Hey guys I know I'm not too well known here on the forums, but I thought I'd get some more info of myself out here. It's really late, but I might as well.

Also I'm not sure if this is exactly the place to put it, but since it has to do with the tiburon I'm gonna post it here.

So to start off, I had initially joined RDT because I had picked up a 2001 tib. At first I wasn't impressed at all because I had the similar stigma that everyone else had, Hyundai's are crap. I especially thought the rd2 was pretty ugly and slow. But, my semester had started and I desperately needed a car so I decided to go with this tib that my dad found at the hyundai dealership. It was a blue rd2 with about 95k miles on it and it was the base model (no foglights, leather seats, rear wiper, etc.).

Shorty after buying the car, it already had a problem with the ac system and it made noises because of it. This was not even 1 week into owning the vehicle. So we shelled out some more money to get that minor annoyance fixed. This really made me hate the car more. . . . it was just living up to the preconceived notions I had about it. Anyhow, after that I was searching on the internet one day for aftermarket parts because I was bored, and I stumbled upon the RDT site. I joined and began looking around at COTM winners and what not. This really sparked my interest and gave me a newfound appreciation for what my car could become. I had never imagined anyone wanting to modify a tiburon, but I was dead wrong. I began to feel that I could and should begin too.

The blue rd2 wasn't without problems though. The interior was beat up, the center console, and radio surround were dirty and sticky from chocolate or something else that had melted from the previous owner. This eventually led to the cupholder and ashtray tabs to become stuck. They broke when I tried to move them again. The dash had a part near the passenger side that bubbled up near the windshield. The seats had tears in the side bolsters. The hispanic guy (I'm not racist, I just found his old registration information in the glove compartment) did some really stupid mods to the car like a bastard intake from autozone, the led windshield sprayer nozzles, wal-mart foglights, and an exhaust. The exhaust from the cat back wasn't too bad, but the tip was horrendous.

Despite all looked at the cars on RDT and saw the potential in the car. The first "mod" that I did was painting the wheels black. It was rushed so I wasn't able to do a really good job, but i liked the look of black wheels better so it wasn't a total failure. The next thing I did was get a set of HIDs for the car. I also began to pick up some parts here and there from the forum. The first part I bought was a shark spoiler from TibbyChick. Now I know the shark spoiler wasn't made for the rd2, but Rix had one on his car and so did viper966. I really liked the look and how it was an oem part. The next part that I bought was an AEM CAI. Further along down the line I bought front and rear strut bars from ARK. The last couple of parts I bought were a local pick-up. A carbon fiber hood and the GT Tech lip.

The day I went and picked up the GT tech lip was a tragic one. I went to pick it up and the car was just fine, but on the way back I began to notice a strange noise. Eventually when I pulled over to check it out, the car just died. When I tried to start it back up, the engine would barely turn over and the temperature guage was almost in the red. I didn't understand how it could become this way. The coolant was boiling and it was making a clunking noise. Later I found out that this was due to a bad rod bearing and thus a rod knock.

I was told a new motor would be necessary. Now I'm a full time college student with only a crappy paying part-time job. I couldn't afford to rebuild the motor nor afford a new one. But I needed a car so I began to look for a replacement. I was looking for another rd tib so that I could still keep the parts that I had acquired. I found one, but it was 350 miles away from my home. The following part of my story just reveals how stupid I am, but bear with me.

I made time so I could drive down and check this car out. Looking at the pictures, I was fairly impressed. The exterior was clean and it seemed like the interior wasn't too bad either. The biggest plus was that it had the stock foglights I was wanting so badly. I set about and pulled the carfax for the car and got preapproved for a loan. The title was clean but it had 2 owners and it was a leased car for a short time. Nevertheless, I was being naive and stupid and I ignored those first few initial warning signs. Also, the car had 147k miles on it to begin with. Another sign I failed to forsee.

