“Dammit, that’s frickin’ unfortunate,” I muttered to myself after I spotted a “heartbreaker” among the search results I was scanning in my Evil Wrenching Lair, conveniently located beneath the only volcano in Wilmington, NC. A heartbreaker does not call to mind Tom Petty’s boys, but rather the type of car that pulls at your heartstrings with a mix of yearning, desire, empathy, and pity. The kind of thing that would provoke my Uncle John to offer a wary “that ain’t right!” (his signature line since 1959).
Hello and welcome back to another SWG article, my Autopian friends! This one is going to be a little shorter and less wrench-heavy compared to my previous wicked-long, mega-adventure wrench-a-thons. It has been way too long since my last check-in, and with 16 cars currently awaiting repair, I barely have time to breathe over here lately – so let’s mix it up a bit and keep it light and fun this time!
So anyway, there it was, staring back at me from Facebook Marketplace: an ’09 Genesis in Black Noir Pearl for only $900! 2009 was the first year for the luxury sedan, and it looked stunning in the ad’s photos, practically jumping off the screen. This is one of the models I’d low-key had my eye on for years, since it looks incredible and is reaching used-market pricing levels of depreciation that make it a massive value for the money.
Top-end Executive sedans from Germany will bankrupt you with parts/diagnostics costs and wicked over-complexity. The Japanese offerings hold their value and always have a big audience of buyers as they are genuinely desirable cars for the most part. Outside of a few late-model Cadillacs, there aren’t many American offerings in this space, and those Cadillacs are littered throughout Facebook Marketplace – usually with timing chain tensioner issues, a truly unfortunate flaw (here’s looking at you, High-Feature 3.6 V6).
Meanwhile, the South Korean newcomer seems to bring some serious heat to this space with a killer combo of low price, limited brand provenance (it’s new), decent reliability, shared drivetrains with lesser Hyundais and KIAs (Borrego, Genesis Coupe), and high content.
A Closer Look (Minus Seth Meyers)
I immediately sent the ad to the Autopian Team in our Slack chat. Believe me when I say that I am personally convinced Thomas Hundal may be one of the most talented knowers-of-cars, ever, hands down. The guy took one cursory glance and responded within 30 seconds that the 2009 3.8 Genesis Sedan has steel springs and my example was sitting too low, so there is a suspension concern. Wow! I’m always impressed with the library of knowledge he brings to the table.
After speaking with the seller via Facebook Messenger, he informed me that he runs a scrap yard and was selling this car without a key. Ouch, it’ll cost a few extra hundo to have a mobile locksmith download the security and programming data from Hyundai and cut a key/buy a fob. Dammit.
He also stated that the widow of the deceased owner decided to call this Seller-Scrapper to tow away this Genesis to be parted out and crushed after its previous owner passed away, and the car was left at an oceanfront beach house in Holden Beach, NC for years. That means the car was sitting in salt spray from the Atlantic, which might also explain why the car is sitting so low. Had all that salt exposure rusted the springs into a saggy state?
The seller also mentioned not having a key meant he was unsure if the car runs. Not knowing if the car actually operates is a big deal for me. So OK, yeah, it doesn’t sound that great. Nothing good in life comes easily, though.
So, Should I?
If there’s one thing that incites all overly-optimistic Autopians, it’s a badass car for a cheap price, and I believe that is what we have here! We’re talking about a sleek, quasi-generic 5 Series copy with a 290hp V6, rear-wheel drive, 264Ft/lb of torque and an Aisin B600 6-speed transmission for under $1000! Add $200-$300 for a key, another $300 for the title, and this car could be mine for $1500, which is very enticing.
I just checked the inventory at the local Pick n Pull and discovered a 2010 V8 Genesis just hit the yard! That means cheap, attainable, non-sea-salted parts are a few miles from my house and can be mine after a short visit on a Saturday afternoon. This is huge, as the power of wrenching is one of the greatest forces in all of Greater Autiopia.
Do I need another car? Hell no. Is this potentially a great buy if the cards all fall in my favor? Hell yes. I’m genuinely going to read and respond to each comment below if you feel that you can add some insight, direction, or humor to help out in this situation. Let me know your thoughts, my Autopian friends!
Fortune favors the brave, right?
