Understood....I will take your guys/girls opinions into consideration. If I do decide to wait I hope I can find a good one later on. Thanks for your replies!

 

TRUE.... You will find out that it is your fault for blowing up the motor, accident or something else.... Because to be honest, if everyone was to just drive it like a baby nothing will happen to the car...

 

yeah, i dont use my fd as a daily.. i use a crappy civic for that, but i want something more classier so i was thinking of getting an s2000 or something along those lines.. i crave for another sports car but i dont want to use the fd everyday, i want to make it a beast and use it for the weekend..

but i also want to get a bike so we'll see.. hopefully i can get a high mileage s2000 for cheap and a used 98-99 etc bike at the same time and be ONE HAPPY CAMPER!!

 

There is a funny title FD3S and commuter in one sentence. j/k I reay don't think this car should br use for "commuting"

 

Plenty have blown an engine while doing nothing more than the speed limit.

 

I'm now going on my fourth month of ownership as a daily driver/commuter. No horror stories. In fact, the car is in better condition today than when I bought it (with the exception of one or two new stone chips). It runs smoother, quieter and cooler. I get 18 mpg/city and 26 mpg country - pretty much as advertised. This car gives me nearly as much happiness as my wife and costs a lot less. Yeh, it will probably blow up in my face someday, but so did my Ford Pinto 30 years ago. LOL. Which one do ya think will be putting a smile on my face when they burry me in the ground?

 

I've had mine for over 7 years as my only car. It's been fine, hasn't been in the shop anymore than the BMW I had before this car. Then again, I baby this car. Doesn't mean I don't occasionally stomp on it.

 

I drive my FD everyday to work, presently it's my only vehicle, and eveything is ok.

 

147K. Daily Driven until a couple of years ago and now just mostly weekends. One engine, one turbo, one tranny, one set of suspension bushings... but never been on a tow truck!

-John

 

I also daily Drive my car. Also hey TracyRx7 A friend of mine always see's u when u drive ur FD. He drives from stockton to Brentwood.

 

Great, here we go. Now we'll get someone saying he's daily driven his FD since 1942 and never had a single problem. He gets 35 mpg, too.

 

From the replies I notice most of the guys that are all for the daily beater idea havnt been on the forum long, dont post much or its their only car. Makes me wonder.

 

I havent daily driven my FD, becuse I cant. It hasent ran for about a year. It has 68K on the chassie and blew the first motor at 50k and the second blew a o-ring at 18k.

Word of advice. Before you buy a FD for a daily you need to research some more.

I am not triing to say that you wont get lucky and have a FD that will run for ever. Just read some past post and see what you find.

If you want a reliable FD do a V8 conversion, every body that owns a FD knows what I mean. You can have a reliable rotory FD but it still wont surprise you when she goes without warning. I love the rotory but I dont think it was desighned to handle boost. The avarage 13Brew last 100k, thats avarage mine lasted 50k and 18k. Boy oh boy thats two motors in 68kmiles thats a 34k mile avarage. And you plan to drive 18k a year, thats a new motor every two years. GOOD LUCK.

Like I said if you want reliable daily driven FD do the V8 conversion. At least you will get 150k with sysmtoms of when she is heading for the door.

All that IMHO.

 

What the heck are you talking about, I just grabbed the first two I found above your post on this page...

RX794
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RX794 is Offline:
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Long Island, NY
Posts: 830

John Magnuson
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Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: San Diego, CA
Posts: 188

Looks like both of them have been around quite a bit and John put 143k miles on his. Just like with anything some people will have bad luck and others will have better. If you are commuting in ANY car without a warrenty and can't afford repairs you're just gambling with your ability to get to work which is stupid. If you've purchased a FD as a stretch on your budget and thus can't afford warrenty/repairs you should be driving a less expensive car you can afford to fix.

I'm actually a budgeting geek and ran the numbers and despite some higher costs on the FD it is actually a money savings for me over the next two years to donate the '94 Camry to charity and DD the FD instead (given the probability of catrostophic failure I estimated on engine and turbos [60k miles per engine rebuild at $3500ea and 60k miles per turbo rebuild at $1200ea]).

