I have my moments.... sometimes.
Flying96XP I bought the rxt in my avatar pic off Craigslist for $2100 2 years ago, it had a bent connecting rod on #1 piston and dealership had dismantelled the engine and wanted $4500 to fix the engine and reinstall it... the owner didn't have that kind of money and didn't have a clue how to do it himself so he listed it on my local Craigslist. I got him down to $2100 for it on the trailer, with the simple rational that I had no idea if the bent connecting rod was really the only problem, I could not test ride it obviously, and I was offering to buy a hull on the trailer with a crate full of engine parts... it's not like he was getting any other offers on it, and the dealership wanted a yeah/nay as to whether to fix it or not. I pulled it home with my truck bed loaded with 4TEC engine parts (pistons and crank were still in the block and the block wasn't split open but otherwise everything was in pieces). Took 3 weekends of my time, and a couple hundred dollars in gaskets and stretch bolts and a good used connecting rod off Ebay and after a new battery it fired right up and purred like a kitten (to my immense relief!). Runs great, barely $2600 spent in total + my 3 weekends of time spent on it. This is the kind of thing you have to keep an eye out for and have patience while saving your money and learning all you can about the model PWC you are looking for so you know as many in's and out's about it as possible (ie. ceramic supercharger washers, hollow exhaust valves for instance); know what you're getting into! It took me 4 months of looking on Craigslist and Ebay to finally find this RXT on Craigslist that I thought surely I could fix if I could get the seller down to the right price... so, it can be done! This is the exact Red/Black RXT model I was searching for and dreaming about for those 4 months too I might add, it was perfect! Shiney!
- Michael