how did u get

99indiana · Post by **99indiana** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 8:57 am

my first was a 96 atx for $300 from the dealership I was working at. It was nothing special (pealing paint and all) but I bought it for a DD instead of my full size chevy 1500. It was just enough to get me hooked, so I started looking for a mtx neon.

Now is about 3 years latter and I am on my 11th one and still wanting more!

Kelevra · Post by **Kelevra** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:49 pm

Ok it was early Nov 2006 and I was to get my license soon (provisional/Cinderella) and I had about 1500 on a down payment. My dad and I decided to go car shopping. We went from used car lot to used car lot and looked at a few cars including some of the following

Pontiac grand prix (I-4) - Had less balls then the neon. it was pathetic

Chevy S-10 - always wanted one but the paint was all

(it was black but the cab corner, where it met the bed, was chipped to tan) and they wanted $10k with something like 80-90k miles

Camero (i think it was a mid 90s model) wanted too much for it. and I wasn't into the red sports car insurance I would have been paying.

After a days worth of failure we went to a real dealer and looked at what they had. First thing that caught my eye was a 2002 ford ranger in 'copper' My uncle had one in white and I was into getting a truck. but, again, it was out of my range and really, it was somewhat impractical for me at the time since you can MAYBE fit 3 ppl in there. the dealer pointed out a PT cruiser and I laughed and said hell no! 'nough said

Then. there it was a little yellow neon.

"A NEON?! I like the color but hell no!"
"It's got a 6 disk changer and a sunroof"
"wait? what? Let me see this!"

Yep. there it was 6 disk changer, sun roof, spoiler, fog lights, yellow interior trim, sounded nice and it was comfy to boot. I was sold. after all, I was 17 and hell, having even those luxuries was more than I could of hoped for in my first car. That night, a week before I got my license it was bought and sat on the lot waiting for me to pick it up. a week past and I tell you. it was the greatest experience I could have hoped for. my first time in the car by my self driving off the lot with MY VERY OWN, No one elses, Car. So it was a neon... I had a sunroof and a 6 disk changer

alsey_seven · Post by **alsey_seven** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 1:28 am

C1DoG · Post by **C1DoG** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 7:18 am

Got mine for good gas mileage compared to my now sold D150. I was already looking to neons since I have already driven ford and chevy compacts. I was nicely surprised when I sat in it for the first time and I had lots of head and leg room.

blueneo03 · Post by **blueneo03** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 11:55 am

was a hand me down car.. was my sisters initially and they thought it was cute so i obviously hated it.. until it was mine to drive it then i "destroyed" it by modding it and they never wanted to drive it anymore... and i came to love it so of course i drove it into an oldsmobile...

and now im on the quest for a 2 dr 5 speed 1gn

Post by **racer12306** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 6:28 pm

C1DoG wrote:and I had lots of head and leg room.

Tell me about it.

The reason I was given a Prius for a work car (without ever test driving it) was because of the phrase, he fits in a Neon why wouldn't he fit in a Prius.

They have no idea how much leg room a Neon has.

The Prius, not so much.

dblsg · Post by **dblsg** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 8:28 am

i thought i had posted in here already... must of been in another one.

it was back in 05, i had an 03 stratus coupe and a 3 year old son. my son would be able to jump in the back and get in his car seat with no problem........... but then came along my daughter. having to put a baby seat in and out of that car sucked. went to the dodge dealer looking for a nice 4 door sedan. test drove a 4 door stratus and i hated it! so then i saw the neon and decided to take it for a drive. i loved it!!! it was roomy and had just enough pep for me.

unfortunetly i ended up loosing it in early 08 due to my divorce

but i did end up finding my 02 ACR shortly after! then while i was in Iraq, i had my wonderfull new wife pick up a 01 with bux interior and a 95 nyg coupe

DoubtedNeon · Post by **DoubtedNeon** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 9:35 am

nice dude. I didnt think u had a nyg. cant wait to see it

BrownBeast · Post by **BrownBeast** » Tue May 03, 2011 6:42 am

mine was kinda just lying around in the yard, and after writing off my (please don't flame me) honda civic, I decided to get that fixed up and drive it around, but it's now become a part of me

garfield3887 · Post by **garfield3887** » Tue May 03, 2011 2:00 pm

I had 2 '98 neons when I was younger. One when I was in high school and one to replace the first one after a HUGE Doe decided to commit suicide one night as well as kill my car.

