Just for a change - S2000

[hondafanatic]

[Dr Nick Riviera] Hi Everybody [/Dr Nick Riviera]

I've managed to persuade the wife that she needs an S2K and not an FN2.

It's for commuting up and down the M6 for 10 months and just generally as a fun second car.

So we've started looking around - we've got a budget of £11k.

Based on our location and not wanting to travel 300 miles, it seems we're right at the point of the first of the facelift models i.e. 04s or very minty munty monetarism examples of 02/03s.

I understand the facelift differences to the inside and out and the suspension changes.

My thought being that we should go for an 02/03 with low mileage and then chuck some money at it in terms of getting the geo sorted and make sure the suspension bolts are greasier than Lord Mandy.

Or am I missing something?

How much difference will it make to someone who has no interest in going sideways or pushing the limits on the public roads?

My wife is also keen on a hardtop - but I think it's a bit of waste to be honest and will just end up sitting in the garage. Anyone any opinions on this?

I don't really want to go S2KI.com as I find it painful to use... i have looked through it but I've not drawn any conclusions from the site.

Many thanks
David

[StormLoaded]

11k + chuck money on geo/suspension etc?
why not save a little more and get facelift model thats low miles/better suspension already? > less twitchy from what i hear (my mrs drives mine sometimes and ive no fear of her doing so)

i just recently picked up an 06 plate, 24k miles on it for a little over its trade price (£13k).
its in cracking condition, no scrapes/dings, unmolested alloys, and a grand total of about 3 tiny stone chips.

i like the hardtops, but as soon as the sun breaks out you'll be wishing you'd left it in the garage.

[hondafanatic]

StormLoaded said:

11k + chuck money on geo/suspension etc?
why not save a little more and get facelift model thats low miles/better suspension already? > less twitchy from what i hear (my mrs drives mine sometimes and ive no fear of her doing so)

i just recently picked up an 06 plate, 24k miles on it for a little over its trade price (£13k).
its in cracking condition, no scrapes/dings, unmolested alloys, and a grand total of about 3 tiny stone chips.

i like the hardtops, but as soon as the sun breaks out you'll be wishing you'd left it in the garage.

Thanks for the reply.

Sorry, I might not have been that clear.

I meant option;

a) £11k on a face lift
b) £8/9k on a preface lift with £500 on geo

Option a) is my total budget... b) saves me a few grand.

or

Option c) just buy the best example I can get and don't worry about the suspension differences because the car is unlikely to be pushed i.e. buy on condition, not model year.

Ta again.

[StormLoaded]

Option A imo
When the facelift is sat on your drive you'll be seriously well chuffed

i didnt buy mine to really push it either, otherwise i'd of gone cheaper/modded option rather than a clean low mileage s2k for the most i could afford, but im happier in the knowledge that if i do hit some oil/standing water or something, the revised suspension will help, hopefully make it controllable/less snappy.. also helps peace of mind when the other half steals the keys (although i have banned her from going 6000+ rpm anyway!)

[andye30m3]

If I was planing on spending the full £11k I'd go for the facelift, I much prefer the wheels for a start

But having said that low millage 03 cars are available for £8-9k without the need to spend any more money on them than you might need to on a facelift car, so IMHO it comes down to if you think the relatively minor facelift is worth £2k, I didn't and bought a 34K mile 03 car for £8600 which had been serviced that week, but I can see why others would opt to spend the extra.

Whats the difference in handling between the 03 and 04 cars? I thought the main suspension revision was around 01

With regards to the hardtop, I bought my car in February and when the weathers wets and cold it's nice to have but really comes down to if you have space to store it and want to be taking it on and off in the winter, mine came with a hardtop but I'm wasn't all that fused either way.

[johnS2000]

I bought mine 14 month's ago .

1st thing I did was take the hard top off and hoist it up to the ceiling of the garage where it's been since , and if I hit my head on one of the spike's sticking out of the bottom of it one more time I will be selling it !


(what's an FN2)???

Edited by johnS2000 on Wednesday 4th August 18:00

[havoc]

04+ are more docile, but not enough to be worth worrying about, if your wife is reasonably clued-up behind the wheel - Becs drove our '03 in the wet some of the time and didn't spin it despite the occasional 'oppo' moment out of T-junctions.

My 2p for what to do to any car:-
- Cross braces. It WILL affect insurance, but only very slightly, and it makes the car feel more stable/planted and slightly more communicative.
- Grease suspension bolts / get geo done. Stock set-up is high-grip but not very progressive as a result, so how far to 'wind it back' is up to you and how confident you both feel at dialling-in oppo - the quick steering genuinely helps here, and even with my set-up I had to provoke it in the wet. I'd also suggest reducing castor a lot - you'll get more steering feedback if you do, and with high castor the steering can feel a little artificial.

