QotW: If you had a chance to buy your JNC again, what would you do differently?

Depending on the circumstances, you may have found yourself behind the wheel of your current JNC via pure luck. Maybe it was a good deal, a family member gifted it to you, or better. Perhaps it was such a rare car to find or such a sweet price that it clouded your buying. Or, it could have been a sale with hidden gremlins the seller “forgot” to disclose. Maybe you learned a few things to avoid, or keep clear in your head for next time.

If you had to buy your JNC again, what would you do differently?

The most entertaining comment by next Monday will receive a prize. Scroll down to see the winner of last week’s QotW, “Which JNC Nissan should be in your garage?

The comments were incredibly varied this week, proving just how diverse Nissan’s portfolio once was. From Speedie‘s suggestion of an egg-shaped coupe to Kiran‘s pitch for a rally racer to your many recommendations of Nissan’s boutique cars, you put together one heck of a garage. The winner, however, was dbdr, who went all ASPCA on us and reminded us that the plain-Jane March that spawned all the Pike cars is worthy of love too:

The March/Micra!

It’s a happy little car that weighs barely anything, has a great engine and is easy to work on. They are cheap to buy, own and modify and there are so many of them running around that finding parts help from fellow owners is easy. They have been sold pretty much everywhere in hundreds of different variations, some of which are really strange. Oh, and they’re cute as hell!

Adopt your very own Micra today for amazingly little money!

Omedetou! Your comment has earned you a set of decals from the JNC Shop.

JNC Decal smash

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20 Responses to QotW: If you had a chance to buy your JNC again, what would you do differently?

  1. Taylor says:

    If I had to buy my Z31 over again, I’d have had it inspected first. There are/were a bunch of steering components that needed replacing along with some other fussy unusual bits that would have either ultimately swayed my decision or my offer. I love my Z, don’t get me wrong, but I’d have liked to have been better informed before diving in.

  2. Saii says:

    I never would have panal and painted it. I bought a 1980 corona in original but badly faded/cracked poo brown colour. Ever since I painted it I cant come back to it in a car park without having to check it for marks. Now the rat rod look is popular I wish I had kept the rough paint all original.

  3. Erik says:

    About 18 years ago. I had an opportunity to buy a near mint all original 71 GTX with 60km on her. I balked at paying (early 2000s yen/$) for what worked put to be $12500 Roll on roll off. It still makes me mad to this day that I passed it up.

  4. Joshua Lynch says:

    I wouldn’t have done anything differently. I got a clean, low mileage R31 with some solid OEM options. However, research is always important, and I think learning as much about the chassis as possible will only enhance JNC ownership!

  5. Yuri says:

    I would have tried harder to convince my dad that he actually did need that brand new sports car he had his eye on back in the early nineties. He had it narrowed down to either an SW20 MR2 turbo, or Mazda FD RX7 R1, both in yellow, leaning towards the FD. I think he finally thought that it wouldn’t make sense to have a two-seater with two kids in the household. 26-years later he did get his sports car in the form of a BRZ series.yellow, but I can’t help but think about how cool it would have been to grow up with a yellow FD in the family…..

  6. Khalid says:

    As a student I owned a 1977 260Z 2+2, a 1970 240Z with an L28 and triple Dellortos, and a 1974 260Z 2+2, in that order. By the time I bought the last one, I was married to my first wife who hated it and made me sell it after a year. I later bought a 1993 R33 Skyline GTS-T which she also made me sell after a year. What would I do differently? I’d sell the first wife and keep the cars.

  7. Vince says:

    I wouldn’t have maxed out my credit card to pay for the manual swap. I still make payments on it over a year later.

  8. dzakiarif says:

    if i had to buy my 808 73′ , id have to restored to 100% racing chasis and swapped bigger engine maybe rotary engine with turbo kit without converted to coupe series , and ill do a lot of burnout i mean A LOT

  9. Jan van Kleef says:

    My Toyota Land Cruiser BJ40. I drove mine over 300 K kilometers in six years as daily transport. Never regretted a single kilometer in it! Even my Suzuki LJ80 is a serious option. Wonderful little go-everywhere car.

  10. Kiran says:

    if I were to go back in time and buy my Cordia differently, I wouldve actually test drove it instead of putting money down right on the spot when I saw it parked on the side of the road, merely glancing around it and started it as I soon found out the unique supershift transmission did not really function as I hoped with first and second gear synchros worn out completely and power mode rendered the car immovable for some reason that I can’t remember so that was a couple of grand down the drain after officially owning the thing for around 5 minutes

  11. Craig Williams says:

    I would have just bought the NSX! 30k on a 91 Skyline GTR and a month later everything blows costing me another 20k getting evrything swapped, repaired and re built! Oh the GTR is cheapr I said… Oh it wont cost as much I said… Well lessons learned but at least im gonna have a monster when its all done!