I found my curent one while shopping around for a car to haul my kids around in. I couldn't resist buying it after having 2 others and knowing how customizable they are.

I honestly think it's a shame they don't make them anymore, but then again I would hate to see what body style they would have now given that most cars have went to the "boxy" style. But then again I might be surprised.

Fuzzyneon · Post by **Fuzzyneon** » Tue May 03, 2011 7:24 pm

was 17 got a 95 brilliant blue sedan for 400 bucks 95k on it from a police auction was tboned bent frame (had parts for a manual trans swap)

was given a intrepid to drive then found my 05 sxt at a dealer that got totalled

now my 97 1gn coupe =D

problem is i dont like leaving stuff unfinished i refuse to buy another car till i build a neon how i see fit!!!!

logikfive · Post by **logikfive** » Tue May 03, 2011 8:18 pm

I needed a beater, so I bought mine. That's all there is.

Wasn't fun putting $40 a day in my truck. Picked up a '01 Cavalier first, drove it for about 6 months, got sick of it, rattle box with no options. Was actually looking for a 300M. Didn't really find any that jumped out at me. Stumbled on the R/T on cragislist, looked at it and bought it on the spot.

I'll likely drive this one until it rots apart.

Fuzzyneon · Post by **Fuzzyneon** » Tue May 03, 2011 8:53 pm

logikfive wrote:I needed a beater, so I bought mine. That's all there is. Wasn't fun putting $40 a day in my truck. Picked up a '01 Cavalier first, drove it for about 6 months, got sick of it, rattle box with no options. Was actually looking for a 300M. Didn't really find any that jumped out at me. Stumbled on the R/T on cragislist, looked at it and bought it on the spot.

I'll likely drive this one until it rots apart.

so you got a rattle box with options !!!!!!!!!

stairmaster3001 · Post by **stairmaster3001** » Tue May 03, 2011 10:52 pm

yeah my first ride was my moms 99 flame red caravan with faded 3 tone paint lol. Then my gramps bought me a 05 sxt auto,which i didnt care at the time cause it was a car. I later found out the hard way it wasnt really taken care of and was a bitof a pos,so i sold it for 4700. Then i bought a pos gti for 4600 drove it for a month, then sold it for 5600.Then my dad came across a craigslist ad for a 04 srt4 with 42k for 5500 in TN. I hopped on that deal so fast drove 300 miles and paid 5200 for it and its super nice!
lol and all this happened in like a 1yr and a half lol

logikfive · Post by **logikfive** » Wed May 04, 2011 7:29 pm

Fuzzyneon wrote:
logikfive wrote:I needed a beater, so I bought mine. That's all there is. Wasn't fun putting $40 a day in my truck. Picked up a '01 Cavalier first, drove it for about 6 months, got sick of it, rattle box with no options. Was actually looking for a 300M. Didn't really find any that jumped out at me. Stumbled on the R/T on cragislist, looked at it and bought it on the spot.

I'll likely drive this one until it rots apart.
so you got a rattle box with options !!!!!!!!!

My car has no rattles.

Strut mounts are clunky in the front but I plan to fix that when I install lowering springs sometime this summer.

iThane · Post by **iThane** » Wed May 04, 2011 7:42 pm

well, my first car was my dads truck until i could get something of my
own, so my grandparents sold me their 1989 dodge ram v8 van, and i
drove that until i soon realized i really hated it, and it was embarrassing,
so i sold it.. and with the money earned from that, i was determined to
buy an r/t neon cuz my friend at school had a yellow one and i really
liked the sound of it, but stumbled across my sxt and it was exactly
what i was looking for! beat to hell by the previous owner, but i couldn't
be happier..

<3

whats funny was that the van was actually like a v6.5... one cylindar lost
all pressure, and a second was only putting out half the pressure it
should have. lol.

03_neoviper · Post by **03_neoviper** » Wed Jun 01, 2011 6:23 pm

Bought My 2g off of my neighbors daughter for $200 with tranny issues it has 168k on the das with new timing belt and water pump

RawkBunny · Post by **RawkBunny** » Thu Jun 02, 2011 4:41 pm

Fell in love with one (and its owner) 3 years ago (passtschon!) and wanted one ever since.

