Wednesday, September 05, 2007 - 12:22 pm, by: Matthew Sharpe(Madmatt)
Hi Simon,
The UZZ32 is the rarest Soarer model with less than 900 ever made, so the good news is its worth a bit more, and has all the goodies you could want.
The bad news is its expensive to maintain and some parts are hard to come by.
Its an old car, and sounds like it may have been a little neglected too, which is sad.
The suspension rebuild is going to be the difficult and expensive bit. There are some people on here who can help you out with getting the struts rebuilt and sorting the leaks out, but unless you own a gold mine, forget about replacing them with new ones - plus the car will be off the road for quite some time while this work is taking place.
Braking system can be quite difficult with this model too I believe.
The timing belt replacement is also going to be fairly costly unless you are confident enough to tackle it yourself.
Most of the other stuff is pretty minor I'd say.
Short story is, if you want a rare enthusiasts car, you can afford a fairly massive bill to fix these initial problems, and you are willing to learn a whole heap, then go for it. Otherwise pass.
No doubt a UZZ32 owner will be along shortly to offer some better advise.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007 - 09:04 pm, by: Ben Kelly(Ace)
Simon the problem with soarer ownership (any model) is that you will find yourself newbie to tryhard or gooroo in months..or years if you are slow at fixing stuff like me. Most models even 31 non actives will need similar fix ups (timing belts, engine/transmission mounts)- that is except the unique suspension issues. I would say either expect to pay say 10k over the next few months/years to fix up or get a tt soarer that someone has already got shmiko. Easier to find, the downside is that it wont be a real luxury item like the active.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007 - 09:19 pm, by: Jim Burrough(Jfb)
Simon, you may not need a gold mine to buy new struts... as there are no new struts made or available any more (from recollection of a post by Roger Costello). So struts would be a rebuild. But the gold mine could still come in handy - indeed, be a necessity - did you ask S&L for an estimate to fix the list? Cheers
Friday, September 07, 2007 - 04:54 pm, by: Adam Lonergan(Alchemistal)
My advice would be to put 3-4k minimum aside and if you buy the car have it sent straight to S&L for work before you pick it up. Master cylinder will be ~$1.3k if you can find one), rear tyres ~$0.4k, timing belt on a 32 ~$1.3k, suspension leaks $??? (could be big dollars [$1-2k] especially if you need to fix the pump and all the struts), engine/trans mounts ~$0.3k. Anybody can feel free to disagree with these numbers and correct me if they REALLY feel I'm wrong.
Friday, September 07, 2007 - 06:07 pm, by: Ben Kelly(Ace)
simon, just buy it already! and then you can keep us enthralled with your tales of woe and help others source parts/labour for similar probs. and dont forget, its an active woohoo.