I have owned it for a little over a year now with minimal problems. I have learned to repair it on my own. I never owned one single rotary car before the FD. And it has treated me well. Anyhow lots of people refer to the FD as expensive to own. I disagree. Other than the fact that some small parts may be hard to get, most of those parts are bulletproof such as the ignitors coil packs, transmission, rear end, and most everything that is electrical with the car. The turbos seem to be cheap to have rebuilt or replaced with equivelant used ones, perhaps not new but reusable. And lets say the engine goes out at 50-60-70k there cheap to rebuild and cheap for a reman. Or if the tranny goes out I see several of them in reusable condition sell for no more than a couple hundred bucks. So what if you have to spend $2500 every 5 years on a reman, that's only 500 bucks a year. Or if your like me drive the car sparingly, I mean it is my special occasion car, the reman would last 10 years or more. I do agree that the FD is a rotary guys car, but it doesn't take much to become one. There easy to figure out and learn about them. If you are completely ignorant to the car and refuse to work on it yourself then I could see the expense. The only other problem I see is that there aren't too many of them to pick apart at the junkyard, but that comes with the territory.

 

So if I told you that my grandmother smoked two packets of cigarettes per day and lived until she was 95, would you conclude that smoking was not dangerous?

A sample size of one is not going to give you a very reliable statistic.

 

Yes cause my grandpa is 100 and he smokes a carton a day. Plus my neighbor is on life support she's 90, and she smokes, still hasn't hit the bucket yet. I would say smoking is actually a life extender.

 

haha i can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not...and if you are, you made it sound completely serious. let me know

 

just cause you have been fortunate so far dosent mean the rest of us have,

any car that the engine needs to be replaced under 100k miles is expensive to own, turbo replacement is expensive (esp the labor)

the 5th syncro goes, then you gotta pull the tranny, the list goes on and on.

granted if you kept the car stock, except reliability mods and drove it very kindly you would probably not have to replace much stuff.

lastly parts for fd's are generally more expensive than other cars.

 

it's all relative......if you make 100k a year then an fd is not expensive to own but if you make 24k a year, you should get a new car

 

Yeah it may be bullet proof, but even wearing a bullet proof vest still hurts like hell when u get shot .

I still believe I'm a TRUE rotary stayer . 2 kids, mortgage and a wife who hates my FD on a modest wage. And I still manage to hang on to it somehow.

 

Its all relative. I've driven and maintained my 944 for a year now, 2g's on a clutch job(stock one with 110k went out) If I was driving a civic then car would seem expensive, but comming from an old porsche its cheaper.

 

Pay to play.

 

some people work at taco bell

 

An E ticket costs a little more.

 

Is your car stock? Once you start modifying, is when it really gets expensive, and problems can start to occur - and Its more common than not for these cars to be modified.

Like everyone said before, you've had good luck. My grandpa smoked a pack a day, ate bacon every morning and dipped his toast in the bacon grease, and he lived til he was 98; while some people will smoke for 20 years and get cancer, or the guy that runs and works out every day will drop dead of a heart attack at 35. **** happens, and these cars DO get expensive

 

Ive had my FD for 6 or 7 months now. Ive spent 9,000 on the purchase and I just came off a rebuild, new clutch and flywheel, and a couple of minor things that added up to 3,500 bucks Due in part to the previous shop that work on the car before i owned it did a half *** job on the rebuild last time. Right now My car is running 100% I redid and replaced everything on the engine. I expect the FD to run problem free for atleast 7 months before I have to spend more money fixing something. So bottom line is yes FD's are expensive to own w/o a doubt but to me its all worth it in the end. Your best bet is to work on you FD as much as you can yourself to save money and treat it good. I knew what i was getting into buying this car so im not upset one bit and Im not rich or anything I make good money enough to maintain the FD. The way I see it is I paid so far for the FD 12,500 and to me thats pretty good for a FD in the condition mine is in w/ a brand new clutch and rebuilt motor that was done RIGHT. I can't complain when i was about to get into a FD that was gonna cost me 16,000 w/ a rebuild w/ 10k and no spoiler or front lip. Like i always say hope for the best but expect the worse but in the Mean time enjoy your FD and don't over stress the reliablity issue as long as you treat her right and do your research you and the FD will be happy together

 

lopedl, I had my modded FD for almost 9 years. I can most definitely say that the FD is NOT a cheap car to drive and maintain, especially if it's modded, and you opentrack, autocross, and use the car as a daily driver. I'd say your maintenance costs are atypical b/c you don't drive the car much. You've only had it for nearly a year. Start opentracking, and your costs will skyrocket.

 

I think you must drive it like your carton of cigarette smoking grandfater, that's why it must be cheap...Hmmm, if I had left my car stock i would probably think the same as you do right now....But thing is...i didn't leave it stock...I have almost performance mod and I start to shake and break out in hives everytime I think about how much I have spent on the car..

Start modding and drive it like you modded it and you will think differently...trust me.

 

depends on how much you love the car. most people here are fall in love with FD, and $$$$ is minor issue for them

 

Man, if you talk like you write you must be from the caribbean

 

OK, but wouldn't this be true for pretty much any high performance car?
Performance Mods+ Track use = Big maintenance expense... I would think that's to be anticipated. But it wouldn't necessarily be fair to characterize the "car" as expensive to maintain in general. How does the FD stack up to other street driven cars? It's probably going to be nothing but anecdotal at this point. If you beat one like a rented mule, like some here do (even on the street), they'll insist it's expensive. If you drive it like it's your boss' Buick....

 

Its also how you spend your money on your car. If you spend all your money on restoring it and modifiying it, when it does brake down you have no money to repair it. Then the rx7 seems to be exspensive because on top of all the money you have allready put into the car you are forced to put even more money to get the thing running. That is my experience and that sucks.

 

Cheap to own? Hell yeah it is. If I didn't drive the one I still own, I could own 4, but drive none of them. They are far from cheap to ENJOY.

 

smoking is bad for your health.

 

The rx7 is definately an expensive car to own and mod. Its been almost 2 year and over 20k on top of the 14k i paid for the car. Thats one expensive *** hobby. I love her none the less.

 

luck and how much you make a year plays a huge role in how expensive you see your car being. apparently your very luck and it has not cost you very much to maintain but some of us pay out the *** for parts (and dont have 6 figure paychecks), do all our own work and still have cars which dont run 100% correctly.

I just hope your engine/tranny/turbos does not quite on you or you have any other problems...

 

I don't know about you -- but once the time to rebuild comes, that is ~$5k. That alone is already pretty expensive. Not to mention the gas/frequent oil changes/frequent spark plug changes, bushings here and there, filters here and there, etc.

The little costs add up too, not to mention the raping prices for aftermarket parts.

 

I kind of agree with the poster, I've owned my 93 since 1997 and have spent around $400 on stuff breaking and that is with 3 years of racing under its belt. I spent about $6000 to make it a race car. The 96 Corvette I bought last year which was already prep'ed to race has broke three times this past race season for a cost of around $2000 with me doing all the work.

I've seen a lot of 3rd gens break, but almost everyone was caused by the owner not knowing how to take care of the car or making mod's without doing the research before hand.