When I finally made it down there and checked it out, the exterior wasn't too bad. The interior was another story. The seats had tears in the side bolsters as had my other ones. The dash also had bubbled up in the same spot as my blue one, but this one was even bigger. Plastic parts in the car such as the passenger seat position adjuster handle were missing as well as the button to fold the rear seat down. The radio was a stock one, but the CD player wouldn't eject your CD and the sound controller was faulty. The cup holder didn't even pop out and the ashtray was just generally disgusting as if the plastic had melted in there. Yet I was still bent on checking the car out further. Upon driving it, the feel of the car wasn't too bad. I wasn't impressed by many of the interior problems, but I was just looking for a car (tib) that was mechanically sound. I knew that I still had my other tib and I could salvage parts from it to fix this one up. There were two big mistakes that I made. One, I didn't get the vehicle checked out by a mechanic and the only justification for this idiotic mistake is that I didn't know any trustworthy mechanics in the area. Second, there was a check engine light and when the code was pulled up, it said system voltage low. Which I as a fool listened to what the dealer said and believed that charging the battery would solve that problem.

After spending hours checking out the car, I haggled the guy from $3000 to $2100 dollars and purchased the vehicle. When I was about to drive off, the vehicle wouldn't start due to the battery having no charge, so I had to wait and have him charge the battery. I should've known then. But like a fool I didn't object. On the long drive back home, I found the first problem that wasn't apparent when I test drove it. The whole car would shake at freeway speeds. This was due to the tires being unbalanced. Also, when I finally got back home, another check engine light came on and I would later find out that it was because of a catalytic converter operating under threshold. Also when I dropped off the friend that drove that far with me, I discovered a grinding noise that would occur when the car was backing up. This would occur either in gear or in neutral. This was due to a bad wheel bearing that was causing the brake pad to drag on the rotor when reversing, but not in forward surprisingly.

All of these problems were just the beginning and I hadn't even owned the car for 24 hours!!! When I eventually was able to take it to a shop, they determined that all 4 struts, both rear wheel bearings, front lower control arm, oil pan gasket, catalytic converter, front motor mount and transmission mount, and the gas tank intak tube were all bad. The total cost of repairs was about another $2200 so as the car is sitting, a total of 4300 has been spent on the car.

Just recently as well, the alternator died on me so another couple hundred was spent replacing it. The car has been a total nightmare and a huge headache. Now I know many if not all of you will think I'm a completely and utterly stupid kid, but you can see this in two ways. I can just be an idiot and need to sell the problematic thing or hopefully I now have a 4500 dollar used car that will last me for another few years if not more.

I know what I did was stupid, but I'm living with the mistake that I've made. There's quite a few more details that I've not covered but I'll have to explain them in another post later. Hopefully, this car will serve me well and I'll be able to continue modding my tiburon and make it into the complete car I had always envisioned.

I will definitely have to post pics some other time of both of the cars.

Thanks for looking and I'm open to all responses, even if you flame me.

Thanks,

azngoose

 

Bro, i've been in the same boat. I threw roughly 1500 at my gf's tib that i bought from a member of RDT. I came to realize that the prior owner talked a good talk, but definitely couldn't walk it in terms of tuning and overall basic maintenance. some of the things i knew were wrong at first which i said ok to but in the end found out it was far worse than what the prior owner led me to believe.

I take it as a learner's experience, you should to and let by gone's be by gone's. even though i really didn't need to get rid of that tib it was getting to the point the next thing i would need to do is a total heart transplant and i just lost basic interest in that car.

we bought a '04 mazda 6 3.0 lt. v-6 w/ 5 spd on september 1st and could never be happier. this car has been totally decked to the gills with aftermarket parts in all aspects and the prior owner done everything right.