All photos by Stephen Walter Gossin
- How I Saved A Once-$90,000 Mercedes SL I Bought For $1,900
- Why The Dirt-Cheap Broken Jaguar X-Type For Sale In Every Town Might Actually Be Worth Buying And Fixing
- I Took On A Bad GM Design In A Hail-Mary Attempt To Fix My Friends Broken Suburban But It Was Too Little Too Late
- What It Was Like Owning And Fixing My First Jeep After Owning Over 100 Non-Jeeps
- I Bought A 29-Year Old Buick With 68,000 Miles On It To Prove The Haters Wrong
- What I Learned Restoring A $600 Dodge Ram With A Burned Up Transmission And Ruined Interior
- How I Bought A Broken Version Of My Dream Car For $300, Then Nursed It Back To Glory And Let It Free
- Proof That A $700 Car Saved From The Junkyard Can Make Someone As Happy As A New Lambo Can
- How I Saved My Buddys’ SUV After It Died At The Most Embarrassing Possible Time
- ShitBox Showdown: The British Are Back In The Cape Fear
- Why People Cut Holes Into Their Cars’ Trunk Floors Even Though It Could Kill Them
- Even Cheap Cars Can Be Expensive: A Hard Lesson I Learned About The Repair-Parts Minefield
- I Spent $1300 On A Nissan That Lasted 3 City Blocks And 2.5 Minutes
- Rescuing A 75-Year-Old Car From An Older Car Enthusiast Reminded Me How Important Every Minute We Get Doing This Truly Is
That is *impressively* rusted for a 2009 anything.
Right?! My thoughts exactly. The Atlantic don’t play.
It’s worth only scrap value at present; $900 is too much with all four corners collapsed, no key, no idea if the drivetrain functions, and electronics possibly corroded beyond repair–plus so much obvious usual stuff before the bonus extra salty bits. Seller expects buyer to take on too much totality of risk here. Hard pass, SWG, this one ain’t your dream Genesis but more a nightmare best avoided.
“…$900 is too much with all four corners collapsed…” -Damn!
I will agree that the scrapper (who probably paid $300 for the car) is asking for a premium price considering there’s no key and no one knows if it runs.
I think my sense of adventure may get the best of me here though. The thought of this car turning into a cube makes my stomach turn.
Solid advise posted above, nonetheless! Thank you MustBe.
What happened to the Buick? Focus on that.
The Buick is now running, driving, inspected, insured, registered and street-parked! Chopping the roof off has not happened yet, as there always seems to be some other car to fix or rescue that gets in the way.
I’m impressed that you remembered honestly! That was 2+ years ago (Patrick George, EID of InsideEVs) edited that piece!
Sadly, now that the Buick is running, it’s 60K-mile Supercharged engine is worth more than the car is, so Im toying with selling the drivetrain to a GM project-car person that wants to Supercharge their Camaro/Monte Carlo or such.
Anyway! Thanks for reading and for the excellent memory.
How on earth did you unshrek the interior???
Man, while it would be sad to see another Buick taken off the road, I get it of you sell it. I used to see a good handful of them around my area but it’s becoming more infrequent.
Will they let you do another article about how you cleaned the inside? It sure looked bad best I can remember.
This is a terible idea. I look forward to reading the articles about it.
Yes! I will walk with my people. Thank you, Pimento.
You’ve already made your decision. Yes, you’ll get burned. No, your red-flag-abatement strategy won’t be enough. Yet here you are, with way too much work already, ogling this smoking hot mess and rationalizing that, with a body like that and an angel’s V8, who cares about a little automotive syphilis? It’ll make a good story, even if the clicks fall off.
Clicks are very unpredictable. I’ve penned what I thought to be some of my best and received very few. Other times I’ve mostly-phoned it in and hit the lotto.
Audience reception is something Im still trying to figure out to to best-approach.
Regardless, the allure of this project seems to be winning me over and you are correct that rationalization may very well win the day here and push my hand.
thanks for the advice and for reading, BubbaX!
Not just no. Heck no! If the tin worm is popping out that much up top, it’s eaten up the underside something fierce. That car is being held together by the paint and the carpet. Also, working on rusty cars is not fun. Take the anticipated repair time/cost and double it because of the rusted fasteners and other critical components that do not want to/cannot come apart. Even with lots of Blaster and use of the heat wrench. Save that $1500 for something that is less crispy.
Nah, although I won’t be “salty” if you do buy it. I’ll see myself out…
Oh wait, SWG!!! Still over here waiting on the…
JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG
article!
As others said, screw it, buy it and have at it. I’m also a bad influence for car consumption (still recovering car hoarder here).
That said, the rust on this thing is bad, you will be lucky if there is a floor and solid frame rails, but eh, you can weld steel plates in to fix that right up!
About the car itself, I liked the style of these first gen genesis sedans. I drove the v8 one for work sometime and it was solidly peppy. It consumed oil like mad and inevitably failed as I have seen most Hyundai engines do (especially that v8). So this is the only time you will ever hear me to stay away from the v8 and keep that v6, but new idea! LS SWAP!!! Throw some chromoly tubing to replace that rusted frame and let it eat!!! It’s like a cheap Lexus at that point!
