So Im looking at a TII with 55,000 miles on it. He says everything is perfectly fine except both front rotors are warped and its missing the driver side rear caliper. I was under the impression that the stock rotors should last a hell of a lot longer than 55k. Just trying to think if the problem could be bigger than what hes telling me. What could be wrong with this ****?

thanks for any help

 

The wheels could have been taken off and them put back on without torqueing the lugs correctly. I would want to know why a caliper is missing more though, rotors are fairly cheap.

 

sent you a PM...

 

warped rotors = uneven transfer of pad material to rotor surface.
maybe he locked up the wheels hard braking at some point.
maybe he tried to service the brakes and bedded improperly.

if the rear caliper is gone and the brake lines have been open air for a while, its possible the master and other calipers are damaged internally.

still, it's kind of a minor diy job to full out replace everything short of the brake hard lines.
4 calipers, 4 pads, 4 rotors, new lines and fluid.
it can get a bit expensive (just look up prices for those parts on autozone), just factor that into the buying price.

if you can't do it yourself and would expect a mechanic to do it for you, it would probably be super expensive... possibly not worth it for you.

alternatively, it could easily be a ploy to keep you from actually being able to test drive the car. tread carefully.

 

Agreed. I'd get a vin check on that bad boy to confirm mileage.

 

wheres a good place to get VIN check besides carfax(too expensive) also could he of maybe let the brake pads get so worn it ate away at the rotors? i saw odemeter said 55xxx miles dunno how easy it is to alter that or w/e. thanks guys

 

then the rotor would be gouged. either way a rotor costs like $20-30 bucks. hardly a major concern.

carfax is $30 bucks. you're about to spend a few thousand on a car. $30 is not too expensive.

i know there are some other vin services out there but i don't think they are used as extensively as carfax. not worth it to save $10-15 bucks imo.

 

true

 

About the odometer.
Many years before carfax a friend of my knew an odometer specialist. He went by the name "vic the flick". Any way, he could roll back an odometer within 30 minutes on just about any car made.

Always makes me wonder what the true mileage is on any used car.

 

Last 55k miles? I've trashed a set in 55 minutes! Caliper should be cheap enough from the mazda dealer.

 

If everything else looks ok (body, sub frame, ect.) and nothing looks tweaked and it runs like you would expect, I would get it. A brake job will only take you a few hours AT MOST. You can find the calipers here on the classified section for cheap and rotors are cheap as mentioned above.

 

I have a set of TII rear calipers. Let me know if you would like to purchase them. I removed them from my running/driving 1987 TII so I know they work. I would sell them for $40 dollars plus shipping and handling. PM me if you are interested.

 

did you guys ever stop to think about which rotors he is REALLY talking about here? I am laughing because the OP said:

"I was under the impression that the stock rotors should last a hell of a lot longer than 55k"

Yes the stock engine rotors should last longer than 55k : )