I'll try to remember that when I go. I don't see it happening this year, unless I take it out of student loans. Which isn't out of the question...

I would spend as little of your student loans as possible.

The way I see it: I need $300 now more than I'll need the $400 to pay it back after I graduate and I'm working as an engineer. But then again, I am young and stupid... But why spend the best years of my life miserable, just to save a few bucks, or a few months' worth of loan payments, when I'm older and have more money?

I guess it depends on how well you are able to sleep at night thinking about massive bills. I remember listening to my grandfather say "if you don't have the money for it, you don't buy it." Then I said back to him something like you just said^.
:picard:

I have a friend that paid for his swap with his student loans. 3 years later he's now an engineer and said he wouldn't have done it different if given the chance. I bought my car and swap on 0% credit cards and don't regret it, I just wish I would have bought a complete parts car. 1 1/2 years later I owe less than I would if I would have financed a newer wrx for 60 months.

It's hard to believe this without the experience to back it up, but the idea is that taking loans for a good investment is okay (Think: education, a house, a well priced, dependable car with low mileage, etc).

But you know how you always see people on the forums trying to unload their modded Subarus or going back to stock so they can sell the car, etc? Most of the time, they bought parts with their credit card, paid interest for some number of months/years and then realized how stupid it is to pay interest on thousands of dollars every month because you can't afford the shit you bought, and finally bailed with nothing to show for the experience except hopefully they learned their lesson.

A tune can be a very good investment if the alternative is a crappy running car, but just don't be that guy...

Indeed, spend wisely. My friend and I both purchased and modded our cars fully intending on keeping them. His interest didn't start until he graduated and I paid my total car debt down to about half of what I charged up before the interest went to 4.9%, which is still not enough to make me lose sleep over.
I would second Cody on the investment of the tune. I'd much rather pay an extra $50 in interest charges and have it tuned now, hell you'd probably save that in gas if it is running that poorly.

It is :lol: not poorly I guess, just super rich

And I don't plan on building a monster out of my car from student loans, but I budget in a couple extra hundred for enjoyment, because when I graduate with a degree in civil engineering, I won't be hurting for money, but I will be hurting for time to enjoy it. I've heard from a couple bosses that when you're younger you have time an no money, then after college you have money and no time. So I'll enjoy the money now, while making it later haha. I don't take this too far IMO, but I could see how it could get out of control. I live very meagerly during the school year, but I sill make sure I can do something to my car, and drink every now and then.

I too would ditch the CIA.

These guys talked me into De-modding my STI long ago. went from STU to AS. I went to a K&N Drop in air filter still had great gas millage. :) [have one in my rally car too]

(to try and go back full circle)
Every time i Damage my Rally car exhaust with in 1 day i'll get somone at a tahoe store listen to me pull up. and say something like
Tahoe Kid : "Whoa , you've done some sick motor work huh bro? I bet your subie makes a lot of power huh" (its a stock tired 1.8L) and i'm like "no just safety mods i have an exhaust leak right now"
"oooh ... Suuuuure exhaust leak *Wink* I got you bro... hey do a burn out when you leave!"

:?:

I like the part where you assume you'll be able to easily get a high paying engineering job right out of college when there are engineers with 10 years experience getting laid off every day.

I also like the way you believe a modded car won't have higher operating costs. Things break on modded cars that don't break on stock cars. Like motors. Especially if you do a budget job with the mods. I know from experience... 4 motors worth of experience. Now, mine were blowing up at the race track running time trials, so I wouldn't expect you to break stuff as easily as I did... but you should keep in mind that if you're gonna get on the modding bandwagon, you have to expect to pay to play, which means being able to still get to work every day when your motor spins a rod bearing or your tranny turns into a coffee bean grinder.

It's rich from my catless exhaust and no tune, not the intake.

The only thing that I know from experience is that if you have a lot of debt (myself:house payment, 2 credit cards, 3 car payments, line of credit) and then something unexpected happens, you can get screwed fast(and I got screwed when my son was in the hospital for 2 months). I now have no car payments and only 1 credit card. Looking back, I would have rather kept my old F150 and done without than have all those payments looming over me.

Amen.

:lol::lol::lol:

I can't really add anything to that.

I can't really comment on the second paragraph, since all the experience I have is with my current vehicle.

