tiger18

iTrader: (1)

just a silly question,,,,ive only had my RX for a few months now,,,,is still being rebuilt so havent done any driving yet,,,,
how long do you guys drive your RX for without problems,,,,, do you seem to find that you have a problem once a month,,,,or only once a year,,,

i just read so many posts about problems,,,,makes me wonder if these cars really are worth the hassle,,,

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

It really depends on "how" you drive your car. Of course, driving the car hard will put more wear onto it so more things are prone to break or need to be replaced (before broken).

tiger18

iTrader: (1)

so honestly mahjik,,,,do you drive for like 3 months with no problems,,,,or do you generally have no problems

xchaos

It depends on the condition of the car and how bad you abuse it. These cars are 10+ years old and are going to have problems.

Don't let the posts about other ppls problems bother you, not many put up posts saying "I went the whole month without 1 single issue with my car!" Ppl post here to get help with problems, not to tell you there are no problems.

Enjoy it, be kind to it, and take care of it. Maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones!

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

I have winter here (snow, ice, etc), so my car is down for about 4 months of the year. During that time, I try to do as much preventive maintenance that I can so it's up as much as possible during the warm months.

Putting the car on the track does cause more wear than just street driving. So, I might have a few things that need to get fixed/replaced during the warm months but it's usually small stuff.

black99

As said above, there are things that you will end up replacing just because it's an older car. But read up on them and you will see that they are alot in general maintance as well, and they do have their downfalls which causes parts to break such as the plastic cluttered engine bay, the many vacum hoses, and the high heat the turbos produce.

And there are modifications you can do to help the reliability and to help keep things lasting longer. I think you're the only one who can decide if it's worth it. Read about alot of the problems, reliability mods, and then test drive one. The major good thing is that with all of that I can still say it's a great car and I love mine.

jdhuegel1

Mine actually never had problems until I got a daily car and stopped driving it (The FD) everyday.

spurvo

It really seems to depend on the care given to the car by previous owners, and how hard they drove the car. If you drive ANY car hard, it will show signs of wear, things like suspension components wearing (shock, bushings, ball joints, the like), interior (wear on the seats, worn carpets), exterior, and of course the engine. With our engine, hard usage leads to high temps at operation, which seems to be a bit more than designed for (as opposed to say a Mercedes tank type thing). So hard usage will require replacement of many components at around 10 years of life for our car, which is why so many problems start to appear now. They cluster due to age. Maintainence is a MASSIVE part of that equation as well, though. Hard usage with minimal maintaining yeilds MUCH higher wearing on above mentioned components, and they're in worse shape when they do fail. Further, their failure can bring other components with them, like AST splitting taking down the O-rings, or improper cap replacement leading to boiling of coolant which cokes the oil in the turbos AND gives O-ring failure.

So. Unless you can vouch that the previous owners were as **** about the car as you wsh they were, you can expect things to start to fail in these cars. What will fail? Just about damn near everything, it seems. But they rarely fail all at once, and they rarely all get replaced at once. So it seems more goes wrong, more often, and with labor costs (if you don't do your own work) being double if they don't "fix it while they're in there", the overall cost goes up and up.

That said, if you can manage to replace the things that are expected to fail, do them all at once, and do them yourself, you can expect up to a year or more of start every time service from the car with minimal upkeep (oil changes, spark plugs, all that stuff). Unless you modify for increased performance. Then all bets are off.

That's what I've observed following numerous folk who stay stock on their cars. When you get the car, make a list of EVERY system in the car, and try and get items that might be consumables for those catagories. Braking system consumes pads, clips, backing plates, rotors under hard use, bearings (while you're in there), brake lines if you want to, and fluid flush. Buy all the parts for it, and do it all BEFORE it needs it (since you DON'T know when it was last done!). Next might be fuel system: Filter, fuel pulsation damper, injectors sent to be cleaned (while you're in there), make sure recall was performed, charcoal canister, catch tank, and some or all vacuum lines (while you're in there!). Next might be engine. Seriously. Then you get clutch (including flywheel, pilot bearing, T/O bearing, pressure plate), exhaust, turbos, plugs, wires, hoses, motor mounts, oil pan leak, every other oil surface leak (!), radiator, intake couplers, O-rings, oil metering lines, water pump, UIM and LIM gaskets, air pump if you have too much money,.. let's see... what did I forget?

Anyway, you can see how the costs seem to break down to systems, and when and how you choose to do the work.

