Anything to watch out for when buying a TII?
 

Sorry if this has been posted elswhere on the board, but I looked around a bit and couldn't find it.

Anyway, there's an '89 Turbo II that I'm looking at that is for sale really close to me. That in itself, is extremely rare. heh. I've not gone to look at the car yet, but I talked to the seller on the phone. He said that it has 136,000 miles on it, and I'm assuming it's on the factory engine and everything, as he didn't say otherwise. He's asking $2,900 for it. When asked if there was anything wrong with it mechanically his reply was, "Well, I drive it every day." That's the only thing that worries me. There's a lot that can happen to a car, before you can't drive it every day. ;) The problem is that I don't know much of anything about rotaries, except how they operate, and what I've read online, so I don't really know what to look out for. If the car drives like shit, or doesn't sound right, or if there's oil all over the engine bay or something, then of course I'll know to move on. What other more subtle problems are there to look out for? I don't want a lot of trouble, as I don't really know anyone directly that knows a lot about rotaries.

Currently I have a '96 Jeep Cherokee that I'm going to sell once I get the FC. Needless to say, I'll have a sizeable sum of money left over. However, all I really want to do at this point is buy some nice racing wheels, lower it/minor suspension work, and maybe a few bolt-ons. I don't want to have to make it run first.

Well the first rule when buying a 7 is to be weary of high mile cars. Turbo engines usually give before or around 100,000 miles. If it's riding at 136,000 miles on the original engine, he's riding on a ticking time bomb.

The 2nd thing is that engine rebuilds aren't super expencive, and if you have any mechanical ability or some friends who know how to pull / install engines then installing a rebuilt engine would be a breeze.

2900 seems like a good price for a Series 5 TII, if anything I'd just go out and look at it. Check the car inside and out. Test all the electic options. Wipers, signals, radio, flasters, rear wiper, cruise, headlights, windows / locks, sun / moon roof. Look the car over inside and outside and see what kind of condition it's in. Find out if the owner smoked in it, or spilled stuff that might smell.

Then when you get a good assessment of the car, you can ask for advice for more in depth advice from board members. That way we'd be better able to help you decide if the car is worth picking up. Just comes down to how much time / money you want to spend on maintaining / repairs I guess..

Hello and welcome to the forum. Now that you are registered, you can use the Search function. The Search button is located in the upper right of your screen, just below the picture of the red RX-7. All you need to do is click on that button and then fill out the rest of the information.

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Thanks for your help guys. I'm going to go look at the car tomorrow, as I have to work tonight.

I've heard rotaries referred to as "disposable engines" since they're pretty cheap, and cheap to rebuild. ;) I just am a bit unsure about how difficult the process is. My dad has rebuilt piston engines before, and he's real good mechanically, but I doubt that he's ever worked on a rotary. I've got a friend that is really good w/ Hondas especially, but again no rotaries. Though it seems to me now that, with good instruction anyway, it should be pretty easy eh?

I'll be back again after I look at the car, and at least check it out. Thanks for your help again, and sorry I didn't search before. ;)

They are not cheap, and are not easy to work on :) Better to a lot more research

Exactly. They may have less parts, but they are about twice as expensive to rebuild, and it is really difficult to find a good rotary mechanic or even a good book explaining how to work on the engine yourself.

Well, I had not heard that they were easy previously either. I was only going on the first reply. Looking again at rebuilds, the places that this board in general seems to recommend are around $2k+... That's a bit more than I want to dump into the car right away, and from the looks of it, I probably would have to.

A buddy went and looked at it today while I was work. He said it was in decent condition, as far as paint, electronics, and interior go. The passenger seat did have a tear in it though. Also, he said it looked like it had been in a little bit of an accident, as the front bumper and one of the fenders were bent a little bit. One of the quarter panels had a bit of rust on it too toward the bottom. That was the only rust he saw though, which I think is pretty good for a 14 yr old car. However, mechanically it didn't seem as sound. The first time the owner tried starting it, it didn't turn over. Then it did the second time. He said it sounded somewhat normal, except it was idling at freaking 2k! So then he asked about oil leaks and the guy said that it had "a few." Then he opened the hood, and there was oil all over. He let him drive it, and he said it drove well, and still had a lot of power. I don't think it's really worth the time and money now though. He "offered" the guy $2,200 and the guy was ready to go to the bank. He told him he was looking at it for a friend though... So anyway, I figure that if I could get it down to $1,700, I would easily be tipping $5,000 after an engine rebuild, and whatever body work and painting that needs to be done. I'd probably want to replace the seats as well. So anyway, I was dissapointed. It looks like I can pass this one up and wait for another. I'm assuming you all would agree?

BTW, thanks for that link. That's exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. I'm going to go read it and the N/A one.

Smell the Coolent, if it smells like gas then the motor needs a rebuild and 2900 is way to much, do a compresion test on the motor if its below 85 to 90 psi then talk the price down to atleast 2000 I bought my 88 TII for 2500 which had a rebult motor.....what kinda condition is the car in?

well it's condition is pretty much what I said in the last post. I don't think I left anything out that he told me. What more were you looking for?

I think I should clarify a couple of things in my last post though. Oil was obviously not all over the engine bay. There was just quite a lot of it below the engine, so it was obvious that it was leaking quite a bit.

And also about the high idle, it wasn't a cold start. The guy drives it to work everyday, and he had just got home within the past hour or so. He said he forgot to check it after he started driving though.