Hello Everyone, I have been on the forum for a while and have seen a lot of good information on here. Me and my wife own three mirages and I want to post a little about the latest addition.
Back in May of 2021 I wrecked my wife's 2020 mirage with under 2000 miles on it. It was totaled out by insurance and I kept the salvage. I bought a 2015 ES at an insurance auction to fix her car, but I had some leftovers, including a leather steering wheel with cruise control, good wheels and tires, hatch, rear bumper and taillights... so I had to keep them, I mean they were good parts and all, so then I was on a mission to find a wrecked mirage that needed only these parts. I found my dream salvage car in December of 2021, it did not go to auction until February 2022 but I won it for $1840.00
It is a 2014 DE with a five speed. It had 78,000 miles, was listed as nonrunning, had two bald front tires, and was wrecked in the back.
It was listed as non running but I saw in the pictures that the inside of the key was gone and I knew it needed the security chip in order to start. so I bid on the car thinking I could order blanks and have them cut and programmed on site (which was 3.5 hours from my house.
So me and my wife took two wheels a jack and blank keys to the auction site, after having been told by multiple lock smiths that we needed to call when we got there.
I changed the front wheels, but there was a problem, we couldn't get a locksmith out there, and the car wouldn't run because of the damaged key. we had drove a 2020 mirage up there so towing was out of the question. As I'm sitting in the driver seat of my dream junk car thinking "what have I done?" i saw a shiny red thing on the dash in the defrost vent... THE INSIDE OF THE KEY! i quickly pop the key apart and put the electronics in, put the key in the ignition and she fires right up.
We drive home, and get other keys cut and programmed by local locksmith.
I ripped the rear bumper off and spent 3 hours trying to get hatch open, damage was worse than I had thought, and the hatch and bumper I had would not fit on there with out the unibody being repaired
After months of calling around with no luck, I called a good friend and he knew a frame shop that would pull it out for $416.00, so that the used parts I had would go on there and fit properly.
I swapped the hatches out with my wife's help and stuck the good bumper in the car so the frame shop would have it for fitting and drove the car to to them(an hour away from me).
They did a fantastic job.
Now the car is whole again and I have gotten it aligned, got an oil change, put a K&N air filter in it, and have new NGK plugs on the way. I also installed the steering wheel and have used ETACS Decoder to turn on the cruise control and am awaiting the switches for clutch and brake pedal which are being shipped from asia.
So all in all I got a 2014 with 79,000 miles for about $2300.00 I think this is the start of something beautiful.