I have worked in numerous dealership positions over the years and they hands down make the money in the service/parts aisle. Used cars a close second depending on the manager. New cars would not keep the lights on with how thin the profit margins are to what they pay the manufacturer and shipping charges to get the dropped at the lot.

Techs do get shit on though.

a few rules don't really apply in vegas, it is probably a little to a lot better in other areas.

at the dealership i used to work at, the GM makes $22,000 a month, and he's so useless he has the parts counter guy do the spreadsheet/profit graph, which is how we know what he makes. the owner makes about the same, as does the owners dad…. so yes there is a lot of overhead.

its the same here, in 2008 the management cut everyones pay (but theirs), by about 50%

you needed to think outside the box! all the "top" techs learned how to dispatch themselves

considering the dispatchers made the same as the techs if not more, and the service writers were making up to twice as much, yeah i don't doubt that even though i know that's not what you meant. ;) (but this gives you an idea of where all the money goes from that $100-125/hr paid by the customer)

it's just bad when the people doing the work are some of the lowest paid in the chain. but i probably wouldn't make a good service writer, because i would have a difficult time lying to people.

all you really need is a parts person(they make money off the parts so it is separate from the service dept) and a service writer to every 4 techs. a non lazy general manager/assistant could take the job of the service manager. some dealers had no dispatcher, others had more and less service writers per tech ratio depending on how good they were.

Been following this thread and thinking on it. I think it has been stated they would have to fix the reliability and fuel consumption issues. There are n/a S4 cars that made it to 200 to 250k so it seems the potential is there, though EPA regs probably prevent them from injecting the amount of oil that those cars did and pass emissions at the same time. Seems if they had a light car say 2700lbs max with a bump over 200hp and at least 25mpg they could play in the FR-S/BRZ segment. But engine would have to make it to at least 200k. Question is if they could pull it off could they over come the black eyes given to them by the 3rd gen Rx-7 and the Rx-8?

i was going to ask, how many miles does the first owner put on a car, really. i googled it, which in stand up comedy is a punchline, and the average age of a car in the US is 11.4 years*, if you drive 15,000miles a year, which is also average, that is 171,000 miles.

so yeah your 200k life span is in the ballpark, although, 150k is probably better, as they need to give you a reason to buy the new one.

*a record high

For a Ford Taurus or a Chevy Tahoe, maybe one person does buy it and keep it that long. For little sporty cars like RX_'s I would say that they keep them less than half that long. They are play toys for most people. Either guys who buy them to play and raise hell then eventually sell or trade them off for a 4wd pickup when they get bored of it...or young people who could not afford it to begin with, lose their job etc. and have to sell it within a year or 2, or younger girls who buy them for a college ride until they get a BF/husband/kid and decide they need a more practical car and get a camry. Either way, I'd estimate these kind of cars get kept 3-5 years on average before changing hands the first time (just long enough to get some equity in it so they can trade it), and 1-2 years on average afterward once it becomes a car that can be bought and sold in cash.

2nd and third owners tend to keep them a bit longer, mainly because they have nothing to lose by holding them.

i've had my car over 10 years now and it has only appreciated in value ever so slightly(about as much as inflation, probably less).

I've had people buy rx8s, drive them for a few weeks until they encounter stalling/hot restart issues, then contact me for a rebuild. As soon as they pick the car up and drive it home, they post it on craigslist for sale. I've seen them get sold THE SAME WEEK THE BUYER PICKED IT UP FROM ME. I know this because the new owner usually calls or emails me asking questions about it. Most rx8s that I've run a history check on, are already on their 4th or 6th owner. So you do the math, that's one owner for a couple of years.

