2001 Honda S2000

Author
Discussion

MELLY-WRC

Original Poster:

39 posts

187 months

Tuesday 5th December 2017
quotequote all
I’ve always enjoyed spending countless hours reading through the journeys of fellow PH’s and their readers cars. I’ve also always wanted to contribute with whatever car I’ve had at the time but I can never seem to keep a car for more than 6 months so the post would become stale. Don’t get me wrong I’ve held onto a few cars for maybe a year or so but that’s incredibly rare and has only gotten worse as I’ve aged (35). As an example, In the last two years I’ve changed cars 11 times. I’m not a trader and i wasn’t trying to make a buck, these were all my personal/daily cars but none stayed very long.

So at the beginning of this year I decided to try something different, I was going to buy a nice daily and a decent track car. I’d not long sold my Golf R and picked up a JCW Mini Roadster. It was actually a cool wee car with a fair bit of go but in the end it just wasn’t for me so I sold it.

Golf R 1 by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr

JCW Mini by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr

I decided the next car had to be an estate and I really fancied some sort of dual clutch transmission. I looked at a load of options and finally decided on a Skoda Octavia VRS 2l TFSI DSG. At the beginning of May I seen a perfect example with everything I was looking for equipment wise, low mileage, FSH etc so I stuck in an offer. I awoke the next day to an email accepting said offer……result!

The next weekend I made the trip down from Scotland (950 miles return) and the car was just as described. It was actually better than I had imagined so I was extremely happy and done the deal there and then. The trip home was without drama and I was really surprised by just home comfortable, fast and smooth the car was. The boot size on the estate is insane!

1 by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr

Now that the daily was taken care of it was time to sort out the toy/weekend/track car. This was more work than I had planned and tbh after searching for hours at a time most days for 3 weeks I was getting bored of the whole thing. Firstly I couldn’t make my mind up on what I really wanted and secondly my budget changed so often that the pool of potential cars only grew by the day. I knew I wanted something Japanese and I wanted something that wouldn’t need the purchase price spent on it again in mods to make it track ready. I’ve had a few EP3 in the past and with a diff and some suspension work they make cracking track cars but with so many of them at my local track I decided against it. I also fancied another Celica GT4’s in ST205 flavour. I’ve had 3 of them in the past and it was actually my first turbo charged car when I was 20. The cost of parts, weight and the fact they are now appreciating means I’d probably never use it to it’s full potential in fear of devaluing it. I had actually arranged to go and see one that was local to me. On the Friday night I was having second thoughts about going to see it the next day and I just couldn’t shift the fact that I wanted something more than the GT4 so I called the guy and explained I wouldn’t be coming. With that one action I had now decided what I wanted and the search was now on for an S2000.

Why did I want one so badly?

I’ve had 3 of them in the past and tbh I’ve never driven a car like it. Granted they will never set the world alight with their power, optional extras or eye watering insurance premiums but when I sit in one it always feels like an occasion. It’s like getting into a cockpit, with every control completely driver focused. Turning on the ignition brings this crazy digital speedo to life as it sweeps from right to left. I love how sharp the steering feels and how light and nimble the chassis is. They corner so flat and you can be very late on the brakes before turn in. The seating position is perfect, nice and low, feeling like you’re actually in the car and not sitting on it like so many modern cars. The engine and gearbox are and absolute joy. Gearchanges are so short and precise it’s like a bolt action rifle. The engine is a real masterpiece, revving them out to 9,000rpm on the digital tac with the red zone between 8 and 9k flashing away before you do it all over again in the next gear is insanely good fun. The whole car is just so mechanical that when you are absolutely on it and in the zone it is quite an intense experience. On the flip side you also have one of the cars other USP’s and that the ability to drop the roof for some good old fashioned wind in your hair cruising. Even on a bright, crisp winters morning it’s always a pleasure to drop the top and go for a drive. Just don’t get caught in traffic with the music blaring some guilty pleasure song from the radio.

After searching in all the usual places I found a tidy silver, 52 plate on ebay that met most of my criteria. After speaking to the owner I decided to put a bid on in the dying seconds of the auction……….and I won it. Top work, I’m now an S2000 owner……..or so I thought.

