Ever wonder where your old car may have gone?
 

My wife and I originally traded our 13 hot lava for a sedan (Civic si) when we were afraid having the car would be tough with having our first kid.

That Civic was totaled by a texting driver last year and was replaced with a new 86 because we always missed or old car and felt like we should have given it a chance. It's a perfect family car btw.

We sometimes wonder where our old hot lava went though. We did have the radio pop up with the car's name "Harriette" too bad you can't do that with the newer radios.

Anyone else ever think about their old cars and what they are doing? It have any fun stories?

I have a 15 month old- care to share a pic of the baby seat? It must be forward facing right?

Oh, they're out there, somewhere -:iono:


humfrz

Who cares? You give it up. Get over it. Move on.
It's not yours any more.

If you can't figure it out by the time you left the hospital, maybe you shouldn't have anymore kids/ sports car.
Just say'n. :search:

I think you can do some kind of search thru DMV , as long as you still have the VIN number. I would have opted for a '16 Hot Lava , at least it would have looked closer to your original car

VINwiki can help.

Found out my FR-S got crushed after my total loss accident through another VINwiki user. Someone might have something on your vehicle!

That isn't the point. The point is they would like to hunt it down, see where it's at. Period. Maybe they reacquire it due to good memories , maybe they don't. A lot of it comes down to the thrill of the hunt. Sometimes just knowing where it is, is enough (no need to own it ). Like GI Joe said , "Knowing is half the battle".

Beat me to it.

I sold my nissan sentra with 150k to a local spanish dude, and a few years later i checked the vin on carfax, it was registered in Indiana with 70k on it.... i thought that was interesting!

Okay, rear facing ruins the passenger front seat. Fortunately at 15 months you only have 9 months to deal with that.

My wife was able to sit in from of it though, we had a chicco 30.

Once it went front facing there were no problems and it's actually very easy to have him go in and out of the back.

I found one of my old BMWs in a junkyard 4 years after I sold it. I was rummaging for parts for another car I had. I opened the door, and was pleasantly surprised to see m3 seats. The car had been spray painted black, I went to the passenger side glove compartment to steal the flashlight if it had one. Inside I found my service diary, and then realized I was in my own car. I promptly took the Jim Conforti chip, the clutch stop, and bandaged flashlight.

Was comforting to know the car wasn't still driving around without me

I know where many of the car I had are now; the scrap heap. But there have been one or two that have been lucky to have been collected.


I had a 1984 four door Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham De'Elegance for a few years. When I sold it, the guy that bought it had a matching 2 door! And a matching tattoo of his car. It was light blue metallic with a white top. I was surprised when he showed me his tattoo that looked almost just like my car. (soon to be his car) He still owns both. (and the tattoo...)


I was happy to see it go to someone that was going to take care of it.

I do wonder if the Toyota I had before this one made it back onto the road. It's hard to say if I hadn't lost it to someone slamming into me at a light if I wouldn't still have it right now.

It probably was a repairable collision, so it may be out there on the road with a salvage title, but maybe I'll have try this VINWiki thing mentioned above.

I always wonder what happened to my first car, an 89 Sentra coupe. I miss that little universal Japanese design era car every day.

NOT my car! (it's an FR-S) But, it is local and looks good to me.

My cars that I know what happened to:
Corolla - sold to a friend, her boyfriend left the oil cap off and the engine died after all of the oil puked out
Prelude - sold to a friend, her brother abused the hell out of it and slung a rod while doing a burn out
350z - sold to a young guy who totalled it barely a month later... I know because he called me asking if I had receipts for any of the mods on it so that he could report them on insurance
S2000 - traded in towards a WRX... I missed the S2000 and looked up the VIN a few years later to find that it was totalled and in a scrap yard.
NC Miata - Sold to a coworker, he alternates driving it and his NA Miata to work.
The rest of my cars that I sold or traded in are still on the road as far as I know.

It's been more than a decade since I had to deal with this stuff, but I would have thought 15 month old would still be in infant seat, which must be backward facing. Small child's neck isn't strong enough for the forward thrust in case of accident. And children under 12 should be in the back to avoid exposure to the airbag (see p.67 in the 2013 FR-S manual).

Just wait till the child grows up and realizes there is a front seat release at the back of the passenger seat. Then the wife and the child will be fighting non-stop for how space for the two passenger side seats is split. Then you'll want to add an extra "family" car so you can throw out the whiners and have some quality time in the 86 by yourself :D

Forward facing seats are usually fine, its the infant and backwards convertibles that generally don't work. Most people consider two years to be the switch to forward facing now, but there is a huge push to make that a standard with recommendations for longer.


I've seen threads where people "make" infant seats work, or they'll show pics of their significant other crammed in to the passenger seat with their knees touching the dash. There have been multiple threads with pics of unsafe infant seat installs, owners do it though! Not saying it can't be done, but there are some interesting reads.


To me its just easier to have a daily driver and then enjoy this car myself or when the kiddos are old enough to be forward facing. Seems too simple of a solution though, reading this board.

Yes at 15 month old, he’s still rear facing and at 2 years old it will be forward facing ONLY if the baby is heavy enough.

But given the space of the vehicle, I would probably feel safer in a larger car for my son.

My FRS was my baby but now I have my real baby and FRS got to go.

Thanks

My old Cutlass Ciera was sold for $500 to some guy from craigslist and it had a broken radiator and the car would stop running if you touched the ECU box. He drove away in it and thats the last I saw of it. I can't imagine its still running, its probably either sitting in a junkyard or been crushed into a metal cube.

The Corolla I traded in to get my FR-S had a salvage title, and the dealer would only give me $200 for it. They said they were probably gonna put it up for auction, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they just set it out on their lot to sell. It's NYC, you can't tell me a running Corolla isn't going to get bought, salvage title or not.

