FTO AUSTRALIA

hi guys

recently bought an FTO for my gf to learn to drive.. auto GR
didnt realise what a pain fto's are after all the common faults are starting to appear on it.
simple fixes but annoying as hell

my first import purchase and parts are bloody hard to come by for FTOs.. i thought there was a larger aftermarket for them..

i've owned 5 civics (some mildy modified with engine swaps) and only had 1 major problem where gearbox housing cracked..

anyways the help info is pretty good on FTOAU!

chees
ross

i should add reason why i bought this car was i picked it up fairly cheap i thought..
$6700 for 95 auto GR
160,000 on the clock and a few months rego..

civic's are just overpriced these days with everyone wanting one

WTTC, you certainly won't get any good reception on this site talking up anything with the H badge (don't believe me? just do a search for the word "honda"). I am getting in before you get flamed for that mate.

That said, you may well have picked up a lemon. 160,000 k's on an FTO for $6500 seems excessive to me, then again, the Aus import market has always been fucked compared to here.

There are many of us here that have never had problems with these cars. "Common problems" are an easy DIY fix for the most part. Care to elaborate on your issues?

Some research would have told you that the aftermarket parts market for an FTO is pretty skint really. If you are used to H cars, then you will get a hell of a shock! Most of the more interesting things done to FTO's are custom. A lot of the more supposedly common parts are pretty hard to find, lots come from the UK, particularly www.camskill.co.uk

FTO's are brilliantly balanced cars, with some coil overs an FTO will cock a rear wheel over a driveway entry easily. That's Porsche rivalling chassis stiffness there. They respond very well to strut braces and upgraded anti roll bars. There isn't a lot you can do to a standard GR to extract performance short of CAI and exhaust/extractors. Then again, it's your missus's car so I guess it's more aesthetics that you will be focusing on.

Again, WTTC. Tell us the problems and we will help out...

dam, you miss your civic after owning an fto.

i miss my fto even though im the biggest honda fanboi

. . . i thiiink the fto would smoke your honda box haha

. . . VTEC YO!!!!! goes alrite thou
still fto forum not honda hehehe that smiley looks so funni

DOnt blame all fto's just cause you brought a lemon. If your only finding out now that parts are hard to come (which they arent if you know where to look) then maybe you should of done a little more research

lol it wasnt my intention to be flaming FTOs...
besides how can it be a lemon if theses problems i get are "common faults"?

anywho.. this website is alright. members are pretty helpful already with the posts i have made..

thanks for the warm welcome

what you don't realise is that $6700 is cheap for an FTO .. and most (not all) of them @ that price have been run into the ground

The fact that you've had a lot of problems with it isn't a surprise.. And, seriously, even if you have to spend another $6700 to fix it up, it would still be a bargain.. 3-4 years ago a decent condition FTO was hard to find for less than $15k

Considering they're a 15 years old car, the list of "common problems" is pretty short, and as FTOEvolution has said, most of them are an easy DIY job with some parts interchangeable from Galants / Lancers / mirage etc

Once you do the major service, maybe refurbish the suspension with new struts, springs, bushes, droplinks, strut tops etc then they go like a dream.. not to mention, the engines / gearboxes & other major running gear are damn good ..

anyways, let us know what the problems are & we'll try to point you in the right direction
And WTTC!

Problem number 1; You bought a GR....lol

WTTC

Fto's are great, but just like any car, if they've been thrashed and neglected all their life, they are obviously not going to last long. 160,000km are fairly high for a fto, it surely explains the price tag.

i guess you guys are more adversed on FTO pricing than i am
but at the time of sale (nov 08 ) most of the FTO's were 150+km including both GR and GPX..