IF you watch craigslist in your area often, you will see the same cars get listed, sold, and relisted as it goes through owners. Hell, a couple of years ago there was an FC that was listed. I went and looked at it, put in an offer, didn't buy. Ad went down after a few weeks. About 3 months later, the same car pops up in a different town with a bad transmission (automatic). Put in an offer, didn't buy. Ad comes down. About 3 months later, THE SAME CAR pops back up in a different town. Ad states it has a brand new rebuilt transmission and a blown engine, lol. Put in an offer, went and picked the car up, and now it's sitting in my storage lot. lol.

well not all cars, it depends if the owners have any mechanical ability.

so thats basically the warranty period for the Rx8… so this is remarkably achievable

there is an Rx8 here that has been on CL for a year and a half. its an 04, with 120k on it and a salvage title, so i'm not sure its worth anything at all, and he's asking $6500….

theres another one that was up for a while, another 04 Rx8, somehow the engine is missing, no front bumper (reinforcement is tweaked too), the rest of the car looks ok, $1800, a few weeks later its $1600, and you get lien sale paperwork for a salvage title, i did the math, and that cars value is negative….

I've got one I bought in the spring with a blown motor for 2500. GT, leather, etc. Rebuilt the motor, replaced the $750 or so worth of parts the car was missing or damaged, and can't get $5500 for it. Not only that, but I can't get anyone to COME LOOK AT IT. I guess I should have parted it out.

i have hard time wanting to flip the 8's, at any given time there's dozens for sale at or below blue book. why pay $2-3k, spend weeks fixing it up and just maybe get what i would if i spent it rebuilding someone's engine instead? guaranteed money versus the possibility of making something.

same goes for FCs, FBs no way in hell, FDs are the only rotary car you can make money on flipping side from the rare occasions of finding an exceptional deal on an FC or old school rotary car/truck. and even finding FDs for less than $5k that need work hasn't been happening in some time.

the only one we bought we bought to keep it, as it replaced our old E36 which we sold for what we paid for it without even listing it. my gf seems to think it's a $9k car, i see a $5-6k car with a salvage title if i fix every little thing wrong with it.

The market on them seems to be 5-6k for a manual and 4-5k for autos around here. Unless it is exceptionally clean/low miles or a later model 07+. I bought a rough 05 auto a couple weeks ago for 1500. :lol:

Why didn't Mazda put a oil gauge that works like a fuel gauge so you no when it needs oil?
Why are all rx7&8s so hard to work on?
They crammed so many points of failure on the motor you can't tell that it's a 1.3L
Why didn't they create air flow around the motor for extra cooling.
. I'm not totally convinced that two plugs per rotor is necessary. And if it does help why did they put the trailing so high that a single misfire will distory an engine.

The rotary and the rx7 could of been perfect. Only 3 moving parts there shouldn't be any reliability issues on a factory rotary engine!

I think this sums up the entire thread.

Exclusive: how the Mazda Furai died - BBC Top Gear

It's called a "dipstick". The thing you should be checking every time you fill up, regardless of the type of vehicle you own. And I'd assume the RX-8 has a low oil panic buzzer just like the RX-7 and all previous rotarys.

Hard to work on?! These are some of the easiest cars to service I've ever seen! Nearly every part on an RX-7 (FD excluded) is accessible within a few minutes. RX-8 doesn't look too much worse considering the year of manufacture. How many piston cars out there require half the damn engine to be removed to change spark plugs? How about the Ford Fusion where the fender needs to come off to change the air filter....which is integrated into the airbox and must be replaced as an assembly?

Such as? Aside from the vacuum line mess common to emissions systems of the day, what exactly obscures the engine? What are all these points of failure which are failing on the RX-7 but not on other cars built in the era and still on the road?

The RX-7 cooling system (FD excluded) is massively overbuilt and there are zero issues, even in high horsepower applications, when it is working correctly. Is it such a shock that radiators almost 30 years old now are less efficient than when new?

This statement is nonsensical. The benefits of the trailing plug are well documented. And unless we're talking about a high HP big turbo engine tuned with little margin, then a single trailing misfire won't destroy an engine. Perhaps if the trailing wires are reversed, but that's hardly an issue with the engine, now is it?

There are reliability issues on everything. I just sent back a laser printer which was DOA out of the box. With all the laser printers we make and as well as the tech is understood, there shouldn't be any reliability issues on a factory laser printer? There is always some margin of failure.