I would personally never touch this specific car as I have a different evaluation of my time these days, but I will gladly read about you doing absurd stuff with it.
I love an executive saloon, and I always liked the early genesis sedans, but I’m thinking that looks like far more trouble than it’s worth and these cars aren’t worth all that much now.
I would pass and (someday) get a non rusted out example instead.
Rust never gets better on it’s own and to truly fix it is probably more money than this car would be worth mint. Get something with little to no rust – mechanical is easy.
Well, my vote is buy Crusty, then go buy every part off the one in the pick and pull you can. Frankenstein the two together.
I like your style, my man. This is The Way.
This is the way.
Can you pick and pull the whole of that V8 car minus its VIN tag? Asking for a friend.
They’ll sell it piece-by-piece, which is MASSIVE money. Not worth it and the guys there get asked that question almost daily.
They’re good for parts for the 30 days that they sit in the yard, then they’re turned into cubes.
Tis wicked sad.
Are you sure those are photos of the car? I thought the 2009 would have a Hyundai badge on the trunk. But I am no expert.
Obviously, the answer to whether you should do it is a 100% no if you are using any sane set of parameters. But as a reader, I can see how reading about it could be entertaining. You could make it interesting by picking a similar model that is in good condition and using it as a benchmark for your spending. Something ike this one with a clean title and 221k on the clock. Can you get the junker to be anywhere near the same level for the same $ amount?
Excellent cost gauntlet idea! It’s definitely an ’09 and I believe Hyundai purposely decided to not have the word “Hyundai” on this car.
I’ll put your idea into place if I buy the car and write about it and thanks, Ignatius!
The car itself looks like there is zero chance it is saveable in any way that would make it worthwhile. Even if you don’t put any value on your time. For me, the stories are most compelling where there is a relatable goal. Some tension where we don’t know if the goal will or won’t be reached.
If the goal is simply to get it drivable, it doesn’t feel very compelling since $3700 would get you there with no effort. If the goal is too far-fetched, it isn’t compelling either, since the outcome is already known.
My guess is that the condition of this particular Genesis is far too bad to allow for any compelling tension. Even if you get it going and drivable, it will be a bad car that isn’t worth much. The wrenching will be informative, but that could be done with a car that provides much more compelling context. Something that might be worth the effort.
Owners commonly swapped out the Hyundai badges for KDM Genesis ones, think some dealers even just did it to their stock
I have looked at a bunch of these, and whether it says Hyundai or Genesis on the trunk or steering wheel seems almost random. Every combination seems to exist regardless of the year.
I wonder if it was regional? The marketing person in me also wonders if they were doing a test to see if the brand on the badge impacted sales.
just no. that is a car best left for scrap. that level of salt infiltration means EVERYTHING is shot. that wiring is gonna be green and full of opens, and everything ferrous is going to be rusted. inside and out. Id be willing to bet even the seat frames are unsafe.
“That’s a no from me dawg.” -Jason Masters
I am starting to have serious doubts about the underground lair under a volcano.
Seems more “inherited his infamous grandfather’s estate in Transylvania.”
Heaps of respect for past resurrections, and although I would have picked only a few of your choices, I’m a big fan of reducing waste, and giving renewed life to an unfortunate castoff. My time and money on this particular specimen ? Hell No!
Is there an active volcano in Wilmington NC? Yes.
Do I rescue cars in a lair beneath it? Yes.
Does my disdain for waste and trash drive an insatiable urge to keep as many cars on the road for as long as possible to maximize already-expended carbon from the manufacturing process? Yes.
Are many of them a smart usage of my time and efforts? No.
Does each feel amazing when finished? Yes.
Thank you for being here and for reading Hoonicus! Keep the faith.
There is a Wilmington neighborhood in Los Angeles, which is much closer to the Ring of Fire. And I’m not talking Johnny Cash. I’m talking geologically.
I’m doubting there’s a volcano. An active volcano, anywhere in NC. But I could be wrong. I was contemplating a post-retirement move to Asheville, NC, a few years ago. But Hurricane Helene makes me glad I didn’t do that. But I do feel bad for the people there.
“Cleetus McFarland” bought an abandoned Hughes/MD-500 helicopter out of Venezuela, had it restored and used it to bring supplies to people isolated after Helene.
I wish I had the money to do something like that.
I have a friend with a slightly hail pocked 09 3.8 in the same color that needs an engine in central Texas. He had some unknown issue and took it upon himself to swap the head gasket with limited mechanical experience (though super smart dude, just a little over his head on this one) and may have destroyed the block.
How did he destroy the block?