S2000 by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr

The car was in Devon and I’m from the north east of Scotland. I don’t like flying so a mammoth train journey was on the cards. I left the house at 5am on Saturday morning and took the 11 hour train ride. The lad picked me up from the station and took me to his house to see the car. First impressions weren’t great, the car was in need of a wash for starters. On closer inspection the sills were rusty, a lot of the engine bay was heavily corroded with a few cracks in the strut tower welds, missing bolts from the wings, the front crossbar was orange, steering rack was heavily corroded too. These were very off putting things but I continued looking the car over to find that the rear quarters had been replaced at some point, paint overspray everywhere, the boot floor was literally bright orange from water sitting there over a long period of time and the all so common rear fog light bracket had failed and it was just sort of held in place by hopes and dreams. He asked if I wanted to start it up and at that point I just told him politely that he had falsely advertised the car and I wouldn’t be taking it. To be fair he seemed as shocked as I was when I was pointing out all of these faults so I just asked him to take me back to the train station. Around 2 weeks later he re-advertised the car on ebay again and never mentioned a single thing I pointed out in his adverts. Kinda think he knew about a lot of the problems all along and was just chancing his luck. Bit of a dick move when someone is travelling around 1100 miles all in. So there I was stuck in some little town/village at 5pm looking to get home with no return ticket. If things couldn’t get any worse the ticket attendant at the station informed me that there was no way I could get back to Scotland that day…..great. Now this isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened to me before when buying a car so I hatched a plan……….train to Heathrow, hire a car at the airport, drive home…….and that’s exactly what I done. I finally got back to my house at 8am on Sunday morning after an 1100 mile and 27 hour trip. I’d spent around £400 in travel and food costs with only the sweet, sweet memories of living life on the railroad and the M6 toll road to keep me company.

The whole experience above had somewhat soured the thought of another S2000 and I sort of put it at the back of my mind for a few weeks, plus I couldn’t be arsed travelling that sort of distance again any time soon. I was still loving life in the VRS, with it still having that new (to me) car feeling (had only been a matter of weeks thought). I was looking on one of the many car groups I frequent on facebook when a black 51 plate S2000 popped up for sale. A lot of what I was reading fit my criteria and I was starting to get excited about the prospect of owning it. Fired the owner a message asking for some more details and surprise, surprise it was around 500 miles away. Can you see a pattern/theme here? We sent more messages back and forth and I decided to take another leap of faith so I arranged to travel down on the Saturday to look it over/ buy it. I sent a text on the Friday, early evening to make sure we were still on the next day. I was informed that the car was to be viewed by someone else that evening and that if it was still there I could come down as planned the next day. Now I know I never sent a deposit to secure the car but I was blazing mad about this, I was so looking forward to the prospect of owning the car, my friend had taken the day off work with no pay to come with me and we were less than 24 hrs from our arranged meet time. I wrote out a massive reply deleted some of it wrote it out again went away and left it come back to it later and added some more. This message would have sank the deal without question but tbh if the lad never bought it I doubt I would have either for the same reasons he didn’t have it. I was still unsure what to do so I made a coffee. While the kettle was boiling I decided to just chill, not send the message and see how it panned out. Around 30 mins later the owner messaged to say the guy wasn’t going to make it until the Sunday and that if I didn’t buy it he would come down then, game on!

Now after what happened the last time I was adamant I wouldn’t be left stranded in the middle of nowhere again, so i decided to enlist the help of a good friend and we headed down in the VRS. We left around 5am and due to massive traffic jams and hold ups we didn’t get there until around 2:30pm. Unlike the last one, first impressions of this one were good, it had been cleaned thoroughly and shone in the mid afternoon sun, expectations were rising. My friend and I had a good look around, under and inside the car. I noted a few minor things that weren't mentioned by the seller but they were minor so not deal breakers. During the test drive, 6th gear synchro was a bit nippy at high revs and failing rear bushes caused the back end to become a bit loose during cornering. The seller clearly hoped the bushes wouldn't be picked up during the test drive but smiled sheepishly when it happened and admitted it needed looked at. After the test drive I had another look around the car trying to make my mind up. I added up the cost of the fixes plus a little more for "just in case" and came to a price I was willing to pay. I put the offer to the seller and to my surprise it was accepted. Trying not to rip their arm off as we shook on it I was a very happy man indeed. At last, after all of that searching, emailing and travelling, I was finally an S2000 owner once again. Just the small matter of the 500 mile trip home then.

