YouTuber finds out the hard way why it’s not a good idea to buy a wrecked Nissan GT-R

This YouTuber found out the hard way why it’s a bad idea to buy a pre-owned Nissan GT-R that’s in anything other than great condition.

Contents

It wasn’t particularly cheap to buy, and it was also very expensive to fix on top of that.

There was quite a lot that needed doing, and in the end he ended up spending roughly the same amount he’d have spent on a new car.

But with a lot of extra stress.

Was buying this GT-R a good idea?

Eleazar and Simeon, the two guys behind the Goonzsquad YouTube channel, bought a Nissan GT-R that was far from perfect for less than $50,000.

The price sounds attractive, but there was a long list of things wrong with the car.

Let’s start with the simple stuff, because the car, among other things, needed a new paint job, which was $3,500.

Then there were other more complex things that needed fixing, with parts you can only get from Nissan, and that cost them $30,000.

On top of that, they decided to add new coilovers, new intakes, wheels and a bunch of other things, which added another $17,700 to the telly.

Goonzquad

By the time they were done, they realized they’d spend a grand total of $130,000.

“GT-R parts, that ain’t no joke, man. We thought we were going to spend 100 grand, but we went 30 grand over [budget],” Simeon said.

That doesn’t sound too good considering the GT-R starts at around $122,000.

And sure, it’d cost a bit more if you bought one specced exactly like the one they got, but it was still not the deal of the century.

The GT-R, the spiritual successor to the Skyline, is one of the best Nissan vehicles ever made, but its future is uncertain.

Back when it was launched, a new GT-R would only set you back $70,000+ but that price has nearly doubled since then.

In the case of the GT-R50, the one designed in partnership with Italdesign (pictured below), the price goes up to seven figures.

Nissan

Even though you can, technically, still buy a new GT-R, this vehicle is de-facto dead.

Nissan hinted at a potential electric replacement, but the Japanese automaker is currently in serious financial trouble, so the new GT-R is probably not uppermost in their mind.