Anything built by humans (and with moving parts, regardless of how many or how few) will at some point face some amount of reliability issues. It's part of nature, there's no way around it. Great post Aaron

Mazda's are the easiest cars on the planet to work on, the Rx8 in particular is very good. just about every job you need to do on the Rx8 can be done in less than a half an hour.

true, there is also a double standard at work. Toyota is perceived as building reliable cars, yet they had a multi year period where they recalled more cars than they sold.

also true, well except for the occasional Roman aqueduct, THOSE are built very well.

Post#84 By RotaryResurrection...lol!

I would have Jammed a Barbara Streisand "Yentl" CD in the Stereo...That or Barry Manilow..hahahhahaha!

Agreed, these cars are stupid easy to work on.

A oil level gauge is smarter. I oil light might not be working. If you drive 3000miles and your gauge hasn't moved you know it's not working.

Rx7/8 easy I work on. Only of it modded. Mazda could of been more clever in the engine bay making everything accessible and simple. Try changing and air filter rx8 or plugs. You have to jack the car up.

The suspension rear trans all easy to work on. Anything engine related is unnecessrily difficult.

There is a difference between a manufacturing error and a design flaw.
Rotarys don't have a bad reputation because they run perfect all the time and last forever. But with only 3 moving parts a rotary can.

Felix Wankel designed a very good engine Mazda just tried to make money on it in a selfish way, Expensive to buy and own. There are a few of us who know how good a well built rotary can be.

There is a gauge. It's called the "dipstick".

The light self-checks every time you start the car like all the other idiot lights do. If they don't light up with the key on "RUN" and the engine not running, the bulb is burned out. The oil level sender is also connected to the buzzer. This by the way is the same as the coolant level.

Seems to me that it is very easy to work on, especially compared to other cars. But I'm curious to know, in what why would you specifically improve the engine bay of an FC?

You want to talk poor design: I just filled up the wather fluid on my parent's Chrysler Intrepid. In Chrysler's infinite wisdom, the filler cap is halfway under the driver fender lip!

And you have to jack the car up to change a tire as well. So your point is?


Rotarys have a bad reputation because of ignorance, nothing more. Same way some idiot with the sticker "MOPAR or no car!" on the back of their Challenger thinks all Fords are junk.

And having 3 moving parts is a double edged sword. There is less chance of a failure with fewer parts, but fewer parts means that any type of failure has more chance of being catastrhphic. And if you seriously think an engine can be made to "run perfect all the time and last forever" then you need to read up on metalurgy, electrical engineering, thermals and all the other disciplines which will explain how it's impossible to make a perfect machine.

What kind of gibberish is this?! First of all, the engines Felix Wankel desgined were nothing but poorly running prototypes which had no hope of running long-term in the real world. Did you know that Felix's engines achieved a perfect rotary motion because not only did the rotors rotate but the housing as well? And it was surrounded by another housing. Spark plugs were on the bloody rotors! Felix called the version we use a "bastardization" of his design.

And making money in a selfish way? What is that even supposed to mean? Mazda bought a license from NSU to produce the engine, just like most manufacturers at the time. The difference is that Mazda nearly went broke perfecting it for sale, and then sold it at a profit like any company which opes to survive would do. Would you be shocked that I would not build you an engine for free? So what would you expect Mazda to do? And do you really think they didn't lose money on the RX-8?

dude, did someone lace your turkey with something?

seriously though, i find it hard to make sense of a lot of what you're saying in these posts. Rx-7s are so easy that i find myself saying "why couldn't they do this like the Rx-7?" with just about EVERY other car i work on. the Rx-8 is a little more tedious, but it's certainly NOT the most ridiculous. try changing the intake manifold gaskets on an Impala and let me know which is worse. i change the air filter and plugs on my Rx-8 just fine.

Aaron already commented on your 3 parts = it CAN run forever comment, so all i can say is ditto. it can't happen and 3 moving parts is both a blessing and a curse.

why don't you give some examples of your ideas (and i really mean that, no sarcasm)?