Driving the car hard when it's in good shape is like no other thing I've done. It is a supremely sublime automobile, none of the usual brutishness typical of high performance machines that I've run across. Sophisticated elegance, shove you in the seat grin creator. It's worth every penny...

chazzy

jdhuegel1, so your saying when you drove your fd as a daily car, you had less problems than when it became your 2nd car?

because most people were telling me if i got a fd then i should keep my honda as a daily driver and just use the fd as a 2nd car. Which i also know would be hard, becasue i'd go from a 140hp p.o.s. to a 255hp turboed bad *** but i'm sure i would drive the lude around for the sound system at times =).

chazzy

ok spurvo, also, so if the car is kept relatively stock except for like reliability mods, then it should last longer, be maintained easier, and just not run into as many problems period? and are you saying if someone buys a used fd, then go ahead and change as much of that list as possible (as far as time/budget goes) or what not and they should be good to go. also if they dont change the engine, adn wait to rebuild, will the engine going screw any of the other things they just bought up as it goes?

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

Usually what happens is that people get a 2nd car, and then mod the sh*t out of their FD. That's where the problems come from...

I've owned my FD for many years. It's only been modded for the last 3-4 years. The first few years it was completely stock. Aside from the coolant seals being done when I bought it, the car had absolutely no problems the years it was kept in stock form (after replacing the engine & turbos).

After modifying the car, I began to see other things break and fail on a semi-regular basis. You have to realize that pushing anything beyond what it's designed for is going to cause problems. You want to keep an FD as reliable as possible? Keep it stock.

lopedl

iTrader: (1)

Are you on the original engine, btw?

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

"Aside from the coolant seals being done when I bought it, the car had absolutely no problems the years it was kept in stock form (after replacing the engine & turbos)."

Nope. Engine and turbos were replaced about 5 months after I bought the car.

lopedl

iTrader: (1)

woops guess that proves

spurvo

I was in the same boat as Mahjik. Bought it in October, repopped the engine in may. Seller probably knew he'd overheated the engine, was looking to sell it. No way I could have told that during the purchase process. All told, I wish I'd looked harder for a better car, but this one seemed so nice...

I still love driving it though.

chazzy

hmm cool, well those statements may make we want to get an rx-7 then. because I know when i got my honda prelude, i had dreams to make it fast by mods and everything, then i dunno what came of that. so I'm sure i can dodge the modding thing. I know I've heard that people replace the cats with dp's/mps because cats can clog up, now is that a good thing or not? I know like if I was to mod, i'd probably do the reliability ones, and maybe if it is good to do, then the dp/mp & change the exhaust to maybe the rb dual tip. or i may keep the exhaust the same, because I dont like loud exhausts, but im told the rb is pretty quiet & stock looking, but with putting the dp & mp it will get awfully loud. but is replacing cats, exhaust & doing reliabilty mods going to hurt it(as in pushing over limits) because I'm not going to take my car to track, the only time i'd dog it, is if I do a red light race with some ******* ricer that thinks his honda civic si is fast or sumptin.

jdhuegel1

Well, yes. I drove is daily for over a year with NO problems. A few mods.. But nothing too extreme. After I got the daily car, I only drove the FD like 3 times a week. Just started to fall apart really.. It may have just been "time" I dunno. It started smoking more and more on startup (oil) and started leaking real bad.. So I put it to sleep. Yanked the motor and everything and started over.

As Mahjik stated.. Mostly the problems are related to mods. Although many of the mods are reliability related... They do enhance performance and increase risk of failure.. We all know that maintenance comes with horsepower.

chazzy

hell, even though I said i'd drive my lude, i probably wouldn't, because I'd probably just put a system into my rx-7 because it is fast enough to support it, and still beat anyone around my town =).

jdhuegel1

Well, whatever you do take care of it and enjoy it. That's what it's there for.

chazzy

hehe, hey i just thought of one more thing. i keep thinking to late after i post. but also jdhuegel can you read what i posted above you (we posted like at same time, i dun think you saw what i wrote about the dp/mp & exhaust) but also about what mahjik said when most reliability mods increase performance. so are reliabilty mods really just more conservative performance mods? they actually dont increase reliability?

chazzy

oh sorry jdhuegel you wrote that most reliabilty mods are performance related not mahjik. didn't mean to give due credit to wrong person.

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

Some are like the downpipe. While the downpipe removes the pre-cat and also removes a LOT of heat from the engine bay, it does increase the air flow of the exhaust, thus increasing power.

Mods done in "moderation" are not a problem. If you took a stock FD and did:

downpipe
catback
aluminum radiator
aluminum ast
new brake pads
maybe some lowering springs

That would be a good performing car and not pushing the car too hard to break other components.

fastcarfreak

nothing like chazzy highjacking this guys thread, lol. jk.

Take care of the car and it will take care of you.
Drive it hard and it will have its problems.
Whats the point of having the car if you dont drive it hard.
Which brings me to my next point that these cars do have there problems.

RX7SpiritR

iTrader: (1)

like everyone says its all on you...

Snook

iTrader: (12)

blah blah blah blaaaaaaaah jesus

its a good car maintain it like you would any other car

try to prevent overheating or glance at the gauge every once in a while and if you do any power mods make sure the boost doesnt go over 10psi.

just drive it its not that complicated

its much better to start with a totally stock one...when some other mechanics and most are **** for this car **** with what mazda did its hard to ever get it perfect again