Inquiring minds need to know!
First he put it together out of time. I stopped him before he started it so he could get it in time. Then didn’t replace head bolts so he pulled them out to replace but ended up cross threading one, then tried to put in a helicoil and ended up trashing the hole beyond repair without some serious machine work.
That all sounds so familiar. When things go wrong, the cascade of issues that demand that you take on ever riskier repairs is the worst. It takes so much time to end up with nothing, like crashing in slow motion.
As a long-time admirer of SWG’s valiant attempts to preserve our endangered sport coupe heritage (cue Sarah McLaughlin), I say no and instead, spend that money on rescuing something like a trashed Chevy Beretta Z26 or a Ford Probe with no hatch and one headlight stuck in the up position.
Hey Jack!
Yeah, there are definitely more-deserving cars, but there’s just something about this one that’s calling to me and we’ve all heard that siren song.
Great to see you here in the comments and thanks as always for being you. Cheers, bud!
I think you share my prediliction for seeing what was, and not what is, when it comes to older used cars. I take Wife daily to control the symptoms. Do not take Wife if you are allergic to Wife. See your physician and ask if Wife is right for you.
That said, if you don’t take Wife daily like I do, the obvious answer is go for it so I can live vicariously through you. Cowabunga, dude!
My neighbor bought one of these new. It had some problems but the dealer treated him like a potentate so he was happy and the car was generally reliable out to 10 years.
Not familiar with their electrical systems, but looking at the body rust issues, it’s easy to forecast beaucoup wiring problems and fault codes leading to a full time job of diagnosis, repair, and possible mental illness.
Mental illness was reached about 140 cars ago. This is just reveling in the madness.
Thanks for reading and commenting, my dude!
Big oof from me that thing is more rusty then my 2013 FJ that has seen a lot of Midwest winters and mud. Also is that mold growing on the center console? Would like to see the underside and the engine bay though if the rust is showing that much up front it is 10 times worse underneath.
But I guess if you are going to say F-it and make it a lemons car or some other type of shit box race where you just want to get it running just to kill it I have seen worse rusted out shit boxes cost more haha.
I think I’m going to go for it, no Lemons here!
…and yes, that’s a bit of mold on the center console – good eye.
Thanks for reading and for being here in the comments with us, Harv!
It’s probably even worse than it looks in the pictures. Sitting is one of the worst things for a car and one in that shape from sitting has to be a basket case. This is a parts donor at best but probably worth the $900 for that.
Noted, and thanks!
Although, a bit antithetical from your Username, isn’t it?
Appreciated, regardless!
When anyone asks, “Should I buy this?”, I always answer yes. I can be a bad influence.
No real meaningful insight though.
This is exactly the response I was hoping for.
Thanks, my dude!
Also, Vermont RULES.
$900 ain’t too bad. I could see a handful of fun articles from this misadventure.
This person gets it. Big digital high-5.
Even at $500, I wouldn’t touch that with Bea Arthur’s 10-foot pole. If it’s that bad up top, it has to be way, way worse below. And you’d have to be a deft hand with Bondo and rattle cans to make the car look decent on a budget.
Big “Nay!” from Rollin Hand!
And probably from Bea Arthur, looking disdainfully down from above.
“…and my new grandma Bea Arthur!” -Rufus Wainwright, “California”
Not necessarily, seaside salt air rust is typically from the top down, vs road salt rust, which is from the bottom up
After many many headaches and multiple thousands of dollars that it will take to get this thing to run, you will STILL have a $1500-2000 RUST bucket. I would save yourself the trouble and wait until you have $5K to get something cool that’s broken! What’s the logic these days, the $5000 car now was the $1000 car in 2022…..
That’s a very solid and hard-hitting thought share, Zach, and thank you.
That option is always ringing in the back of every project wrenchers’ mind.
Thanks a ton for reading, my man!
Why not just buy the V8 from the scrapyard?
That would be a less bad idea than trying to save this rust bucket.
I once bought a used car that had lived on Nantucket. Even compared to regular MA road salt victims, that car stood out as a mess. I could tap through the strut towers with a ratchet and the transmission crossmember fell out because the frame rails it bolted too rusted through. There was not enough solid metal under there to even weld in a repair.
This car doesn’t look like it’s quite at that state (mine didn’t look the part either, with a recent paint job before my purchase), but we haven’t seen the under side and what I have seen I do not like.
In NC it’s state law that once they go into a scrapyard, they can never come out. Tis wicked sad!
Regardless, I admire your spirit for taking on that Nantucket Sleigh Ride (Google the reference) and thanks for reading and commenting, my dude!
Good God, no.
That Bob for a “Big No!”.
Thanks bud!
🙂