Hello!
I am brand new to this forum today! I am looking for advise on what to look for and what to be mindful of when purchasing a 3rd gen rx7. I have had two 2nd gen rx7s and I now have an rx8 (shut up... I love it.)

I am looking for a low mileage one that is in as prestine condition as possible. I have been wanting one for 8 years. But the timing has never been right. I have seen plenty that I could have purchased... but I want a nice one that I will probably only put 3000 miles on a year. Ive purchased two Twinturbo AWD 3000GT's in the past years in an attempt to satisfy my craving for a nice sports car... but they are not what Im looking for. I want agility. Not a beached whale. The Rx-8 is agile, fun to drive, and dead sexy, but not at all quick enough for me. My wife drives it primarily, and she adores it.

What are the main things I should be looking at when purchasing my 3rd gen? Again, I have been waiting to purchase one for 8 years!! I would hate to have waited for the right time financially to purchase one in prestine condition.... only to end up with one that is only slightly better than one that could have been purchsed for 10 grand less. Hopefully I'm making sense. Every rx7 ive ever seen personally has been beat to ****. Seriously. I will probably keep it stock (since it's unmolested state will probably be what costs me the most) although I do l love the 99 front end and lowered look.

Any input is greatly appreciated.

 

https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16/faq-3rd-gen-other-useful-links-68640/

 

This post will be your new best friend for the next little while....

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.php?t=68640

 

Je suis too slow.

 

Bitchin. Thanks alot.

 

Good lord. Now Im terrified.

 

or to be more specific http://www.rx7.org/Robinette/buyaused.htm

 

you should be. buying an fd could be the best or worst decision of your life depending on who you are

 

How much are you willing to spend?
From what you seem to want, you will be looking at the upper $20k range

 

3000GT's......LOL

read the FAQ

 

I can't see why, I bought my completely stock BB 93 with 43k original for $18,000.

 

a good 7 is hard to come by, good luck and don't let the mod bug get to you because once you start you will never stop.

 

One that I am looking at has 15k miles ('93 touring) and looks brand new... in the pictures. Ive never purchased one, and they are all out of state, so it makes it very hard. Also, as I mentioned, I am going for prestine, so the prices far surpass book "value." So I run the risk of wasting a whole lot of money because of my ignorance. Scary.

 

Hey 4cn a1r,

How could something as small as purchasing a vehicle be worthy of being the BEST or WORST decision of my life... Whoah.

 

because most ppl who have owned many fd's will tell you to take the money you're willing to drop to buy one and double it to cover maintenance costs in the next 1-2 years.

FD's are temperamental if you dont read up on it and keep up with all maintenance

 

I wouldn't say it could be the best or worst, but it can definitely have a huge impact depending on what you buy, and your intentions for the car. Finding a low mileage, pristine (as you put it) example does not guarantee that you will have a good experience with an FD. It may, in fact, cause you more headaches than you might realize. I would suggest that you continue to read through the FAQ's, and try to learn as much as possible before you buy. Take someone familiar with the 3rd Gen along with you when you inspect a car, and definitely have a rotary shop perform a compression test and maybe a coolant pressure test if you find a good example. If you intend to use the car as a daily driver, then make sure you have at least a few grand saved up for repairs/maintenance, and get to know your local rotary shops (if you have any). Also, don't expect the dealer to know how to repair these cars, because their track record is far from good.

Owning one of these cars is not for everyone, thats for sure. But if you can put up with the annoyances, the car will pay you back.


Good luck with your hunt.

 

Doubling the cars cost (assuming 12-16k, which is the average range) is a bit much for just maintenance over just a year or 2. Especially if one is handy enough to do the bulk of the work themselves. Now, factoring in mods and tuning makes that estimate much more realistic.

Not trying to nit pick, as I am sure that is most likely what you meant. I just wanted to clarify for the OP, as that estimate would have had me running for the hills when I was getting ready to buy mine!

 

As he confirmed later, that he is looking at one with extremely low miles..."pristine"...not one with 43k miles on it. Your 7 was probably pretty nice when you bought it, but he's looking for something more

 

If you want to see a bunch of pristine FD's all at one dealership check out Sahara auto in San Diego. There prices are high but I personally went to look and there were some amazing cars with very low mileage. I passed them up and got mine for $2000.00 . It was sitting underneath a tree for 6 years and I restored it to my personal specs. Once you get the bug to upgrade your car it never stops. My one criteria is that it must me smog legal for registration purposes. I continue to upgrade for reliability and horsepower. It is my personal hobby but the costs can get very high! If you buy a pristine stock car make damn sure you keep up all the maintenance or you will pay dearly in repairs. I tell my wife that my FD is my mistress and the costs are high for the love I get. But boy to I love the performence of the car!!!

