Hi everyone,

On Friday I'm driving to CT to look at an 87 rx7 se. The car has 46,000 miles on it and from the pictures it is mint except for a small dent in the back which I don't care about. This car is completely unmolested from what I understand. No mods at all. The man selling it is 73. He wants $5,000 for it. I think its a good price if it turns out to be in such good condition. What do you think??

Thanks for the help guys.

Alex

 

for the mileage its a good price but alwas try to talk him down afew hundred...

 

I'd say go for it if it's really clean. What do plan to do with it?

A CAR IS WORTH WHAT SOMEONE IS WILLING TO PAY!!!

 

Id say its for sure worth it because its mint and super low mileage. The price sounds about right.

 

He wont budge as far as the price goes. I'm not really sure what I want to do with it. If I end up buying it I guess I'll throw it up in classifieds to test waters. If I can sell it I probably will since it's not much of a project car lol. It's more of a weekend car that I don't want to trash. But I just might anyway.

 

Any other opinions?

Thanks.

 

yeah. Tell him that a turbo car can be had for the same amount of money. Give him a card with your name, number and your CASH offer. I doubt anyone is silly (euphamism) enough to buy an 87 Se for 5K (mint or not) and when he gives up he'll still have your offer, name and number.


My cash offer: 3K with FULL MAINTENANCE DOCUMENTATION. This man probably bought it NEW and still thinks it was a lot of $$ back then (which it was) but the value has not held up. HE might think 5K is a steal but it really isn't. Older people have a different view of value and money so he might be hard to break.

did you already go to www.kbb.com ?

 

i just sold a very nice unmolested 87 t2 with a brand new paint job for 5000
88xxx miles, id say 3-3500 at most for a base model

 

Are you saying you're thinking of buying this car in hopes of selling it for more than the $5000 you'd pay for it? I don't think there's much hope of that since $5000 is at or above top dollar for a totally mint '87 NA. If it's a base, 4-lug car (you say it's an SE though they didn't make an SE in '87), that is a ton of money and finding another buyer for more than $5000 will be a real stretch.

On the other hand, finding a truly mint, low mileage FC is getting harder and harder. If you plan to keep it to enjoy yourself, there's nothing wrong with paying a little more, knowing that you'll spend less money on maintenance and repair than you might on the typical nice $3000 100K miles kind of FC. This is exactly what I did with the '88 GTU I bought in February. I way overpaid for it, but it is exactly the car I was looking for and it had 28K miles and was mint.

Don't forget, if this car was old-guy owned, there is a strong chance that he hasn't done much maintenance on the car in recent years. In addition to the usual fluid and filter changes, you'll probably end up wanting to replace all the rubber parts (belts, brake lines, oil cooler lines, vac hoses, tires) due to their age. You'll probably also want to replace the pulsation damper if this hasn't been done recently and may want to look at the OMP lines, etc. This kind of stuff fails due to age more than high mileage.

Good luck, and show us pictures if you buy the car!

 

just because it doesn't have many miles DOES NOT MEAN you have less parts to replace. Hoses harden, liquids get older, mechanical parts get stuck etc. etc.

My 3K offer would still stand though.

 

Wow, I thought that the car was more valuable to a tuner market looking for unmolested bases.

The car has one small dent on the rear right corner so it is not completely mint. I will see for myself when I go on Friday to look at it. It has many new oem parts and all of the maintenance is fully documented.

daviddeep kind of nailed my perspective. I think these opportunities are somewhat few and far between for a FC in very good, close to mint condition with low miles. Thats why I am willing to pay the full $5,000 he wants for it.

Another separate question to you guys: The owner recently moved from NY to CT and in doing so, he is limited to two cars which is why he is selling this one. So, the car is not inspected. He said the inspection ran out 2 months ago. Think it will pass inspection??

Also, since the title is a NY title, will buying it in CT be difficult??

What are some red flags for when I go to buy the car? How do I know what to stay away from?

Thanks alot guys!