Budget £300 for the braces, inc. fitting.
Budget £200-300 for alignment and suspension bolts greasing

...then work out what you've got left and buy on condition.


Other thoughts:-
- 16" rims are diamond-cut. Not sure about the 17"s - possibly the same.
- 16" tyre choices are fewer, but RE050A is probably the best bet.
- 17" tyre choices are greater, OE is the RE050, which isn't quite as good as the -A, by all accounts.
(I think I've got all that the right-way around - the 16" tyres are better-rated than the 17" tyres, but again not enough to be decisive)
- 04+ interiors are a little better.

[hondafanatic]

Brilliant chaps.


Thanks for the replies. Think we'll end up going for a facelift...

Cheers Havoc for the usual in-depth answers. I always feel my user name is damp squib against your tech knowledge

I think I'll stress that a hardtop really isn't essential as well.

(FN2 is the current UK CTR)

Thanks again.

[havoc]

hondafanatic said:

I think I'll stress that a hardtop really isn't essential as well.

Nah.

It IS useful in winter (wider rear-viz, quieter, more insulated), but if you've a garage to keep her in it's definitely not essential.


Edit: I know the tech stuff but wouldn't know how to fix one, necessarily. "Just enough knowledge to get me into trouble" is how a mate puts it...

Edit 2: Jay (below) - did you not read my post above this one, and have you actually DRIVEN/OWNED one?!? They're a damn-sight friendlier than a TVR or un-ESP'd M-car in the wet, the rep is down to morons thinking they can drive the S like their old CTR.

Edited by havoc on Thursday 5th August 13:12

[JayK12]

Track day or skid pan course for your misses, these cars are the devil in the wet / damp. I know if i was to let my misses out in one id ensure she went on a course with it.

Best of luck.

Jay

[normalbloke]

JayK12 said:

Track day or skid pan course for your misses, these cars are the devil in the wet / damp. I know if i was to let my misses out in one id ensure she went on a course with it.

Best of luck.

Jay

It is a rwd car with an lsd and no traction control.That is all.It doesn't need any advanced driving,skid pan driving or the like. It just needs a common sense approach to driving.Some people talk like it is a 600bhp 2 stroke with a 200RPM powerband. The S2k is getting talked up into some green eyed monster of legend and myth....

[Stooky]

Another vote for the 2004 revision car.

Then spend a few hundred quid getting it sorted by Centre of Gravity and you're good to go.

17" wheels are diamond cut.

Oh, and this is my third soft top car. With the first one, I was determined to get a hard top and did. The hardtop consequently spent a great deal of time sitting in the garage - didn't bother with the subsequent cars! She wont need it - FACT!

Interested to see what you get!

[hondafanatic]

Thanks again for all the replies.

Re: My wife driving - it'll be wife's car, she's done single seater days and is a very good driver. She's very sensible on the roads and does rise to any bait, so i've no concern on that front. If anyone was going to bin it, it would be me.

So, we're somewhere along the lines of;

Pre04 - We're getting a better trade in price with this one, so it makes it cheaper. It's low mileage, so as she'll be putting miles on in the first year, say 12k, it will still be relatively low mileage for the year.

The overall deal of this first one would be a saving of around £2k.

I also really like the wheels as I had them on my first EP3 as they are silly light, especially compared to the standard EP3s. However, I've no idea if changing the wheel on an S2000 is not a good idea or not? Any opinions?

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2010...

Or this, top of the budget

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2010...

Oddly enough, both come with hardtops.

Any immediate opinions?

Thanks again for the replies, it's been very useful so far.

[StormLoaded]

hondafanatic said:

I also really like the wheels as I had them on my first EP3 as they are silly light, especially compared to the standard EP3s. However, I've no idea if changing the wheel on an S2000 is not a good idea or not? Any opinions?

I dont know about aftermarket wheels etc, however, i have been watching alot of youtube s2000 vids since buying mine.
one vid was a fairly decent on some track in Japan, racing pre-04 v facelift s2k round a track.
the facelift was more composed, (not so twitchy into corners), and a little quicker (cant rem how much).
however they then put the pre04 16" wheels on the facelift car, and the later 17" wheels on pre04 to see if that changed anything stability/speed wise etc.

just changing the wheels gave the pre lift car 0.5seconds quicker laptime, with no issues (it was still a bit twitchy though), and the facelift s2000 lost 0.5seconds on its laptime (but remained composed).

So i guess you should have no problems running (aftermarket) 17" over the original 16" on a pre04.. you'll just be a little quicker for it

• edit, forgot to say.. i prefer the first option of those, nice wheels already (the major improvement on the facelift imo), lower miles, facelift/aftermarket exhaust on it? (i thought the oval zorst was facelift?) .. looks nice, and saves you money.

im not keen at all on the aftermarket kits either on the second car (front splitter & rear tea tray).. but then i really like the std look of the facelift model.