IMG_3986 by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr
IMG_3985 by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr
IMG_3989 by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr
IMG_3990 by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr
IMG_3987 by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr

Thankfully the trip home was almost completely uneventful. My friend was more than happy to drive the S2000 home and I was happy to just chill with the cruise control in the VRS. When I say almost uneventful it was completely user error. My friend got himself involved in a 3 car top trumps episode somewhere on the M6 with a new focus ST and a jaguar XK8. After battling to the death for around 30 miles the S2000 started to cough and splutter........running out of fuel!!! I caught up with him at a service station while he was refuelling, he apologised for emptying the fuel tank like it had a hole in the arse of it and promised to behave......a little. The rest of the trip was smooth sailing and we returned home before midnight, after a cheeky McDonald's.

Thanks for reading this far, I know this is a very wordy intro into my S2000 ownership journey. I'll add more to the thread including what has happened during the last few months of my ownership. I've got a list of things I'd like to fix, replace or improve and I've already made a few purchases and some changes that I'll add too.

Cheers,
Melly


Mark Benson

7,509 posts

269 months

Tuesday 5th December 2017
quotequote all
Good write up, I'd be livid going 500 miles to view a dog like that.

Had 2 S2000s back in the day - black with red leather (which I rolled, at 27mph!) and a red with black leather for contrast. Loved them both and the only thing I could think of to move onto afterwards was Lotuses, which speaks volumes I think.

MELLY-WRC

Original Poster:

39 posts

187 months

Tuesday 5th December 2017
quotequote all
Thanks for the reply Mark. My first S2000 was a black/Red combo too.

my001 by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr

Cheers,
Melly


billzeebub

3,864 posts

199 months

Tuesday 5th December 2017
quotequote all
Nice looking S2000. Always fancied one of these and love glimpsing such gems on the road amongst all the dull homogenous SUVs. Is that your lovely white MG roadster in the background, looks like a midget

MELLY-WRC

Original Poster:

39 posts

187 months

Wednesday 6th December 2017
quotequote all
Yeah I don't see many of these cars in my area and they certainly stand out a bit over the norm.

They pictures were from the seller unfortunately so it's not my MG. I don't think I would have the patience to own and run a car like that due to the level of care, maintenance and upkeep it would require.

Cheers,
Melly

n3il123

2,607 posts

213 months

Wednesday 6th December 2017
quotequote all
MELLY-WRC said:
Thanks for the reply Mark. My first S2000 was a black/Red combo too.

my001 by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr

Cheers,
Melly
I had one just like that, '02 Black with red, end up in a ditch backwards frown


MELLY-WRC

Original Poster:

39 posts

187 months

Wednesday 6th December 2017
quotequote all
Sadly that's the way a fair few of them end up. The earlier ones were well known for being a bit twitchy even at low speeds. Another reason why insurance premiums can be horrendous. Like I said earlier this is my 4th S2000 and although I have never had the misfortune to crash one, there has been a few occasions where I have lost the back end and barely saved it or the one occasion where I didn't and ended up facing oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the road. Feeling the eyes of other road users burning right through you as you sheepishly 3 point turn in the chaos you've just created is NOT fun.

Cheers,
Melly

EddyBee

241 posts

168 months

Wednesday 6th December 2017
quotequote all
Looks great.
It's frightening how many people have come off the road in one mind!
Mine was a facelift and I almost stacked it at the Evo triangle. I'm sure if it was an early one I'd have been off!

I had mine for 12 months (only sold it because my friend was selling a classic car I'd been begging him to sell me)
It sold in less than 24hrs of me advertising it.
Funnily enough tge guy who bought it previously owned one & the 2 other people that called about it who had owned them before.
Easiest car I've ever sold.

Any plans for it?

Mike1990

964 posts

131 months

Wednesday 6th December 2017
quotequote all
Great read!

Always had a soft spot for the S2000’s, it just seems it’s a mine field trying to find a ‘good one’

Petevxl

89 posts

140 months

Wednesday 6th December 2017
quotequote all
Nice one mate.

I picked up a DC2 from Exeter the other month, 1000 mile round trip from Dunfermline! However I wasn't a pansy and got a plane down wink

Disappointing about the first one you went to see. Can't say I would have been as polite as you.

Enjoy!

Jonny_gti

288 posts

80 months

Thursday 7th December 2017
quotequote all
That sucks about the first s2000 what a wasted trip and money however, the one you ended up with looks a lot nicer hope you enjoy it.

RS Grant

1,425 posts

233 months

Thursday 7th December 2017
quotequote all
Great wee car, gone full circle from a black pre-facelift to a black pre-facelift! ...glad to see you doing a thread about it too, might mean you’ll keep this one longer than 2 minutes?! winksmile

Makes me miss mine... which I owned for about 2 minutes?! getmecoatlaugh

MELLY-WRC

Original Poster:

39 posts

187 months

Thursday 7th December 2017
quotequote all
EddyBee said:
Looks great.
It's frightening how many people have come off the road in one mind!
Mine was a facelift and I almost stacked it at the Evo triangle. I'm sure if it was an early one I'd have been off!