Alex

 

You should read the excellent buyer's guide written by forum member and expert Aaron Cake. This is the guide for NA cars. Check his webpage for the info on turbos if you're interested in one of those as well:

http://www.aaroncake.net/RX-7/buy1.htm

Since this is a Northeast car, I would stress a careful examination of the underbody, especially in the floorboards right behind the front wheels and inboard of the welded seam. Many cars rot here pretty severely. Also take a good look at the frame rails which can be a trouble spot.

I'll agree that you will still have parts to replace to make a low-mileage FC reliable, but there will be plenty of stuff that will still have a lot of life left in it, especially the engine. Getting the service history will be an asset so you'll have an idea of what to do first.

But no, I'd think a minty base car would not be of such special interest to a tuner that they'd pay a fat premium for it. If you're going to change everything anyway, why pay extra for a mint original car? Also, I'd think most tuners would want to do a 5-lug/bigger brake swap, so a base car would be less attractive.

 

A car is only worth what someone is ready to pay for it.

 

As to whether the car will pass PA inspection, this of course depends on the condition. Are you in a county that has emissions testing? Did the original CT owner have to have his car smogged? I don't know a thing about CT, but I lived in PA for many years. Basically, if all the emissions equipment is there and working, you'll have no problems.

 

I think you need to research the various RX-7 models and their values before dumping $5k on that car. Low miles or not. What, exactly, do you intend to do with the car? Are you going to put it in a garage and never drive it or are you going to DD it and start modding it?

I'm curious as to why your driving so far for something that's pretty common in PA (other than the low miles of course), it doesn't really add up.

If you insist on buying the car and at that ridiculous price you better damn well have the owner getting the car inspected (and passing inspection) before you drive it anywhere. That means emissions too.

I sincerely think you need to reconsider, but that's just my honest opinion/advice. It's your money and your call.

 

i would never pay 5k for a base model... max would be 3-3.5k max......

 

Hmm ok. Thanks for the great responses guys. I think I will still go to see the car since I have been through so much for this thing.

river, I totally agree with you that I should research more about rx7s. I know very little about them. I just figured that I want a car that will be "nice" and in good condition with low miles to be my daily for a while. If I mod this car, it wont be too extreme since I still must go to college in a year anyway. I wanted a car for track use as well so I thought an FC wouldn't be so bad. I know these two statements don't really make sense in conjunction with each other.

BTW, what does DD mean?

Thanks for the info guys,

Keep it coming.

Alex

 

DD = tig ol' bitties or Daily Driver.

 

$5k is about right if it's in excellent condition. Check www.kbb.com (Kelly Blue Book). Problem is, a lot of people around here are used to buying RX-7's before the price shot up a lot, or they're used to buying P.O.S. RX-7's. Heck, mine was $2.5k and that was the blue book when I bought it.

Get a buyer's guide (or multiple guides), check it out, have a mechanic double check. There are more buyer's guides in the FAQ, plus here's the one I used: http://www.rx7.voodoobox.net/infofaq/bguide/bguide.html

aaroncake.net and the forum FAQ can provide more general info. The forum search tool can provide specific info, especially on common issues.

 

Thanks. I have been looking around since finding this one and its hard to beat it.

Any other opinions are greatly appreciated.

Alex

 

PICS would help!!!!

 

Another thing you should keep in mind is that many mods will actually lower the resale value of a low mileage, "collector" quality car. When you go to sell a modded car, you have to find a buyer who's looking for your exact combination of mods, trusts that you installed them in a professional manner, and believes that the mods have not damaged the car in any way. Depending on what you do to the car, this may eliminate a lot of potential buyers. If you plan to resell, keep all the OEM parts and make sure you can restore the car to original.

 

True^^^

I would never buy a heavily modified car but a mildly modified one is great. I never trust anyone's work UNLESS I know they are good car builders like some people on this forum.

 

Yeah I know that modifications decrease value of a car and you almost never get out what you put in.

I'm still thinking about buying it. I'm not too sure though. I think one of the perks to it is that if its in such good condition, it wont need too much work to be a reliable daily driver that I can start modding.

Alex

 

Any other opinions?

Alex