Just got back from a trip to Tennessee to check out a 88 Turbo II, and decided to post about it. Kinda dissapointed, wish I hadn't driven from Iowa to see it. 9 hours. I found the add for the car on the site, sounded like it was really nice, and the guy was asking a decent price for it.

The body had around 114,000 miles on it. So we get there, and I see the car sitting there. Looked pretty sweet. I start getting closer to it, and I see clear coat peeling all over the car. The whole hood was peeled, the sides were halfway peeled, mirriors were peeled, it was bad. Hail dents on the hood and sunroof. Trim around the windows was rusted, trim around the tailights was worn and started turning white, most of the window trim was dried and cracked. The only thing the body had going for it was that it had no rust, but I have a feeling I know why. The car seems to have been repainted at sometime due to an accident. I saw two different shades of red on one part of the car. Checked the underbody and found lots of fluid, from the looks of it coming from the rear differential and transmission. Car had been undercoated, but not well it seemed.

Interior was in bad shape. Rocks, change, screws, interior pieces all over the place. Carpet had grease spots on it, looked like the car had never been vacuumed in it's whole life. There were many of the interior pieces missing or cracked, and many pieces were missing screws. The leather seats were all cracked and torn and the tint on the windows was peeling. Boost gauge didn't work, and there were wires laying about from when someone tried to rig up a stereo system. Shifter was also VERY loose, the bushings were blown out of it, very difficult to shift into gears quickly without missing. The clutch was completely blown. You had to rev it up to 4 grand and let the clutch out completely before it would grab and take off, and even then it would take about 4 seconds to actually catch. There was no easy take offs with the car. I could barely even drive it with the clutch in such bad shape. Now about the engine.

Engine had 10,000 miles on it or so. Before going there I knew it had a leaky injector. This one was very very leaky though. When we first got there, the plug was fouled and he had to change it, which I figured would happen from letting it sit for a while. He changed it, and there was tons of fuel sitting in there. He had to take the plug out and crank the car over to shoot the fuel out of it. Finally after we get it started, the thing won't even idle on it's own, and you had to keep your foot on the gas at all times. Also, if you turned the car off, it would foul the plug again, and you couldn't start it for half an hour or more. He also had bypassed the BAC valve in it. The car wouldn't even go through it's correct warm up anymore. The thing was supposed to idle at 1500 RPMs with that thing bypassed, but it didn't. It was missing pieces in the engine also.

Once you did get the car up to speed, it just fricken' flew like a demon, but the thing is, you always had to worry about stalling it, missing a gear, and having to rev it high just to take off. This would have been very bad for me to drive it 9 hours, especially having to stop for gas and having the car flood and no being able to start it. But as you can see, there were so many bad things about the vehicle. He was asking 3000 for the car, and I talked him down to 2750, but it was gonna cost me a decent amount just to make the car run right. It was gonna need repainted, many of the interior parts replaced, and much much cleaning. To get the car back into decent condition, it would have cost probably 3000 bucks. Stack that onto the 2700 for the car, and you can easily see it's not even close to worth it, you'd be better off finding one that's already in nice condition.

Sorry for the long post, but I figured you guys would find it interesting. At least I know what to look for when I check around for more 7's.

 

That sounds like a $ 500 parts car, not a $3000 runner. some folks are very proud of their junk....

(Edit...remove quote of above post...)

 

Sorry to hear that, sucks that you had to drive all that way too. I just recently made a long distance purchase of a TII myself (almost 1000 miles), luckily it turned out well. At least you didn't blow 3 grand and then find out it had lots of problems later. Just gotta be patient, you'll get the right car, and more importantly, for the right price. Good luck!

 

Thanks for the comments guys. Yea, I'm definitely glad I didn't buy it. I know that I would have had fun driving it home on the interstate and stuff, but there's no way I was gonna chance it not starting back up on me when we stopped for gas. It was a cool car, but I know I made the right decision not buying it. I would have gone completely broke just trying to make it run, and the whole time I was thinking about buying it I had a bad feeling. Parents were glad I didn't buy it, and were glad to see I wasn't wasting my money. The guy said that someone offered him 2500 dollars for the car without looking at it, which I didn't understand at all. Aparently the guy who made the offer had owned 6 other RX-7's, but there's no way once he saw it he would pay that much for it. I was reasonable and told the guy I'd give him 2500 for it, but he didn't want to take that.