I had mine for 12 months (only sold it because my friend was selling a classic car I'd been begging him to sell me)
It sold in less than 24hrs of me advertising it.
Funnily enough tge guy who bought it previously owned one & the 2 other people that called about it who had owned them before.
Easiest car I've ever sold.

Any plans for it?
I did find my facelift to be more stable when chapping on over the country roads but in town at slow speeds, off of roundabouts etc I found it to be just as playful as the older model. I felt the vtec crossover was slightly smoother on my 56 plate over my 00 model. I don't know if they made any changes to the throttle mapping or cross over graphs but it felt like it. Possibly something to do with changing from throttle cable to drive by wire.

I always have a million plans and schemes for my cars but most only ever get as far as buying the parts or fitting breathing mods before I decide to sell up. This time round I have just been slowly picking up some parts and deciding what direction I wan to take with the car. I have some things I want o fix, replace and repair before I start modifying but i'll go through that in the next update.

Cheers,
Melly

MELLY-WRC

Original Poster:

39 posts

187 months

Thursday 7th December 2017
quotequote all
Mike1990 said:
Great read!

Always had a soft spot for the S2000’s, it just seems it’s a mine field trying to find a ‘good one’
Thanks Mike, I didn't realise just how long the post was going to be until I'd finished typing it.

I think a lot of folk forget that the earliest cars are now around 17 years old and with that, tired bodywork, rust, high miles and leaking roofs are a possibility. Find a decent one though and it's all smiles per gallon.

Cheers,
Melly

MELLY-WRC

Original Poster:

39 posts

187 months

Thursday 7th December 2017
quotequote all
Petevxl said:
Nice one mate.

I picked up a DC2 from Exeter the other month, 1000 mile round trip from Dunfermline! However I wasn't a pansy and got a plane down wink

Disappointing about the first one you went to see. Can't say I would have been as polite as you.

Enjoy!
Great choice, I loved my DC2 and kept it for around a year.

1 by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr

A wee pic of it prior to leaving Japan. It was imported by Andy and 200BHP Imports (now just BHP Imports). Still one of my favourite cars to this day, it surprised me on so many levels.

Cheers,
Melly

chrismc1977

854 posts

112 months

Thursday 7th December 2017
quotequote all
Nice S2K

Are the tailpipe finishers OEM?

They look a bit odd in the image

MELLY-WRC

Original Poster:

39 posts

187 months

Thursday 7th December 2017
quotequote all
Jonny_gti said:
That sucks about the first s2000 what a wasted trip and money however, the one you ended up with looks a lot nicer hope you enjoy it.
Thanks Jonny, it certainly is a better car overall. It's a completely blank canvas so I will makes some changes over the period of my ownership to make it more to my liking.

Cheers,
Melly

MELLY-WRC

Original Poster:

39 posts

187 months

Thursday 7th December 2017
quotequote all
RS Grant said:
Great wee car, gone full circle from a black pre-facelift to a black pre-facelift! ...glad to see you doing a thread about it too, might mean you’ll keep this one longer than 2 minutes?! winksmile

Makes me miss mine... which I owned for about 2 minutes?! getmecoatlaugh
It's being received well so I will keep it up and hope it adds to the ownership experience. With prices rising on these cars the way they are I don't think I'd be able to justify having another a few years down the line when most likely they will cost more than I think they are worth.

Just to cheer you up, here's a couple of your old one.

Untitled by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr

Untitled by Paul Meldrum, on Flickr

Cheers,
Melly

MELLY-WRC

Original Poster:

39 posts

187 months

Thursday 7th December 2017
quotequote all
chrismc1977 said:
Nice S2K

Are the tailpipe finishers OEM?

They look a bit odd in the image
Hey Chris, I think they are aftermarket and I agree they look rather odd. I have a fix for this though.....watch this space.

Cheers,
Melly

chrismc1977

854 posts

112 months

Friday 8th December 2017
quotequote all
MELLY-WRC said:
Hey Chris, I think they are aftermarket and I agree they look rather odd. I have a fix for this though.....watch this space.

Cheers,
Melly
OEM ftw (with 1.5” UK mod done!!!)

OEM looks but a much better note (& cheap!)