Want to get a RioCar player for my car but....

I noticed all these USED ones have extremly high prices, even more than they were new 1-2 yrs ago. I should have gotten one when they were around 400 for a 60 gig!

Can anyone help me here?

The time period you reference was when Rio cancelled the empeg and was having a blowout sale trying to get rid of the remaining stock. Many of us paid well over $1000 for ours. So it's still real cheap. And most of the used ones aren't really used. More often than not, they were extras that people bought during the blowout and have hardly been touched. You can ask the seller before you buy, though, if you're of a mind that an untouched one is better than a well-used one. Keep in mind that most of those being sold were of a batch that had a few common (though not-too-difficult to repair) problems, and one that's really used might have already had those problems fixed. Or maybe not.

I don't think you'll find prices much better than what you see on eBay, but there's also a For Sale forum here.

These "extremely high prices" you talk of aren't much above the ending prices of RioCars during the fire sale after they were discontinued, maybe. But those prices for units, either here in the For Sale forum or on eBay, are still well below the original selling prices when they were in production.

In short, if you can afford it, get it, regardless of the price. Just make sure you're buying from a trustworthy seller. I was lucky enough to have acquired one unit during the fire sale immediately after the final price drop. Had I had the money sooner than I did, I would have gladly paid more to have one earlier and not been disappointed when the price dropped later.

Now the question is I hardly see any 60 gigs forsale. Can you upgrade the HD if I got a 10 or 20gig now? I have never bought one or used one of these items so I really don't know. Thanks.

Yeah. You can upgrade the HD in them fairly easily. If you can cope with changing something in your PC then you can do the empeg. There's a drive upgrade HOWTO in the FAQ.

Absolutely. There's a remarkably complete upgrade guide, even. And you can upgrade to pretty much any size laptop hard drive you want, with a few minor exceptions, like physical size of the drive (and few, if any, modern ones don't fit) and some infrequent issues with memory on the absolute biggest possible upgrades.

Awesome. Now to find one. I guess I need to get the Mark 2. Hope I can find a good one still somewhere.

What do you guys think good prices for what models are resonable? I want to make sure I won't get screwed. Thanks!

There are actually 3 empeg models. The Mk1, Mk2 and Mk2A. It's in the FAQ. Chances are that the "new" ones you buy are Mk2a's.

Is this guy reliable? I am nervous with 1 feedback! What you guys think?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3061900485

Oh well I missed it.

You might be better off buying from a board member if you're worried.

$405 for a 20 gig player? Yeah, you really missed it. That's a good price. Doesn't seem to be a shortage of them on the market these days though, so keep trying Ebay and the For Sale forum.

I have a 20 gig Mark IIa (RioCar) unit that was installed for about 9 months and works perfectly. It comes with the original box, cables, sled, manual, remote and one of Mark Lord's home docks (worth $150.00).

Price for all: $600.00 plus shipping.

You have a email.

To get a good idea on current pricing, watch both what people are asking for them in For Sale and what they sell for on EBay. Prices are way down from what I paid for my two over a year ago.

Before you buy, make sure to get the serial number from the seller. Also, ask the seller for a picture of the unit displaying the serial number. With that picture, you can be reasonably sure that the player works and that the serial number is authentic. (there is a way to check the serial number against a database of stolen players, but someone else will have to confirm that).

The empeg can hold two hard drives, so the best bargain is to get an empeg with one drive and add a second one later. Currently, you can add the largest laptop drive on the market (80 gig). So, when you run out of space on your 80 gig and whatever comes with it, it won't be such a loss to swap out the small stock and add ANOTHER 80 gig!