claytonsmith

i want an rx-7.. and i have acess to a nice FB. but this will be my only car... and i live 20 miles from anything.
i want a car that is RWD, manual tranny, handles great.. and has straight line power. my only concern is that i am being told my many rx-7 guys that they are basically junk. things always break ect... please tell me if i am making the right move here and please BE HONEST.
should i go for it and buy this car?. or should i stick with the car i have now?

BTW the FB has just over 80K on the clock

thanks

RotorMotorDriver

iTrader: (1)

Just over 80K eh? Does it run good? Is it in good condition?

Basically, in my opinion, these are good cars. They just need to be "freshened up" with some new parts to truely make them reliable. My Dad for instance, has an 85 GSL with 215K miles on it that still runs fairly well, all stock. My car on the other hand, had 80K on the chasis with a siezed engine. I now have an engine that has 170K on it or so, and lots of new parts because the old ones kept dying, or were missing when I got the car from the junk yard. Basically, its kind of a random thing, sometimes you win, others you dont.

~T.J.

ioTus

iTrader: (5)

I wouldnt get rid of my rex for anything.

JDuncan

iTrader: (3)

You know, I never have had too many problems with my SA's that were not caused by the way I drive them. But the FC's I had were a totally different story. Someone should write a book about all the electrical gremlins alone, much less the mechanical stuff. If the car you are looking at has been taken care of, then it should have an easy 100,000 miles waiting in reserves, as long as you keep the maintenance up on her and don't drive it like I always drive mine. I don't regret owning any of the RX-7's I have had. I only regret the ones that I was unable to provide a home to, but you can only have so many... At least when you are married

djmickyg

yeah they do brake, but i think thats mainly from the way i drive and treat it

BUT on the other hand, with hardly any electrics there **** easy to fix, ive dont 99% of the repairs on my car myself with out to much truble.

REVHED

It's a 20 year old car for crying out loud. Once you replace all the things that invariably need replacing and as long as you maintain the engine correctly it's as reliable as any other car. At least mine is...

MosesX605

The RX-7 is a basically bulletproof car. It will take a lot of **** before giving up the ghost, which is sometimes its undoing. If you buy a car from someone, and they never did anything to it because it just ran and ran, you will inherit the maintinence requirements from the last twenty years.

The build quality of the RX-7 is very good, especially for its time. How many '80 Celica/Supras do you see in good shape these days? Or Datsun 280Z's? Bottom line is, Mazda built an inexpensive sports car that was very durable.

At any rate, so long as it's a good price and the car isn't rusty, I'd get it.

MRGSL-SE

My 85 GSL-SE was given to me by my BROTHER'S FRIEND who was the 2nd owner, he didn't really know anything about RX-7s and he mentioned that since owning the car... he only popped the hood TWICE..... the car starts.... the first owner put a switch of some sort that start the car no matter what..... BEFORE I knew anything about RX-7's I basically took this car for granted.... Jumpped on it, cuz left it under the basketball rim... And now.... she still runs VERY STRONG..... I try not to push her on FULL TANK but about half... when she's lighter.....full trottle all the time...... 165k on the meter..... Even after the jumping and pounding on the car.... the dings are not noticeable... the body is STRONG but rust is the only enemy....

HONESTLY if you can afford the GAS the FB guzzle up (mine gets about 17-18 mpg) and do CLEANING AND MINOR MAINTENANCE... SOME MAJOR, but rare.... You'll enjoy the ride.... make sure you do bring emergency kits....

thorin

people told me a lot of bad **** about rx7s too.

i bought an 85 gsl and its been great. only the kind of problems one would expect with an 18 year old car.

the real trick is that you want to make sure the motor is okay. because fixing the MOTOR ITSELF is very expensive. mufflers are also very expensive for this car, as I have found out. And you cant buy cheap ones as they will be destroyed in a week.

things to check for:

-car should smoke a little when it starts up.. but not during normal operation. if it smokes and oily blue or a sweet smelling white, the engine needs to be rebuilt/replaced.
-there should not be any oily goo leaking between the sandwhiched "layers" of the engine. (usually on the left hand side of the car where it says "mazda" on the block). also watch for big patches of epoxy where people have tried to fix this.
-if the engine runs very badly and has no power,you might have a broken apex seal. also very bad news.

oh yeah, and NEVER overheat a rotary. ever. there are lots of guages and lights on the dash to prevent you from doing this.

the other bad thing is that they eat a lot of gas for the amount of power they make in stock form. apparently they are supposed to get around 20mpg in the city, but mine only gets 14mpg.

and check for rust behind the storage bins(unscrew them and pull them out). unless you live in a very dry area, there will be some, but make sure it isnt horrible.

ray green

iTrader: (14)

I have an 84 GSL that I drive to work everyday, a round trip of more than 100 highway miles, cruising at around 80 mph most of the time. I got the car with 100,000 miles and have added 25,000 more. I change the oil, did a brake job, put in new ignition parts and fixed a few minor problems (like a mysterious screeching sound that some of the guys on this forum helped me fix) but really, my old Volvos gave me more problems per mile. The car is a pleasure to work with and even more fun to drive!