Well, I've hauled my first born in an MGB-GT; my now older grandchildren in a Miata and my youngest grandchild in my FR-S.

My recommendation is that if you have small children, own a family vehicle.

The "sports car" should be dedicated for adults only.


pa-pa has spoke - ;)

Im the other way around. Sometimes i would like to find the original owner of my hotlava and ask some questions like why they traded-in, if was for financial problems etc. Did you enjoy while you had it and why tou bought it on first plqce instead "X" car

I think you just made two dumb statements there
1. He's simply curious where it is now

2. What? This car is perfectly safe

Hmmm... somebody poop in your oatmeal this morning??!?!

He made that post at 10:19 PM in California so, technically somebody pooped in a late dinner of his potatoes or possibly rice if he is Asian.
Best possible scenario though was somebody pooped in his bowl of ice cream. That's when I usually have my ice cream at least.

Oh, I figure ol @Mr.ac is just out of Civics to sell - :iono:


humfrz

My last car a Suzuki SX4 I spotted at another dealer after I traded it in to buy the 86.

My 97 civic hatch and 96 integra GSR scummed to rust and rotted into the ground :D.
At the end of my integras life I I had a 2x4 holding up the driver seat. Which was made worse because of the various fuel leaks under the car. :D

I don't eat oatmeal. FYI.
I just don't give a flying rats ass about whiny people with serious commitment issues.

It's like hearing your drunk friend go on and on about his ex. Then it all makes sense, that she left his crying ass beta boy not even a man of a friend cause who the fuck can stand this mofo.


And yes. Go buy Civics.

I don't eat oatmeal. FYI.
I just don't give a flying rats ass about whiny people with serious commitment issues.

It's like hearing your drunk friend go on and on about his ex. Then it all makes sense, that she left his crying ass beta boy not even a man of a friend cause who the fuck can stand this mofo.


And yes. Go buy Civics.

Correct-O.
And I'm not Asian.

My first car popped up a few years ago.

http://www.2040-cars.com/Toyota/Celi...engine-667323/

It had about 180k miles when I bought it. I bought it for $1000 working an after-school job in a small factory making orchard loppers and picking buckets. I think I sold it for $500 in 2006 with about 220k miles. Not pretty but very solid. Also swapped the original 4spd gearbox for a 5spd because I was doing a lot of freeway driving. I swapped the original carburetor for a new Weber 32/36. Did new wheel bearings and brakes all around. Swapped a few tan interior parts for black ones off of wreaking yard cars. It already had the wild green and gold corduroy upholstery when I bought it. Great car for a broke high school senior. I bought a '71 coupe and a '74 coupe shortly after.

I've done this twice in the past. I tried to track down m '85 MR2 but I'm pretty sure it went straight to the junk yard. It was before the Internet so I was trying to track it through DMV and couldn't find it. I may try again.

I also tracked down an airplane that had belonged to my wife's Father who she lost when she was 12. The two of them used to go flying in it almost every weekend. He was a mechanic and had restored the old plane himself, and it has her initials in the tail number. I did track it down (airplanes are pretty easy to find the current owner if you have the tail number) but he wouldn't sell. I cyberstalk it to see if there is any movement.

There are several cars I've owned that now that I have the money to fix them up I would buy back. Unfortunately I don't have their VINs and not sure how you find out a car that used to be registered to you. Is that possible?

Okay, we do have two cars. We also have a Mazda 3, which is an adequately fun and more traditional family car. Just have to strap the kid in tighter so they can't grab that fabric strap.

BUT! In the 86 I can reach my kid's face from the driver's seat and pull something out of his mouth, I have an irrational fear of him choking. Can't do that in my sister's land yacht Chrysler Pacifica, all the kids are many arms' length away in that vehicle.

To all the people worrying about having a rear facing seat, I was completely in that camp... that's why we got the Civic. That car wasn't bad btw... it wasn't as much fun as the fr-s, but my wife loved it.

BTW, our other cars that we had when we had the Civic were a 90 Miata and an 85 RX-7 both of which we had to sell after the accident. I'm now in complete fear of people on the road in the midwest and those cars were definitely much much less safe in an accident than the 86 platform.

For those who are curious... this is what happened to the Civic.

https://i.imgur.com/ihx5dtl.jpg

I just couldn't imagine what could happen to my kid in the same accident in our old fun cars from Idaho. I completely and utterly miss the RX-7 though. It was brown with brown and so much fun to drive.

Oh, my, so much to comment on in your post. However, I'll just give my opinion on a child choking part. Assuming you don't fill the child's lap with chokable items, and the kid is properly strapped in, I figure that a person would be more at risk because of distracted driving by reaching around and tending to the kid, than the chance of a kid choking to death.


:iono:


humfrz

Yeah, like i said, irrational. We don't allow him to eat or drink in the cars. And i would only reach back there if completely stopped and I'm a place where i cannot cause an accident.

It's just kind of nice to have everyone close to you as a family in a car.

I remember when my wife and i just got married and we were in the back seat of my sister's Venza. Being used to an 89 Celica GTS and a 85 RX-7, we felt like we were worlds apart back there, it's a crazy wide car.

At least you still don't have to worry about the sh!t on his cell phone and the flickering light in his room 3:30 in the morning :D

Speaking of fear of people on the road, big posters warning of severe penalty for driving while stoned is beginning to appear here at the GTA :lol:

I've been tempted to look up (CarFax, etc.) the fate of my much loved 1991 MX-5 (regrettably sold a few years back) but can't bring myself to do that. So instead I just go in the garage and gape (with :drool: satisfaction) at my 2017 BRZ.