As for the first paragraph, I've had an internship with DOT for the last 4 summers, and as long as I don't fuck it up, I plan on working there when I graduate. No one has ever been laid off from NDOT. Also, when I graduate in a year and a half, the economy should be on the rebound, and the state's hiring freeze will just be ending. A bunch of higher-ups are retiring now, because of all the talk on the legislature about fucking with retirement, so there will be a lot of room to not only get on with the state, but also to move up rapidly. I've had a shining recommendation from my bosses every one of the 4 years, and my boss this year is basically giving me assignments to build my resumé. He and my boss from the last 2 years have already told me that they would write me a letter of recommendation. I'm willing to bet I will have some of the most job experience out of all of the applicants anywhere I apply. And god dammit, I need to save some of this fire for an interview! Lol

And while the state won't be the best paying civil engineering job, it will be good pay, I'll get paid hourly instead of salary (paid OT), great benefits, and an even better retirement. I'll be able to retire with full retirement benefits after 30 years, at about 53 years old.

You're very optimistic, which is fine to an extent. But these guys are all older (myself included) and have much more real world experience, so I wouldn't just dismiss their advice so easily. Remember, you may make more money later on in life, but you will almost certainly have more expenses too.

And no matter much you mod an RS, it's not going to be that fast without a swap or forced induction. So you might be better off saving up for something that's faster to start with than dumping a ton of money into mods now. If you are planning on buying an Sti in the near future, I'm not sure why you are doing so much work to the RS.

I can see why he wants to mod his current car. He is a gear head trying to make the best out of what he has, just like the rest of us. As far as him getting a high paying job, I think he can get that too. In the short time that I have known him, I think he has what it takes to be very successful. Its easy to become pessimistic in this world we live in. I try to fight that thinking every day. The mind is a very powerful tool and if you want something bad enough, you will find a way to get it.

All I'm saying is that his resume may be top notch, his enthusiasm may be second to none, his personality may be gangbusters, but there may also be someone else out there with all that and 15 years of design experience.

Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

Yeah, I understand that.

Self employed FTW.

I think the point is becoming "I'm fucked if I don't get a job after college", which is true, but irrelevant to me spending $300ish of student loan money on tuning my car... If I dot get a job, I'm more worried about the other ~$20 thou I borrowed for school than that $300. In fact, I'll probably be thankful I did that while I could, so at least my car will be running right...

Again, to clarify, I'm not dumping money in my RS, especially not student loan money. I do one mod a school year from my loans, just to keep myself sane while in school. If anyone tries to claim that they don't spend money on something they enjoy while in school, they're lying. And to be honest, I think my RS is a better use of money than all the weed and booze I spent it on the first couple years of school... At least my car keeps me motivated, instead of taking away my motivation.

I think some of you may be blending my posts with John, who said he used credit to fund a swap... I just wanna tune my car... I just got hassled by everyone for not tuning it for my intake, and now that I wanna do it with loan money... Lol

Also, if we're in a situation in this country where a civil engineer fresh out of college with 5 years of internship experience for NDOT can't get a job, I'm sure all of you will be more worried about your unemployment situation than mine...

God dammit Joel! Like 50% of the time, I have no idea what you mean with your god damn pics, or who they are intended for!

It was getting drab in here so I opened a window.

I'm not gonna comment on anything else except to say, it is a very bleak job market out there right now. And yes, most of us working engineers with years of design experience are worried about our employment situations. I hope that you do land a good job fresh out of school, but just don't.. count on it. Things may not work out the way you're planning.

Well, I guess all I can say to that is, I have a bunch of surveying experience, as well as inspection experience. So I guess the only plan I have is to get one of those jobs if I can't get an engineering job. There's a guy on the crew that I'm working for right now that just graduated, and he got hired as an engineering technician, which is basically just an inspector. It doesn't require a degree, just that you pass a test. That'd be my plan b, something like that, eitherfor a construction or maintenance crew, or a surveyor for a construction crew, just to get my foot in the door at the state and to get my 30 years started. Also, if the state wasn't hiring engineers, I'd also be open to getting a job for any company, and will probably send my resume to a bunch of companies both here and in Vegas regardless.

I'm not against dropping a few hundred bucks a year on a hobby. I'm just cautioning about getting overly wrapped up in it, and getting into debt. And wanted to remind everyone that when you start modding, sometimes it leads to big unplanned expenses... like having to replace an engine or transmission... when all you were planning on doing were some light mods (that's how I ended up building a racecar instead of just having a WRX w/ a 6MT swap and a turbo).

Dropping some money on a tune is better than continuing to drive around with issues.

Makes sense.

I don't have anything to add that hasn't been said, but I sure as hell know that when I was in school, I didn't think I'd be as poor, tired, and angry seven F*ing years into my career as I am now... :unamused:

:lol:

+1.

^+2
Or $80k upside down in my mortgage, thanks to the mortgage bubble.