Edited by StormLoaded on Friday 6th August 14:22

[havoc]

My 2p:-
- Check the OZ wheels have the right offset - the S2000 is sensitive to stuff like offset, and you don't want a bill for new alloys straight after getting the cars.
- Its Nurburgring Blue not Suzuka Blue (no such colour). Marmite colour among S2000 owners, and quite common, so may not help shifting it on later (although hardtop and mileage will help). That said, women seem to like the colour...

- Re: 2nd car - bodykit is OK, I can take or leave. But if I was going for Moonrock Grey I'd want the half-red interior to 'lift' the look of the car.


If you need to buy now, it's a tough call - prefer the 2nd car, but the first one offers a big saving, and if the alloys are (a) lighter and (b) have the right offset; then that's useful too.

But I'd personally hold out for a slightly more interesting-looking one - will be easier to sell-on privately later if you choose to. Any of these appeal?!?
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1909117.htm
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1899892.htm
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1867369.htm

[hondafanatic]

Thanks again for the interest in this thread.

I agree the grey example is a bit Marmite with regards the spoiler etc, but my wife likes it and it's her choice. She really like the look of the blue one as well. Hence we're down to these two examples and have got agreed trade-in prices for her current car.

Havoc - The suggested cars are great, but we're looking for a trade-in for ease. I know it's not the done thing, but neither of us have the time at the moment for tyre kickers on a stty little run around. Trade-in means we drive up, dump it, drive out in an S2K.

We need to get the car within the next week or so.

How sensitive to tyres are they? I'm think that the cheaper 03 that I listed above leaves enough for new boots all round if they are not the right spec.

Which ever we get, I'll be taking it TDi North to get the geo sorted anyway.

As the car will be driven up and down the M6 and round town - no track days (FD2s duties) would it be a fair conclusion then that we don't need to get hung up on the suspension revisions and buy the car on condition?

[havoc]

Fair 'nuff - some people don't want the hassle (and having tried to sell my S at the bottom of the market I can understand why).

Tyres - yes. They NEED (much emphasis) stiff sidewalls to feel properly planted and 'up to scratch'. That said, even the 17"s aren't stupidly expensive - OE RE050 rears are ~£145 each from a decent indy tyre fitter.
Not that relevant to these two 17"-shod cars, but I had (cheaper) T1-R's on my 16"s as replacement for the (VERY stiff) OE S02's, and they felt all wrong until you increased pressures 3-4psi all-round, and even then it 'lost a little' - mainly turn-in and high-speed cornering stability. Did feel more progressive when it let go in the wet though on the Toyos.

hondafanatic said:

As the car will be driven up and down the M6 and round town - no track days (FD2s duties) would it be a fair conclusion then that we don't need to get hung up on the suspension revisions and buy the car on condition?

Ironically enough, the later suspension revisions 'softened' the handling of the car to make it "less-twitchy" for day-to-day driving. But as I said above, Becs never had any bother with our '03 - a couple of rear-end twitches on cold wet tyres exiting our road, but twitches rather than proper 'oppo' moments. We even (both of us) drove it to Anglesey through a proper Welsh thunderstorm without it getting out of shape, so I'm firmly of the opinion that its rep is due to over-enthusiastic drivers on the old S02's.



Out of those two, I'd get the '03 car and spend a little on boots, braces and geo. Lighter wheels will help the ride too. But do research that they're the correct offset first, and check the hood - always suspicious of soft-top cars only showing photos with hard-top on:-
- Check motor works - do it a few times. No known problems though.
- Check it's not rubbing 'behind and above the driver's right ear' - there's been a number of cars where one of the metal parts of the mechanism has been a little close to the hood and a little rough and has eventually worn a hole. Both sides.

[hondafanatic]

Brilliant stuff Havoc.

Thanks for the advice on what to look out for.

At this moment, as the Oldham car (post 04) is a lot closer, we'll take a look at that first. (Surprised no one picked up the Post Code I used for the autotrader ads! )

If it's no good, then we'll make the trip up to Edinburgh. Funnily enough, Lisa mentioned the hard top shots and lack of interior shots as suspicious.

I had the same Toyos fitted to my EP3 and until I got used to them, I was convinced they were made out Jelly Babies.

Whatever we end up with, we'll update the thread.

[havoc]

Look forward to it. Best of luck...

(PS - get some photos from the E'burgh place before you go - I drove from Coventry to Stockton-on-Tees to look at a 'mint' ITR at an indy dealer which turned-out to have been washed repeatedly with a brillo-pad! )

[russy01]

Good luck pal, moonrock car is looking nice.

Keep us updated on what you do. I really want to be getting a moonrock / red-black s pretty shortly.

Vtec....mmmm