1999 200SX Insurance Write-Off Rebuild

On the 30th of April 2019 I purchased a insurance write-off 1999 spec R 200SX S15.

The car had been involved in a t-bone collision with a drunk driver (who was not the driver of the S15). Contrary to the Facebook comedians beliefs, the under 20 driver of the S15 was not at fault and the mighty 250hp that the S15 produced was not out of his control.

Photo from the crash site.

In my mostly un-experienced opinion the car should never been written off. The Damage included: the bonnet, headlights, guards, bumper, radiator support, radiator,bumper support, headlight support and the top piece of the plastic inter cooler piping. The only reason this car was written off was because of a lazy insurance policy, plain and simple. The car was insured for $11,000 and the total cost of repairs was estimated at over $15,000 including all the parts which I priced brand new from Nissan New Zealand at $9,500 nzd.

The owner of the S15 was paid out his insurance amount, purchased the car back and decided that it was out of his budget to fix. It was then advertised on Facebook marketplace for $12,000 nzd to which it received nothing but abuse from drift tax optimists. When I went to view the car there was already another buyer sitting in the driveway of the sellers house who wanted the car to part out. The seller offered me first dibs as he knew my intent was to fix the car and get it back on the road. To be fair the car was actually pretty straight if you could look past the slight ding on the front. The interior was mostly complete but had not been maintained. The center console was broken, it had a interior vent missing, more plastic bottles and V cans in the back seat than I could count and the drivers seat had wear and tear around the bolsters.

The car at the sellers house.

My pre-purchase inspection involved turning the car over to make sure it ran and checking for chassis damage which at the time I was unaware had already been given the all clear by the panel beater who received the car after the crash. I really wasn't bothered about any other aspect of the car as it probably couldn't be worse than that of the front end. I purchased the car for a reasonable price which included the set of replica work wheels which had brand new tires. I guess this where I am lucky in that the car was towed back to my old mans panel-beating shop free of charge. It probably sat here for around 2 weeks while I attempted to price and source parts that I knew I would need in order for any of the repairs to be carried out.

Because the car had been de-registered it had to go through the re-compliance process. To some people this is frightening but its actually piss-easy if you don't try to cut any corners. A part of the process is a repair certification which basically involves a report documenting the repair process, how it needs to be repaired, how it was repaired, what was replaced and a wheel alignment at the end. The repair certification is carried out by external companies and had nothing to do with our shop and cost around $400 nzd. Due to more than 3 panels having to be replaced on the S15 a 3D alignment had to be completed which involved 3D scanning the front end to ensure that it is perfectly square after the repairs had taken place. (something we would have done anyway). This also has to be approved by the repair cert guy.

The most expensive part of the car to replace was the headlights. Brand new from Nissan these will set you back around $1000 each. I was able to pick up a pair in reasonably good condition aside from UV yellowing for $435 (a bloody steal to be honest). The radiator support panel was purchased for $320 which is fairly standard but a pain in the ass to find. I bought a new seat, new interior vent, bumper support w/ headlight support and radiator for $320 (I also thought this to be a steal and the guy that delivered it to me free of charge from Whangarei was a top bloke. Its always awesome to meet other Silvia owners who are happy to help each other out when it comes to these cars.)

Tearing the car down to just the radiator support was a straight forward process which follows similar steps to replacing a standard radiator except instead of working around a radiator support panel you completely cut it out. The remaining headlight parts of the support panel were held on with spot welds and were drilled out and then knocked off.

The guards were fixed fairly easily as they were only slightly bent back and did not need to be replaced. Everything that could be fixed with out effecting the quality of the final out come was in order to save money. I was still on a budget with this car and didn't want to waste money on stuff that wasn't necessary.

When it came to the bonnet I was lucky to have one in fairly good condition already available at our panel-beating shop. Although it had probably been sitting for close to 10 years and had developed rust. Standard Nissan stuff really. The rust was cut out and replaced with sheet metal and then grazed back to minimize the amount of filler that was needed.

At this point we were able to place the new radiator support panel in place after it had been prepared. I say placed because we test fit every single panel involved including the headlights and took measurements before the panel was spot-welded in place to ensure its going to be square.

Radiator Support Test Fitting

Everything was aligned so the radiator support was welded in. This is a straight forward process with probably around 25 spot welds max needed to secure it according to Nissan's original factory specifications.

I can honestly say that if i was going to re-do this car again. I would not bother fixing the fiberglass aero bumper. At the time it seemed like a great idea. Save $400 bucks and spend a day fixing the bumper.... The bumper alone probably took about 2 weeks of after work time to get the proper shape back again. Even now I'm still not happy with it but I have way to much time invested in it to buy a new one.

A giant waste of time.

I had never repaired fiberglass before and my old man had only repaired very few smaller pieces. Keep in mind this bumper was completely munted as per the original crash photo. We started off by gluing some aluminium plates to the back side to give it some strength back while we fiber glassed the front side. We then removed the back plates and fiber glassed the back side. Safe to say the bumper is tough as now. After breaking it and re-fiber glassing multiple times we managed to get it to a stage that fit well on the car and was relatively in-offensive to look at. We were only trying to get the bumper to fit correctly at this point as we wanted to get the car to compliance so it could be driven and ensured properly.

The car was then primed, re-assembled and taken to a local wheel aligners to get the wheel aligners report which is then given to the repair cert guy.

The process of compliance is a something I have done a few times before. With imports as well as de-registered cars. To put it simply its a over complicated warrant of fitness involving the removal of multiple interior panels. The car failed originally on no brake line clips and aftermarket rear taillights which I was stoked with. I was able to purchase new brake line clips from Nissan and I borrowed a pair of factory S15 lights off Facebook marketplace for a box of beers and a solid handshake. Compliance including WOF cost $350 nzd.

After purchasing new plates and a registration the car was road legal. This cost $270 nzd. Bringing the total repair cost of the car to $2095 not including paint. I say that because I plan on completely re-spraying the car in its factory grey color in the coming weeks. (Updates to come).

My future plans for the car involve fixing all the interior aspects that have been mostly neglected. I will be replacing the center console, shift boot, floor mat and radio surround. The car will also be getting a full respray back to the factory pewter grey color. The replica wheels need to go as well, they weigh about 20kg each and although they make look the part they also let the car down in my opinion.

Complete after compliance

When I first purchased this car back in April I messaged a few people to try and justify if the car would be worth fixing. The majority of people that I talked to believed that the car would be better off parted out or stripped and caged for the race track. I always hate to see cars wasted especially when they can be easily saved and restored. I feel as though items are to easily thrown away today and are viewed as disposable. It is simply easier to go out and buy another instead of fixing what is broken. There were originally 477 NZ new 200SX S15 sold in New Zealand and I can't say for sure how many are left but I think a good estimate would be somewhere around 250-300 road legal with WOF and registration.

The S15 was only ever released for the NZ, AUS and JDM markets. The 1999 production models will be legal to import into the USA in 2024 and I think in the next few years we will begin to see there value sky rocket to prices close to that of the R32 GTR. They have very similar production levels (43,934 GTR R32 were produced compared to 43,097 S15 Silvia) and were both subject to the Fast and Furious fan hype. I am really hoping that the idea of there value increasing immensely will help to persuade people to take better care of them in the future.