need your help"-A quote by me

THANKS MAN! The more content the better! I like to have as much information as possible! The car has had no driving troubles, it drives great so I'm guessing that the unibody damage is not effecting that too much. I am really worried about how any aftermarket body stuff I get will fit, since I will have to be doing it on my own, MAYBE with the help of experienced body guys who are my friends, MAYBE with just paint guys. Who knows.

I'd have to get the: KIT + '97/projector headlights + reverse lights + new clear side markers(I think) + fogs. That gets a little pricey, well...not just a little...A LOT pricey. hehe

We don't have a frame...we have a unibody. ;-)

cool...
i guess that by the stuff your telling me i suppose that your car may be ready to go.
One more thing, my brothers acura integra was fine until he lowered it. when he bought it it was like damn it handles ad feels great, well it wasnt until he lowered it that his problems began. Tires wearingout with the camber kit.
by the way your car look exactly like mine...sweet i would post pics but i been having a hell lot of problems posting them ( as u can see by the redXin the squares at the bottom)

Yeah, I know... you'll notice that I reference to it both as frame and unibody since they are the same. I am used to domestic cars so I commonly refer to it as the frame. Plus it's easier to say "frame" vs. "u-ni-bod-y" <-- that just messes me up. Too complicated for some dumb white boy.