Sorry for the long post....

Ok y'all here’s the situation and I need honest opinions:

I've always wanted to get into a Gen III ever since I was old enough to drive. I've finally found one that sounds promising:

1993 Montego Blue Base Model MT
48K Miles
$15K firm.

I've talked to the owner (second) and he has meticulous documentation of every recall, service bulletin and tune-up/oil change/etc done to the car. First owner was an elderly gentleman with 3 other cars so the Rex was his weekend car. Basically it’s averaged 5000 miles/year. Current owner hasn’t had the compression checked (I will) but believes it should be perfect.

Since the car was purchased all maintenance was performed by the same rotary tuner @ a local Mazda dealership (I know dealerships are usually not the best sources of maintenance but he tells me this guy was one of the few knowledgeable dealership service guys)

The only mod performed has been a clutch replacement performed by a company called Rotary Performance and they claim it's in the top 5% of all Gen III's they've seen in terms of mechanical soundness.

Now I've read all the sites (Robinettes, Scuderi, etc) and I know the obvious caveats. So my questions are:

1) Does $15K sound reasonable for this Gen III? (slight tear in the driver's seat and typical paint speckles found in the '93)

2) Left in fairly stock condition what is the yearly average maintenance cost on these babies?

3) Can these things take the wear n' tear of daily driving?

4) What is estimated cost of labor and parts to install the recommended initial reliability mods?

Thanks for the help!

The Newbie

 

Dude you better off buying
FD3BOOST car in the NE forum.

He polished everything possible in the bay
Sweet New paint job. and has exhaust
intake, SMIC, DP and etc etc..

For that price you can buy his car...
IF he still wants to sell..

Goodluck..

 

His car looks sweet. But needs a reman or new engine plus I'm in LA. Long way to ship a car. So $15K for a stock, low mileage '93 is pretty high?????

 

I paid $15,500 for a 93 Red Touring, all stock except for new clutch, in the Phoenix area. Compared to the other cars I looked at locally it was a good price.

The interior was mint (except for a little peeling near the ashtray), and the exterior had been repainted but had some rock chips.

I'm looking at $500 or so annually for maintenance (fuel filter, oil, diff fluid, trany fluid, coolant, etc.).

Mine is a daily driver but I work from home so it isn't necessarily a daily driver.

 

Dude 48 miles on a FD that is pritty good shape will run your *** like 20k.I would buy it .

 

That seems like a good price to me.

 

I think the price is fair, I'm just a bit intimidated by the maintenence costs... that and the eventual mod addiction that's bound to follow....

...any one have a good estimate on how much I'll need to spend on parts n' labor for the suggested reliability mods?

Danx!

 

Buy Now!
Thats a great price, I paid more than that 3 years ago for mine and it had higher mileage.
Maintenance is over rated on these cars I beat the F@#$ out of mine every day and just add gas. 115K on everything except for three clutches. Don't even think i changed the fuel filter yet. And the thing has been run out of gas(suposed to be bad??)
Its a great car, the real maintenance issue is brakes and tires 10k for tires and 20k for brakes those start to get pricey.
Good luck
I think the key to these cars is to run them HARD.

 

hmmm, I wonder how long the car above will last.....

 

Shouldn't cost more than $1k for all reliability mods and some extra work here and there. $1k is a long overshot but you never know what might happen or what she might need

 

Buy it. That's cheap for a stateside FD.

 

kool.

Thanks for the replies. Hopefully I'll be posting pics of my Rex pretty soon.

Ttpower: Where in Marietta are you from? I grew up there and went to Walton HS?

LW