Finally got up the courage and the money to sell my sentra and bought this black ACR....from passt 2 weeks ago. Was a pretty awesome bday gift to myself. LOL.

OB · Post by OB » Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:46 pm

My old Ford Escort broke down (for the tenth and final time) when I was 18, so I decided to look for something newer, maybe with a warranty. After driving some crappy used cars in my price range, I ended up at the Dodge dealer to look at Neons. I'd always wanted one since I saw the first 1gn R/T on the streets in the mid 90's. Anyhow, they had 7-8 Neons on the lot, one 5-speed. Price was right, about $14K less than the comm ed. SRT-4 they had. Since my dad was helping with the down payment as a graduation gift, he called the shots, and shut me down on the SRT. Thank god, those $600/mo payments and insurance would have killed me at 18!

inthewerks · Post by **inthewerks** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 9:53 am

I had a POS 93 ' pontiac grand am that was taking more money in repairs than my rent costs. 3 radiators in a year, water pump, timing chain (yes timing CHAIN) breaks at 150k, I cant think of the name right now dangitt but the power steering thingamabobber with the feed and return lines that turned the wheels was leaking onto my exhaust manifold and sometimes made it look like it was on fire litterally. Both front windows off track and had to have two people 1 to crank and one to hand glide window into place when rolling up. Then my son came 4/07. Went to the dealer and they gave me $250 for my trade and told me they were going to have it scrapped and probably make their money back in the weight of the metal. The only 4 cars on the lot in my budget were a choice of 2 dodge stratus with 4 cylinder engines ( passed on both due to no tint on windows, kind of a necessity out here in AZ during summertime), an STI which I passed on because for a 3 year old car, it had over 150k miles on it. And finally, this 2 year old neon, 36k miles, tinted windows, sxt package minus wing and fogs, and it had 4 doors. Test drove her and was very impressed at ride quality and smoothness. I even got them talked down to $9500 and they threw on a brand new set of oem tires and maintenance fore life (which I never use). Now she rides like crap because of the drop, although still super reliable, and I have another child due this 8/11.

biggrobb1995 · Post by **biggrobb1995** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 12:21 am

Got my 02 as a daily driver/gas saver/2nd car about 6 years ago. I didn't intend on doing anything to it at first. That idea flew out the window shortly after joining this here website.

iBOOST4 · Post by **iBOOST4** » Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:53 pm

I've had lots of vehicles, but never anuthing fwd, or w a turbo. before my neon i had a lifted cherokee, long story short i sank it in a LOT of water (dont ever put a snorkel on a lifted vehicle, it doesnt make it a submarine). After that the jeep started giving me trouble. i was looking a car dealers one day say a srt-4 and fell in love. 2 weeks later i was the proud owner of a black 05.

RawkBunny · Post by **RawkBunny** » Thu Jul 14, 2011 1:19 pm

I hope 2gn stays around forever so when my kid buys a dodge they can post here and says "it ran in the family, mommy and daddy had SRT 4's and they were beasts!" lol.

2003NeonSXT · Post by **2003NeonSXT** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 9:11 am

Bought a 2000 Plymouth Neon 11 yrs ago...Drove it for a couple years had alot of alignment problems with it took it everywhere to get it fixed finally gave up and traded it in for a 2003 SXT

thecause17 · Post by **thecause17** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 11:35 am

I got into these cars with a 1gn, a '99 SOHC Highline Coupe, automatic. I bought that car strictly to drive to work. But I really liked the car, modified it a little, but it had quite a few small dents, and I didn't want to put the money into it for the bodywork so I sold it, for more than I paid for it after about a year.

I wanted another 1gn, but I really wanted an R/T, but couldn't find one in nice enough condition in the area. So I expanded my search to the 2gn cars, decided I was only going to settle for an R/T as well. I found two, both in Ohio, one silver without leather, and one black one with leather, similar miles and price. So I decided to look at the black one and make the 2 1/2 hour drive to where it was in Ohio and look at it. Drove it home.

I still miss my coupe, but the 2nd gens are definately in my opinion put together much better. The car's purpose is still for daily driving to keep the other cars off the road, but it's what I was looking for, something that's fun to drive on a daily basis. If something happens to this car I can definately see myself buying a third.

riiv · Post by **riiv** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 11:37 pm

Saw it driving home form work. Called Dad and asked to co-sign. He came down and we test drove it. Told me to stop speeding. Next day it was mine. Yay.

