lol'ing at the person saying he'd turned down an Audi R8. Sure he did. I've not seen a pre-owned one for less than $90K.

For the o.p., if you are dead-set on the FD, you simply must consider all that has been said in countless threads like this from the past. For most people, the FD is NOT a good car for a novice driver. You can and likely WILL kill yourself in it. They ARE that sort of a car, very powerful and not as forgiving as you might be led to believe. To me, that is the #1 thing that I would caution you about. The #2 thing is indeed the maintenance costs but frankly, there actually ARE quite a few stock FDs that have gone well into the 100K mile range with no major costs....so I wouldn't put QUITE as much emphasis on this, though truly...as BAD FD will set you back thousands or tens of thousands and ultimately leave you sick of it. We've all seen many, many of these situations in the past...where someone bought his 'dream car' only to have it turn out to be his worst nightmare.
All I am saying is to do all the research you can and make the best decision you can. This is definitely one of those 'heart vs. head' purchases....lol!

Good luck!

 

Ok so I email the guy to setup another meeting to get another test drive and to do a compression test done. Unfortunately, a guy from Maryland purchased the vehicle. So my hunt for a clean RX7 continues as well as my quest for a better alternative. I'm leaning towards the Z the at this point.