 

hey it's nice to see you back! welcome back.

those problems sound like general maintenance problems combined with not knowing the history of the cars. the thing is, when you buy a Hyundai, you ALWAYS have to buy 1 owner low mileage. some of these people buy these cars because they are cheap people who don't know about cars only to use them until the last drop. they're too cheap and stupid to maintain their own cars, therefore things will go bad. you just have to stick to the rule here and that's to buy one in good condition.

my family have owned 8 hyundais total, all with over 100k miles loaded onto them, 6 of them were used with low mileage. the things that usually go bad are the transmission at 130-150k without any flush the whole time, the alternators (like on any car), and the electrical (motors/actuators go bad). otherwise the cars are fine given proper maintenance. the Elantra has 170,000 on it with 1 new transmission and 1 new oxygen sensor, 1 new battery but 4 new alternators and waterpumps. that's all it needed for the past 6 years (we drive it a LOT) besides changing pads and whatnot. i also changed spark plugs, wires, radiator fluids and oil changes on time everytime. you'd be surprised how far you can take these cars if they are looked after. the thing is, they have to be looked after from the start.

i think if you had bought one in good condition from the getco, things would have been in your favor.

 

Haha it's nice to see responses from the og's of RDT lol.

Yeah definitely a huge learning experience for me ursonvs....I won't make the same mistakes twice.
I'm glad you're enjoying your mazda smile.gif what mods does it have?

HKC thanks for the advice man. I'll admit tho it's really hard to find such a hyundai, especially in utah. People here are all about trucks and suvs. . . . . seriously.
The few people who own imports are all honda and nissan heads. I mean we have a utahhondas.net and utahnissans too i think lol. Also another reason I'd like to have a decent tib. I'd be the only one really. . . .lol

I will definitely try and maintain this thing for as long as I can.

 

To add a couple more details. . . . ..

The catalytic converter was obviously something the dealer knew about. A family friend told us that dealers aren't supposed to sell cars that wouldn't pass emissions. He's a mechanic at a toyota dealership and he said if the cars wouldn't pass emissions or safety, they'd just cart it off to the auctions. I'm not sure how this would occur, but he told me that if the EPA found out, there'd be some serious shiz going down for this dealer. Anyhows, I called back the dealer and told him about this.....initially he wanted me to drive back down to get things fixed by him. He also wanted to use a universal cat rather than a higher quality oem one.. . . . I wasn't about to settle for that so I told him either he had to take the car back or do things my way. After a while, he told me he would take the car back. So i went searching for a replacement. . . but with a limited budget and time, I wasn't able to find a suitable car. I ended up convincing the dealer to pay for the higher quality cat that a local muffler shop would install for me. So that issue was solved that way, but the other parts were all out of my family's pocket.

Because of this whole situation I've been under a whole bunch of shiz but hopefully this car can turn some things around for me. Hopefully, I will boost my car in the near future. I have grown to really see the potential in the rd2 and also it'd be nice to have a unique ride (read my above post) wink.gif

 

whew that was a lot of reading.

I bought my tib with 140k on it, was told it was rebuild.(it was not). ended up spinning a rod bearing as you did.

good luck.

 

Seem's to me ,you might have had various problems no matter what vehicle you had., but then ,when you buy a neglected ride,you usually get a load of problems.,and ?or you just plain outright got a lemon!?..I just sold a tib I had for 8 years which NEVER let me down EVER!..leaving lights on and blowing a tire or 2 were the only times I got stranded,but it was my fault,not the tib's....

 

^^

Hey Regit, its a little hard to understand exactly what you're saying cuz the grammar/sentence structure is weird...lol but it's probably just me. If i understand correctly you're asking if the car was a lemon? It's hard to say man, any number of things could have happened. I don't know if the dealer messed with it or if just that long ride home on unbalanced tires just killed the car. Either way, I'm stuck with it for now LOL.

Also,

Thank you iheartmyrd. I really just wish money wasn't such an issue right now or I wouldn't be as stressed or angry over the whole issue. LOL but when is money not ever an issue . . . . sleep.gif

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (azngoose @ Sep 24 2010, 01:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Yeah definitely a huge learning experience for me ursonvs....I won't make the same mistakes twice.
I'm glad you're enjoying your mazda smile.gif what mods does it have?</div>

you reminded me i hadn't done a thread about it. here is a link to that and what i know of as of right now...

https://www.hyundaiaftermarket.org/forum/in...c=57327&hl=