flsleeper

I am looking at a car to buy, it only has 30K miles on it, it's a '94 and it is overheating. I CARFAXed the car and it is a true 30K mile car. The guy says he has tried a couple things but still can't figure it out. It starts up, runs for about 15-20 min. and starts overheating. One of his friends said it was a seal, whats the easiest way to figure out if it is a seal, and if so, which one. Should I waste my time? It's a really nice car, perfect outside and inside.

VegasFD

How much is the guy asking for it? This may give you an idea of how extensive the problem is. Otherwise he'd just fix it himself.

Rocking Rotary

iTrader: (14)

If you dont see a external leak you more than likely have a bad coolant seal. You can search the forum and there are a few ways of checking for a bad coolant seal.

Buy or borrow a cooling system presure tester as well, will come in handy.

RX-7 From Heaven

iTrader: (4)

thirty thousand miles and it has overheating problems already? i mean: i always like fd's with low miles and i admire them and think they're nice, but this is a perfect example of the reason i hate it when people always pay WAY more than the actual car is worth just cause it has low mileage. just cause a car has low mileage doesn't mean the driver before you didn't litterally **** the car. if the owner's selling the car for a pretty good price, i would buy it and get a good rebuild on it. with that kind of low mileage, i'm sure that the interior and exterior is just like you say: beautiful. by the way: i wasn't tryin to sound like an ******* or anything, but my friend bought a car with "low mileage" on it and he got raped up the *** cause of the surprises the engine gave him. he paid a **** load for his "low mileage" rx-7, and he later found out that the engine had already been rebuilt twice, and it needed another one right then as well. with only 50,000 miles on his fd, he had already had two rebuilds, going onto a third one. never trust what the odometer says, cause in those little miles, the guy could have easily been pressing on the pedal all the way down to the floor every single time and never maintained the thing. hope that helps you some with the trouble you're having, and good luck with the car bro....
-erik

RX-7 From Heaven

iTrader: (4)

sorry for writing an essay by the way hahahha.....
-erik

dgeesaman

iTrader: (7)

First, the guy never mentioned a price. So the soapbox is unnecessary.

Second, if you've ever paid for bodywork, replacement interior parts, or aging/heat susceptible parts under the hood, you'll know that having 30k on a car puts you far ahead in reliability and maintenance. You can tell when a car has been beaten on. It's far from a free pass, but it helps a lot.

As for the overheating issue, you need to figure out *how* bad the overheating is. If it's registering as an overheat on the stock temp gauge, and it's happened on several occasions, that's bad, and it's probably best to assume the engine needs rebuilt.

If the car has an aftermarket water temp gauge, and the overheat has been indicated there (say, a max of 230F) the overheating may not have damaged the engine. In that case, it could be as simple as a stuck thermostat or bad fan relays causing the problem. If I were buying it, I would price it as if it needed a new engine, unless there is solid evidence that the engine is OK and that the fix is easy.

Dave

FLA94FD

Find out how often the coolant's been changed. If the coolant isn't changed every year or two it will start eat away and eroding the coolant passages. This could double or triple the rebuild cost so you may want to take the reman route if you get the car.

With the low mileage the turbos should be good but an engine swap/rebuild isn't cheap if you are paying someone to do the job.

flsleeper

The guy is asking $12K for it. It just started overheating (according to him). I was thinking about taking over to Mazsport to have them give it a good once over.

dgeesaman

iTrader: (7)

$12k sounds like a ok buy for a really clean 94 even if you have to dump $4k into a reman.

Dave

airborne

agreed. a perfect 94 w/new engine for under $17k is good in my book. just make sure nothing else is going on.

dgeesaman

iTrader: (7)

PS: $4k is the price of the reman itself. Install labor and extra parts add more, so if the motor really is blown you should consider more $$.

Dave

DaveW

Absolutely correct! Look for the external things first.

Overheating w/o water loss is usually a plugged radiator, bad thermostat, non-functioning fans, bad water pump, etc. Water loss or water overflowing from the coolant reservoir MAY (but not necessarily) indicate a bad coolant seal. If there is no water loss or water getting into the combustion chambers or excessive water vapor out the exhaust I would not suspect a bad engine-coolant seal.

Dave

RX-7 From Heaven

iTrader: (4)

i wasn't telling him not to buy the car or to not care about the low mileage. if you read everything i wrote i did tell the gentleman that i myself love to see rx-7s out there with such low mileage. i did also state that such low mileage most likely means that the interior and exterior is probably beautiful and that it is worth the extra money that you pay. i simply told the guy to just be careful of what he buys cause just cause the odometer reads a low mileage, doesn't mean that the engine itself is perfect. you your (dgeeseman) said that the engine might need a rebuild. all i was telling the guy was that if the guy that he's buying the car from is asking something ridiculous like 16k or anything more than that, it simply isn't worth it. i'm not tryin to start some stupid arguement with anyone on this thread cause i know that these arguements don't get anywhere cause they keep going and going and going. on a side note: go ahead flsleeper; buy the car cause that's a pretty good price for a clean 94 with low mileage like that on all the parts. i would obviously try to get the price as low as possible, but the idea you stated was perfect. try to take the car to some mazda place where they know something about rotaries and ask them if they could figure out what's up with the engine. if you yourself have time and some energy, you could simply take off the oil pan and check out the color of the silver-colored irons on the engine. if they're dark-colored or not really clean "silvery", then that means that the engine has been overheated some and you'll either need a new engine or you could go ahead and get a rebuild (depending on how messed up the engine is). that does sound like a tidious and dirty job especially since the car isn't yours yet, but just a path that you might want to consider. my two cents are done here so let me know if you need anything else man. good luck with the car....
-erik