lol even a low mileage car will probably cost your first born child to keep in good shape it just won't happen all at once

 

RECENT HISTORY:

R2 with 24k miles, purchased in 2017. Now has 29k miles. No repairs and still drives great. I can tell the oil pan was resealed at some point but otherwise it's bone stock. I look forward to it needing something so I can have all the reliability mods done. However until it needs something I'm not touching it. Most of these cars become BIG problems because the owners can't keep their hands off of them LOL.

SSM base (lots of reliability mods) with 42k miles, purchased in 2014. Now has 58k miles. Needed a lot of work when I 1st purchased it. Repaired: rear main seal leak, turbo exhaust leak, turbo return oil leak, idle speed motor, AC leak and recharge, tune and a few other little things. Cost 2k (PFS did the work and Ray was very nice to me/good friend). The AC stopped working after about 12 months after being fixed, I replaced a sticking turbo control solenoid and that's it. The base model with over 200k miles will be a complete nightmare to own vs a sub 50k mile FD.

PAST HISTORY: Can't remember buying an FD with less than 25k miles and having it need any significant repairs during my ownership (have owned at least 10 of these type FDs). Bottomline: mileage, maint, storage/owner are massively important when buying a 25 year old car.

 

Just LS swap it and it'll be maintenance free forever.

 

yea that holds true for any car. I worked in the dealers for years and saw relatively new cars pass through that were junk and old cars pass through that were pristine. it really comes down to how the cars is maintained and driven.

mostly I was making a joke about the low mileage car not needing all those repairs right now but eventually all cars will need repair. for me i like the fact that when these cars need repair they are fairly simple to do, i have a 90 300zx and i don't want to work on that car... ever... it's a mess. my FD is easy.

 

Because you paid for all the maintenance up front by doing the swap?

 

No doubt a well done LS swap should be a very reliable car engine wise. However these cars have more problems than turbo and engine.

Drop 15k on reliability improvements for your rotary and it's likely a wash mechanically speaking. That said I don't think most of the people who want to own/drive an FD want a v8 in it. They buy it because of the engine not despite it. Or at least that's why I own one. If I wanted a v8 car I'd buy one.

YEP. The owner or how they maintained the car is super important the older the car is. At approx 50k to 100k miles the FD could need a lot of parts as they may have cycled out. At 200k basically everything would need replacing LOL.

 

Yep

And if you did the swap badly you just wasted a lot of money and devalued your car.

 

This 2002 Spirit R with only 14km delivery miles sold at auction in Japan for $111k USD (12,000,000 Yen).

 

Holy ****.

 

Now that's a collector car.

 

Anyone got a link to that auction?

 

It was a live auction in japan, can't see bidding and stuff that im aware of.

 

I've seen 2 now with over 200k miles. I'm around 175k and I'm sad that I don't get to drive it more.

 

Here is a link that aggregates several auctions in Japan.

https://aaajapan.com/auctions?brand=...&search=Search

 

As a self proclaimed expert of these cars....I have owned 4 and rebuilt and replaced engines in 11 1993's........The single most important thing to do to all FD3S cars, regardless of how many miles or how nice it is.......Have a new pulsation damper installed....It's failure is the cause of 90% of fires on these cars.....

If you have any questions....feel free to hit me up....

rxtra7@yahoo.com

Rob

 

is it me or does the lip on the 02 spirit r look like it one piece and the ebrake boot / center tunnel cover area looks a little different?

 

Buy for $30k on BaT: check

Add sticker on fender: check

Relist for $50k: check

https://www.motorcarclassics.com/199...urbo-c-485.htm

What a joke.

 

If someone will pay it, good for them. I’m sure you saw the QS Supra that was just listed for $500k. If some pays it, they pay it.

 

Adding my 2c, I listed my 93 R1 Single Turbo last month for high 20's and didn't get any offers. I knew it was the wrong time of year to sell etc etc, and I probably could've done better on the ad / lowered the price earlier, but this may be a useful comp for anyone else out there.

I was ready to hold onto the car until spring, tidy it up some more and take some really nice shots. Could've got another $4-5k, but got a trade it in offer at a shade over $20k against a car I wanted to get into, so I went for it (+ had other life reasons for wanting to change car sooner rather than later)

CL ad here
https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/...010786835.html

 

20 mins left on this black 94 with 26k miles. seems a bargain at the moment. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1994-mazda-rx-7-34/

 

jumping 10k+ at the end lol

 

Haha typical for BaT, real price action in the last 30mins.

 

Given the terrible presentation I'm surprised it went as high as it did.

 

Amazing. Terrible presentation and no seller interaction and it ends up at $34,000 and RNM. In terms of this thread's original premise seeing this really speaks to how the FD has come up in the world of collector cars. It leads Haggerty's hot values list. And, it has a long way to go yet. I have been very comfortable with the economy and think the value keeps going up strongly for the foreseeable future. Also, from the comments on various auction sites over the past few years, it seems as though more and more people have come to understand that the rotary motor doesn't grenade on a Sunday afternoon drive for no good reason.

 

Yes, but 26k miles is always going to fetch good money. Poor presentation, yes. However it looked like an extremely clean car. Complete and again, super low mileage. I’m not surprised, in all honesty.

Nick