Yellow04r/t · Post by **Yellow04r/t** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 2:08 am

I started out with at 15 buying my first vehicle a dark purple 98 reg cab short box ram 1500 sold it before it racked up too many more km on so I drove my girlfriends moms 01 wind star for about three months while I looked for 04+ ram 1500 but nothing I could find was under 10g so then I started looking for r/t chargers but still nothing under 10g then I stumbled upon this solar yellow sx 2.0 R/t and I was like WTF is sx2.0 after looking at the picture I discovered they are just a neon and being a sucker for bright colored, body kits, rims and manaul trans cars I was all for it! That's how I got mine.

PurpleStuff · Post by **PurpleStuff** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 8:17 am

Well it was 2009 and I had a Honda Civic. It kept having issues since it was modded electrical, aftermarket sunroof leaked, creaks, no ac or ps. So I got tired of it. I knew I was getting deployed in the future and made enough for payments. So I decided to look for a new car. I started searching for WRX's and Evo's but they were all high milage in my price range. So I searched turbo on craigslist and the Neon popped up at a local Saturn dealership. 1 owner, very low miles. Never knew about them so did some quick research and my parents and I went to look at it. Looked clean and they had just listed it on craigslist that morning. So when the salesman cranked it and I heard the rumble from that 2.4L I knew it was meant to be. So we worked things out with the salesman. He knew I was in the Army so he replaced the tires for me, flushed the radiator and changed the oil for no charge. I picked it up the next monday and have enjoyed it ever since. Thought about selling it at one point but it's been so reliable and is newer than most cars I would want I couldn't do it.

sidepipe87 · Post by **sidepipe87** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:46 pm

sidepipe87 wrote:because of all the Neon haters I instantly needed to get one. just so I could LOL.

This still holds true. However I also got my silver '03 because I was always a fan of the neon and my '93 spirit was about to break another diff pin. My sister bought a used '01 CG plymouth, base model atx and I thought it was such a better looking car than the spirit and I knew they were reliable. In spring '08 my brother bought a blaze red '05 mtx neon. I knew I needed to get one. I searched Craigslist, Autotrader, local dealers, used car lots etc for months. At the time gas prices had gone up and no one was selling their neon or prices were outrageous. I almost bought a 20,000 mile yellow mtx but when I went to buy it they had just sold it. I didn't drive stick at the time either so it would have been interesting lol. I ended up finding a super clean silver '03 atx with 38,xxx miles and ended up buying it. I already had a mopar lip kit and sideskirts sitting at my house before I bought the car

From there I was hooked - I was buying things left and right and it was starting to turn into a nice project. Fast forward to December '09. My sister in law was trading in her '00 Plymouth Neon LX because it was "just about dead". She didn't want to sell it to me because it was in such bad shape... My dad always maintained the car at the dealership, it had 110,xxx miles or so on it and the timing belt had been replaced. I bought the car for $800 cleaned it up real good, and drove it until I got bored with it and wanted to learn to drive stick. I sold the car for $2000 and bought Jerry's black '05 mtx in November 2010

The next month my dad told me about a red SRT-4 at their dealer that was getting wholesaled because the engine was blown up... I told him get me a price. I ended up scoring my '04 SRT for $1500 with 2 exhaust valves burned through (later found out it needed a crankshaft too). I stripped the car down to the shell and scrapped the shell. This car donated the body panels, interior to the black car... now red, and the engine got rebuilt for my silver car.

In august 2012 I got bored with the SRT clone and started looking around. I happened across a Stage 3 yellow SRT and the guy was looking for a trade + cash... we struck a deal and it is now my daily driver.

I really have no use for 3 cars, but I'm REALLY itching to get a clean 1gn DOHC coupe to 2.4 swap... That's my story!

mrgoodbytes · Post by **mrgoodbytes** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:49 pm

I bought mine in 2006 after the control arm on my toyota broke and it would have cost more to repair it than the car was worth. In order to get an affordable interest rate on a loan I had to have my parents cosign the loan. And in order to get them to cosign the loan, they limited me to one dealership and the Neon was the only manual car in my price range other than a rusted out pastel green focus. And since then, I have fallen in love with her and Neons in general.