 

DUDE!, my car has over 120k miles on it, and I've been on this forum for a long time, what are you talking about?

 

So how many times has your BMW been in the shop? LOL Actually....I am curious, how many times has it been in the shop?

 

4FUN: Point well taken with my 3G. But before that I drove a 1983 that I bought new and drive through 1991. It had around 120,000 miles daily driven not only to work, but on assignment as a news photographer. Stop and go non-stop, in city driving. It was autocrossed for three seasons - and one season points title for our regional club. It was replaced with a new 1991 2G coupe. I still own it and it has 154,000 daily driven miles. It's going to be my winter car, set up with Blizzaks and a new suspension setup for icy road conditions, maybe just a little more weight in the rear storage compartments. It's cost me 50 cents a mile to drive over 14 years! These cars can be driven every day if you take care of them and don't try to exceed the engineers' design parameters. I respect you guys who are extracting 400 hp or more out of our tiny engines, but don't cry when you can't drive them to work everyday without something breaking. You are trying to defy the laws of physics and metalurgy.

 

Man, I love Jim's sarcasm

 

I drove mine daily for the first 6 months or so that I owned it... 100+ miles a day with a handfull of business and pleasure trips around the NE (27K in 2.5 years, most of that in the 1st year). If you have to drive through heavy traffic on a semi-regular basis, then you are driving the wrong car... stop and go traffic is, in my opinion, an FD killer... at the very least you're going to end up with a huge, muscular left leg and a toasted clutch.

A friend of mine (not on forum) has had his since '94 or '95 I think, daily drove it that whole time, maybe 20 miles round trip to work max and no traffic... modifications were the typical PFS mods. I kept telling him to get a daily beater just in case. he finally did get one... when an apex seal decided to give it up and he was running on one rotor last year, he had the money to pay for the rebuild and everything, but didn't have his car for about a month while the work was being done, good for him he had the cash for the other car too.

If I were you, I'd at the very least, have something else that's cheap/reliable for a backup. Kind of hard to make that money if you can't get to work!

 

Thats not all I said in that sentence. Its the general feeling that I get from all posts with this subject in it. I had a feeling that I would get this reply but from what I said but oh well.

 

In my opinion, FD's aren't great for daily.... If you are having financial issue, I say don't buy this thing.. What would happen will be, you get it, engine and other **** happens and you now have to decide either take out a personal loan or max out your credit card to fix the damn thing.. or sell it less than what you paid so now you could go pick up a used beater so you could get around town.. If you are going to do it, Make sure you have money.. By my 3 years owning this car, I've dumped quite a bit of money.. luckily, I was in ok financial situation.. but I've seen some people have to get rid of their baby because they didn't quite think thru from the begining.. Not trying to kill your dream.. just something to consider...

 

I drive mine daily (40 mi r/t), imho, commuting to/from work is a lot easier when you're in a car you actually want to drive.

Now having said that, I'd also recommend having a little cash set aside for FD-related surprises and religious maintenance. Having a G/F who's willing to carpool when the FD-related surprises do occur also helps.

It's made to be driven, drive it.

 

I had that BMW for around 4-5 years. It's been in the shop maybe 1-2 times a year, including it's recommended maintenence. It's been a while since I had that car, my numbers may be off a little, but my point was that it didn't seem like the RX7 was in the shop that much more than my BMW. With my RX7, besides replacing the engine, most of my trips to the shop was to fix coolant issues (which evidently was the cause of the engine failure). I have 102,000 on the RX7 and now replacing the original clutch, if that gives you any kind of idea how I baby this car.

 

I would not recomend the FD for daily driving only because of the cost involved in the maintenance of this car, but you could use it as a daily driver though...

 

I know you said "most of the guys", not sure if you were grouping me in there. However you are vague in your implication. I'm not going to assume you are accusing anyone of anything unscrupulous; however elaborating on your comment would clarify things a bit.