 

Apparently hes trying to find a sucker to ripoff.. tell him to fix all the problems it has and he can get what he wants but for a car that is running like crap why would u pay 2700 ? my brother bought his 92 eclipse gst (turbo fwd) for $500 bucks, it wasnt running too good but it was just exhaust and other things...surely the car was beaten on in the past but arent all sports cars ? Why would you pay that much for a car thats been beaten on ? just my opinion

 

You should have tried to contact one us in the Nashville area. We (as in a few of us together) could have gone and nit-picked the **** out of it for you, and it wouldn't have cost you a dime!! PM me the seller, I may know him. Aren't too many TII's in this area.

Anyone who finds an RX-7 in another part of the country just needs to go to that area on the forum and ask for a favor. I know anyone around here is more than willing to help another rotorhead.

DJ

Edit: Just found the car you were referring too. I posted the guys phone number. I don't know this guy, he is friends with a girl who works with my company. SHE told me the car was in great shape. Apparently she doesn't know ****, or all the other RX-7's she's seen are totally destroyed!!!

 

i woulda spit on the guy and drove off, i ******* hate people who waste my time and money...

it really irritates me when people think they have a chunk of gold when in reality it is a chunk of crap. ever seen the movie "Joe Dirt"?


like many people said i would only offer the guy $500 for it, if he doesn't like it he can pound sand.

 

Basically yea, he was just trying to find someone to rip off. I have no clue how you can ask that much for a car that's in horrible shape, I would feel guilty trying to rip someone off so badly. The guy said he hadn't messed with the car much, but he drove the damn thing like he's driven it all the time. I've been driving many different manual cars for 4 years now, and none of them have ever felt like that. The clutch felt so loose, like there wasn't even one there.i you had to rev it up to 4k RPM's just so that it would take off. Yea, I didn't think about asking you guys to check out the car for me. The thing is, he lied to me about it basically. He said the paint was nice, and that the interior was good, and that the car would start up and run 15 minutes after it was shut off. It didn't even start 30 minutes after it was shut off! From how he described it, he was just trying to get rid of the damn thing because it was a pile. You can see the car sitting on the side of his house, and believe me, you can easily tell it's a piece just by driving by and seeing the clear coat. I was even nice enough to offer 2500 for the car, a far cry from what it was worth, but he said that he wouldn't take that. Then he was like, oh, I have a shop manual too! That's like a hundred dollar value, so if I give you that, you wouldn't be paying much at all for the car, that's a deal! At least the road trip was fun and that I now know what to look for in a 7.

 

like i said, i woulda spit on the guy and tossed a rock through his windshield for lying to me.



Wooooo! a shop manual that you can get here for free?! WOW, what a deal... wouldn't even accept your MORE than generous offer, heh. i hope no one else offers to buy it and he gets stuck with it.

 

that sucks I bought my 88 turbo II for $500 bucks not running after sitting for 5 years and it actually is in good condition with no paint fade, interior is nice (except cracked leather seats), I had to replace the clutch $100, the tires with Kumho ecsta 712 $333, the shifter bushings $30, spark plugs $30. and it looks like i could sell it for like $3500 now, but i think im gonna keep it. good luck finding one, bad luck with that one.oh well,

 

Yea, wasn't worth the drive at all.

 

Man that sucks, I've only been chasing cars for a couple years, But in those years Ive seen a few cars that I couldnt even part out cuz they are too far gone. The first Rx-7 I went to see was a POS... the kid wanted $2800 when I first called him, then he dropped it down to $1800 when I went to see it and the car wasnt even worth $800 (The only reason it would be worth that is it had a year old rebuild) He said it ran a 12sec 1/4mile... it was a stock 87GTU... Luckily this car was only 30 miles away. I bought a car in RI (I live in NY)... It was a 7 hour drive and the car turned out to be better than I thougt but it would have sucked hard core if I went to see a POS after driving 7 hours... So I feel your pain.

 

the T2 i looked at today for FREE sounds about right compared to this one.

 

I really need to find another RX-7 to look at. After riding in my first one and hearing the sound of the rotary, I need one so bad.