Ray

AdrenalifeRX7

My 81 FB33 13BT is bittersweet. It has been there for me when I needed it the most and it has broken down on me at the worst times. I've found that it's such a simple car to work on, one of those cars where if you can take it apart then you can put it back together. I'll always love my car to death; and if it gets sick I'll be the one there to take care of it, because I'd drive a Festiva around before I let some dumbass mechanic touch my RX-7.

1stand3rd

I bought my 85 GSL 4 years ago with 88k. Basically, had to replace brake and master cylinders, oil cooler lines, hoses, brake pads and rotors, and I was good to go.
It's practically been my daily driver and now has close to 130k without any problems.

Wankelguy

My '80 is the newest car I've ever owned. That's because I like to work on my cars myself. I, too, would never let a "mechanic" touch any of my cars. I drove a '76 RX4 for many years before the motor finally started using so much oil it wouldn't start. I think these old Mazdas are great. They are quite simple to understand and work on, but the real attraction is the Wankel rotary engine. The smoothness and power totally seduced me when I first drove the RX4. THAT is the reason to get into these cars, though, not because they are easy to work on. Like some have said, these cars are about 20 years old, and since the average American doesn't maintain their cars very well, many components will be reaching the end of their lifespan. Personally, I can hardly wait until I've replaced just about the entire driveline on my SA, although the car is currently very driveable with the original motor at 160K. I don't push it too hard as it's my current daily driver. Anyway, I guess the 1st gen RX7 is no more or less reliable than any other 20 year-old car, you're going to have to fix things occasionally as they wear out. You have to decide if that's something you are willing to deal with when it comes up.

vipernicus42

iTrader: (4)

You have to figure, FBs are 20 years old, so it's understandable that they would break down sometimes. I had an 11 year old dodge shadow that was breaking down all the time because it had 230,000 km on it and it had been driven to hell and back.

If you make sure to cover all the basics before getting it on the road, you should be relatively okay, but stay on top of preventative maintenance. They're old cars, baby them a little and they'll be reliable. I don't know how much you know about cars, but if you have a good ear and feel for failing parts and upcoming problems, you should be fine, whether you're 20 miles, or 50 miles from anything

Jon

jeremy

iTrader: (1)

everyone has summed it up. the cars are old. old cars have worn out parts. bang for the buck factor is great with these though. parts can be had relatively cheap and you have a huge information/help base right here.

and james, my only electrical gremlins where the idiot that owned it before me. i believe the s4's were the only ones with that problem.

Blitz0309

Lets see here real quick. I bought my 85 gsl out of a junkyard running. The only things that have broken on it is when i went it half witted, and tried to "tweak" something.

Jacobcartmill, bought a 87 t2. It was stuck in my driveway every other week, and finally burnt to the ground in bowlinggreen *RIP*

Plasma2010 bought an FD, and its now laying in a junkyard somewhere as well.

IMO Firstgens are the most solid of the 3 generations. My dads SA has over 500k miles and is still runnin. Sure they are comming up on 20 years of age, and things wear out, but they aren't that complicated, and are fairly easy to trouble shoot and fix.

My two cents.

~billy

claytonsmith

well.. thanks for the opinions guys... i HAD a 67 comet so i;m no stranger to old cars.... it sounds as if i may be selling the saturn to porchase the FB.. i cant pass it up..... it inly has 80K on the clock.. and i happen to know the origional owner...... so i can trace the car to when it was new. and i know how it's been treated ect..... thanks to all

keep the opinions coming

85RX7GS

iTrader: (1)

Add this to your checklist:

Make sure you can get as many maintenance records as possible. Ask the owner what was recently replaced or fixed on the car. This should give you an idea as to the car's overall condition, aside from the engine, and what parts you should expect to replace in the future.

MIKE-P-28

iTrader: (1)

yeah kinda funny how people say things 'always' break... My god how many cars you know of are 20+ years old and dont break?

djmickyg

i hate when some thing goes wrong with my car and i get the usal comment "That what u get for buying a rotary"

only the enigne is a rotary the car isa friken madza

thorin

goddamn it!!! i get that ALL THE TIME too.

so far in the two months i've owned it i had two problems

1. it flooded. Me, being a carb n00b, didnt know how to properly unflood it. I asked all the car people I knew, and they would only say "i dunno.. its a rotary.. i dont know ANYTHING about them". eventually, i had to have it towed to a shop and paid 130 dollars for them to take out the spark plugs and dry them off. Not a single person thought to ask me if i knew how to use the choke.

2. starter motor got full of road grime and wouldnt turn. I took it off, cleaned it out and put it back. vroom. worked fine.



Come to think of it, no. 1. is a one of the big strikes against this car. so much F.U.D and false information spread by so called "car people" and mechanics. I have been told as "fact" by a couple of mechanics that the rotary engine "would not last past 100,000kms." (thats about 60,000 miles). riiight. i've seen first gens for sale with over 300,000kms on the original engine that still ran fine.

mazda sold a million of these cars in the 80's. and there's still tons of thm on the road. how many early 80s civics do you still see around?

sweetege

Thorin that is the best explination i have ever heard. Because everybody's sayin that honda's are the most reliable car on the road, well thaen how come i do'nt see to many old ones?

MIKE-P-28

iTrader: (1)

yelp this is the point i was getting too, i had an 80- with 386k on it cars with age, no matter the make , will break... **** that rhymes