 

If you want to mod, buy something different from a "pristine stock" FD. Buy something htat you plan on replacing parts on anyways.

A stock low-mileage FD will always be worth more than a modified FD.

 

I dont want to modify it. I want it as a prized collectable. I highly doubt that i will spend $25 grand in repairs in the next two years if it only has 15k miles, it looks brand new, and I will probably only put a couple thousand miles on it a year...
I know these cars are tempermental, but damn, you guys talk as if they suck. The car will probably never reach 60k miles with how much I will drive it. I drive a tacoma as my daily driver. And my wife drives an Rx-8. I guess the kind of advice I was after was what to look for when I purchase the car. If I was to ever buy another 3000gt vr4, I would know about all the dumb little quarks to look for, since Ive owned 2 of them. Ive never owned a 3rd gen Rx-7 before, so feel like Im about to spend $25k blindly, sort of. Someone said to take an experienced 3rd gen owner with me (I think thats what was said) how do I do that if I dont know any.

 

crcleofdst, you find me a 3rd gen for $12k - $16k that is not beat to death, and Ill buy it. Every 3rd gen rx-7 Ive EVER seen is rediculously beaten.

 

Im quoting myself here but i think it still applies as when i bought mine it was as good of condition as i have ever seen (near perfect) with EXTREMELY LOW miles but miles dont seem to matter much to these cars not anywhere as important as age and previous maintanence so here read on...

Ive owned my car for a while now and you have to understand that the miles dont neccesarily mean a rebuild. For some they do, mainly because of the previous owners who may have ratbagged the hell out of the car. For me the maintenence costs that im getting into now are quite expensive as most 13-15 years cars are. These also are notorious for running hot which means the things under the hood that are most susceptible to heat damage are coming up for replacement. things like the wiring harness which will run about $1000.00 and the vacuum lines another $100. even suspension bushings. Turbos, which if they are original do seem to age quite quickly, so while the engine may still be in good condition most people don't do the required maintenance on the supporting underhood systems. That mean that hoses, wires, suspension, even interior are sometimes left to rot or just go uncared for by some owners. you as a buyer get the unfavorable job of paying to replace all the things left by them. which on these cars can add up to quite a bundle in a hurry.

I agree with most people on here that regular maintenance will keep the motor strong but with these cars there is a lot to maintain and to add on, to get that reliability, i have voiced my frustration on the car here in several thread and i work on the car myself. I need to stress that most Mazda dealerships should not even be considered as support for you. so unless you love to learn and work on it yourself or are near a reputable RX7 specialty shop you are going to be up Sh*T creek fixing it. there is this forum but if you expect someone else to ever fix your car when something goes wrong you are indeed in for a surprise.

This should not discourage you at all because they are beautiful cars and will reward you for caring for them. but you need to realize that you got about 15 years of maintenance to catch up on. if you do have to go through the unfortunate case of rebuilding the motor expect to shell out another $4-5K to have a reputable shop do it for you or another $2k to do it yourself (this is assuming you do it right the first time and dont have to end up having someone do it for you as well)

OEM replacement parts are getting harder to find and good used ones are getting pricier as they become rarer too so keep that in mind when you look for your first FD.

My advise on buying one is buy the best condition one you can possibly afford and then immediately count on spending an additional 10-15% of that price on replacing as many of the original vital components you can. obviously doing things in order of most dire to least. that way you will have a heads up on most guys who purchase these cars with their entire savings and can no longer afford to repair them or replace things which will inevitably need to be. Ive see this happen all too often as owners cant afford to fix them or get them back in running condition and all to often the car ends up sitting as salvage or going to scrap.

Good luck but realize that like i said before unless you live near a rotary shop you will be on your own almost completely. for a list of reputable shop in north america this forum has a lot of information.

and a key thing to look for is that while everything may appear on the up and up and be in good clean shape at first sight it wont be until you have any kind of issue that requires you to remove the upper intake manifold that you get to see the true condition of most of these cars... age does amazingly horrible things to rubber and electrical components.

 

I appreciate that input. All of that is exactly why I have waited until now to purchase one. The best conditioned one I can find. Based on what you have said, I shouldnt plan on picking it up and driving it 1500 miles home then...

 

If you are willing to spend that much on a car, then you should pay the extra $1500 to have it shipped back to you. If you drive it home, you will most likely have alot of rock-chips to fix. Not to mention if something happens to the car on your drive back. I'm sure you want to keep the original paint.