  12. Ds323f says:

    I would buy my mazda astina with a good set of r6 carbs, bosch external pump, get a stage2 engine rebuild from a 1.6 familia dohc engine as i missed carburetors so much. I ended up changing the engine to 1.5 efi dohc due to my failed build of the stock sohc engine. It turns up into a running mosquito fog machine everytime i floor the right pedal.

  13. Rowan says:

    I jumped the gun because i was so keen to get my hands on an R32. There was plenty of quality GT-Rs coming out of Japan while the 15 rule existed in Australia, and had i saved for another 4-5 months i could’ve had one on the road for ~16k (Aus). But i couldn’t wait so i spent what i had then (~10k) on a modded GTS-t Type M. Don’t get me wrong. It was a great car. Loved that thing. But i’ve still never owned the original Godzilla. And now it’s becoming a lot more expensive to do so.

  14. João Pedro Moreira Santos says:

    I wouldn’t borrow it to my grandma. Maybe i would still have it, and my grandma as well.

  15. _John says:

    I wish i had waited just a few more months before buyung my 510. Shirtly after I bought my 69 4dr a wagon popped up that was closer and cheaper. As a fan of wagons I was kinda bummed I couldn’t get it. I live my 510 but damn I wanted a wagon.

  16. akaloosey says:

    Around 1990, the local Toyota dealer was running ads on TV for brand new pickups. $149 Down / $149 Mo.
    Just out of high school and working for peanuts I thought, even I could afford that.

    It was a scam. Get down their only to have the salesman laugh at me. It’s $149 Down OR $149 Month. Welcome to the real world son.

    He proceeded to direct my attention to this low mileage preowned Mazda 323. You can fold the seats down and haul things like a pickup he said. LOL. I ended up buying it and putting over 200k miles on it. Even lived out of it for a short time.

    28 years later and I got (5) 1800 sedans, 1 GSL-SE, 1 Repu, and a Mazda3 Hatchback. My only regret, not selling a kidney and buying a 1970 Rx87 Luce Rotary Coupe back in 2004 with something like 25km on the clock and plastic on the door panels. Polo Cars Ltd. in Japan was asking around $16,000 USD back then and it went up on Yahoo Auctions over and over without a buyer. Now I’m not sure they will even allow you to smell it for that amount.

    As Harry Callahan said though, “a man’s got to know his limitations” and I have been blessed. Still say that Toyota salesman was a smart aleck.

  17. Mike says:

    I would have joined the local Z-Car club before purchasing. I would have waited a little longer and found a better more sound 240-Z.
    I sent a solid 510 4door project to the crusher in about ‘89 as I had no place to keep it. I shouldn’t have done that.

    • David Cotter says:

      I had a friend do that with a 240z that his parents told him had to be out of the driveway back in the 80s. It needed a new engine and the interior was totally trashed. The body needed paint but was straight and had no rust. I remember the tears in his eyes when they towed it away.

  18. Banpei says:

    I probably wouldn’t have sold the AE86 when I bought the Carina eleven years ago and swapped the complete drivetrain over. Fast forward eleven years and I still haven’t performed that swap….

  19. David Cotter says:

    I learned a ton about what not to do when I bought my first A60 Supra. I was a solid American muscle car guy and had sold my new out of college mustang GT when my son was born. At the time my wife was driving an 82 Celica GT and I took it over as my daily driver. Over the next three years I put over a hundred thousand miles on it with nothing but regular maintenance. I was sold on Toyota’s at that point.

    Finally at just over 200k on the odometer it was time to replace the Celica and I of course wanted more power, so a Supra made perfect sense. This was the mid 90s and A60 supras were plentiful and cheap. The car I chose was a silver 82 L-Type with a black leather interior. There were many tell tale signs that it was not a perfect car but I was in a hurry to buy and figured as a Toyota that there should be no big issues.

    Well after buying it I discovered it needed a slew of things fixed including a new radiator, water pump, cam box seals, stabilizer links and assorted steering links. Total cost at the time for repairs was $1500, or the same as I paid for the car. There is nothing like a big financial ouch to wisen one.

    From that experienice I learned to never buy a used car without an independent mechanic’s inspection and to know what issues affect the type of car you are buying. Knowledge is a powerful bargaining tool. If only JNS was around then.

    As for the L-Type, after the initial repairs I drove it 125k miles with nothing but oil changes and tires before the radio could no longer drown out the screaming rear differential (a common problem I learned about after my purchase). The lessons I learned were put to good use when I purchased my second A60 Supra, a showroom P-Type with low mileage and no problems!

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