some the pricing of FTO's didnt justify the condition of some for 15 year old cars..
now im no noob to purchasing cars and the condition of this FTO was very good. motorwise bodywise and interior wise

even having a look at carsales now (in NSW) as a rough market guide 150+km FTOs are $7K+
redbook lists price of a 95 GR auto to be $7400-$9300

i would say i had a found a decent FTO
considering the only common fault thats happened is central lock fix (cost me $10 for another motor), the tappets being noisy (which i knew i had to replace on purchasing the car), the headlight fade, the rear seat fading at the head rest due to the sun/heat, oh and it was missing the JDM flare

just my main gripe was that trying to get aftermarket tappets was a bitch.. i had to wait over a month to get it from kempys because they were out of stock and so were their suppliers... and on top of that the price went up when it did arrive! lol
i shoulda ordered them back in nov but i was lazy and started looking around in feb haha
still i guess it was better then buy OEM from Mistu Australia

JDM? Jdm is what you make it. I think it's stupid how most people buy a honda and stick a JDM yard sticker on the window and whale on about how its so JDM.

To the member who said buying a gr was a problem.... Please watch what you say, we don't all have gp's or gpx - you might offend someone. Last thing we need is the VTEC YO!!!!! yo hondaboy attitude.

Incoming -WTTC mate your problems arent bad mate. My tappets are a bit annoying, not too loud but they can be fixed. Enjoy the site and keep a look out for those little hard to come by parts on here, we dont have much aftermarket support but sometimes a few gems come up every now and again.

Nicely written Jay. Harry you want to take on my GR???

incoming wrote:ii would say i had a found a decent FTO
considering the only common fault thats happened is central lock fix (cost me $10 for another motor), the tappets being noisy (which i knew i had to replace on purchasing the car), the headlight fade, the rear seat fading at the head rest due to the sun/heat, oh and it was missing the JDM flare

Mate, if you gunna start contradicting yourself you aren't going to receive a warm welcome here...

incoming wrote: didnt realise what a pain fto's are after all the common faults are starting to appear on it.
simple fixes but annoying as hell

You say all the common faults, but you list 2! Headlight delamination and headrest fading are things you SHOULD have picked up when first looking at the car if you are so clued up about buying cars.

And as for the title of the thread, if you are basing "should have stuck with a Honda" on the fact you had to do tappets (which you knew about), central locking fix, headlight DL and a fading headrest; you need to stop, the door is that way!

Go out and buy any SOHC VTEC YO!!!!! Civic (or lower spec) of the same k's and value and try to tell me once that it is going to have less problems than the car you just brought, I will give you a medal if you can prove it!

IMO H cars have nothing on the FTO (excluding Type R's of course, but they are a race day special, different league). Plain jane wannabes that need thousands spent to get up to the factory levels of FTO comfort and handling (I am talking specifically about GR's there).

JDM? Every FTO is JDM, they were never made outside of Japan, I don't know why that part even started.

Your thread is trolling, there is a way to complain about something tactfully, and a way to conjure disrespect for yourself. I'll let you figure out where on the scale you sit; here's a hint

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just my main gripe was that trying to get aftermarket tappets was a bitch.. i had to wait over a month to get it from kempys because they were out of stock and so were their suppliers... and on top of that the price went up when it did arrive! lol
i shoulda ordered them back in nov but i was lazy and started looking around in feb haha
still i guess it was better then buy OEM from Mistu Australia

Just as an aside, if you are having a problem with replacement parts, I can probably help there. I have a number of wrecks and can source direct from Mitsubishi Japan.

WTTC mate.

Dstocks is the man to speak to about parts

The post above mine is an IMPORTANT Post to read.

FTEvolution, u need to relax mate.. like i said i'm not on here to start a honda vs mitsu war..
im not some young punk who is "trolling" either.

anyways the tappets have arrived.. car is going into the shop so hopefully my views on FTOs will be much more pleasant to everyones taste

also whats WTTC mean?

Welcome To The Club!

while I hope that this doesn't turn into a flaming match, I agree with FTOEvo that any posts bagging out FTO's & talking up Honda's are going to be met with hostility.

I'm not sure where the JDM comments come into play, 'Incoming' was talking about the passenger side 'FLARE' being missing (this is taken out during import (in most cases) for compliance)

Would one of our friendly moderators plesae clean the crap out of this thread

Welcome to the club incoming Ask away with the your questions or parts request. 9 times outta 10, helpful individuals will answer & stay relevant to the questions!