Honda S2000 buying tips

[carreauchompeur]

Hi all,

Just in the process of offloading my current fleet, have decided that an S2000 seems to tick most of the boxes for an all-round car. I'm looking to spend about £5000. This seems to bring up some fairly decent examples, would ideally like red, or perhaps red leather...

Is the early geometry really bad for sending one into the hedge backwards? Can this be fixed by suspension upgrades/set-up?

Also, I have noticed that a few of the imports have the sat-nav screen. Now I know this won't work, but does anyone have experience of retrofitting a touchscreen stereo/sat-nav/car pc into this space? Reckon if I could manage it would be brilliant.

Any other common faults/foibles to look out for?

TIA!

[mikeyr]

Not had one personally but either this month or last month there was a buying guide in Evo magazine.

Look like cracking little cars - there is a dealers just outside Winchester that specialise in them so they must be popular.

[FurballS2000]

have a look on www.s2ki.co.uk, they are perfectly useable as an everyday car, good choice on colour

Geometry bolts are known to seize on older cars, not a problem unless you are getting the geo done but expensive if needing doing.

Calipers can seize, just upgraded my front brakes because of this reason, cheap replacement calipers are easily sourced though.

Make sure you get one with a good roof, they will start wearing at a point just over your shoulder. People recommend buying a thing called a lizard skin, basically a bit of neoprene used as a bicycle chain guard, to put round the offending part of the roof frame.

Early cars can use a bit of oil so make sure you keep an eye on it, mine is from 2000 and it doesn't seem to be that bad. The older the oil in it the more it will generally use. Doesn't use as much as the 330i I had before.

This time of year is what I've been looking forward to all winter, lots of random roof down drives for the hell of it!!
Sun + roof down + 9k rpm + tunnel =

Hope this helps

[FurballS2000]

Also, no you won't end up in a hedge. Unless you're driving like a t**t!

Had mine since August and not had any issues handling-wise over the winter. I left it on the drive throughout the snow mind.
You just have to remember that it is a rear wheel drive car with 240bhp and no traction control electronics so don't go mad in the wet.

I have no experience of it, but have seen threads on s2ki where people have put in their own gizmos in place of the JDM satnav so it can be done and can look good.

[mikey P 500]

Speaking as a previous owner I would make the following a priority.
Good clutch (costs £700)
Good roof (again a complete replacement glass windowed roof is £700 plus)
Receipt for a recent geo set up (as the bolts seize it its not done fairly regularly and it costs a lot to sort in labour).
I would also ask seller about oil consumption, they all use a bit and it therefore needs to be checked very regularly but not all owners know this, and I wouldn’t want one that was run low on oil.
Part from above great cars and very useable everyday fun car. You could also get a nice early Boxster for similar money and is a very good alternative car.

[carreauchompeur]

Thanks for all the tips, good stuff! Hopefully my Barge is selling tomorrow so the hunt can begin in earnest. I do quite fancy one of the ones with the Nav screen, I reckon there's the basis of a great project there...

I've seen quite a few around the 5k mark, this one looks cheap but does the engine malarkey sound dodgy?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&am...

I had looked at early Boxsters but would want a 3.2. Sadly even the bottom of the market is more than I want to spend, and don't fancy Porsche maintenance costs!

[Honsta]

carreauchompeur said:

Thanks for all the tips, good stuff! Hopefully my Barge is selling tomorrow so the hunt can begin in earnest. I do quite fancy one of the ones with the Nav screen, I reckon there's the basis of a great project there...

I've seen quite a few around the 5k mark, this one looks cheap but does the engine malarkey sound dodgy?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&am...

I had looked at early Boxsters but would want a 3.2. Sadly even the bottom of the market is more than I want to spend, and don't fancy Porsche maintenance costs!

The Avon tyres are a mid-range tyre, so maybe the owner wasn't a very spirited driver?. I wouldn't run my S2 on anything other than OEM recommendation (Bridgestone). The car does have the nicer 17" alloys though, which really smartens the car up.

Do recommend you head over to S2Ki and talk to some of the UK members. Look for someone based in Devon and I'm sure they wouldn't mind checking out the car with/for you.

–Hon

[carreauchompeur]

Cheers, will do- It looks like I've copped a timewaster on eBay so my car might not be sold quite as rapidly!

[CER927]

Dumb question, what part of the hood frame do you fit the 'Lizardskin chain stay protector ' to please? Any photo's would be helpful...... I have a small tear beginning in the hood, and I'm not certain I understand where the chain stay protector should be ideally fitted. Be kind to a newby!

[CER927]

Bump!

[S7Paul]

If you've already got a tear starting, I don't see much point fitting anything to the frame. My daughter's car had the same problem, and I cut out a rectangle of black vinyl and used spray-on contact adhesive to glue it to the inside of the hood in the area that the frame rubs against it. I stuck it with the shiny side of the vinyl facing the hood frame, and then smeared some silicon grease on it so that the hood frame tends to slide along the vinyl, rather than catching on it.

If you do some research on the S2K forums, you'll see that the Americans recommend gluing a patch of a type of Kevlar cloth used in protective clothing to the inside of the hood.

[CER927]

Thank you, since asking I've seen patches on the hoods of other cars. I'll get creative!