I want to buy a 3rd gen rx7, however, I heard a lot about them having problems with maintanance. Is it true? If I buy one, what should i be expecting maintanance wise? How much will i end up spending every year?

 

I would say absoultely not. Anybody that disagrees just look at our forum and look at the hundreds of people with blown engines and all types of other endless problems and make the assumtion yourself. I actively look at all other forums for other cars and no other car has more people pleading for help about repairs than the rx-7 site. Now looking past that the rx7 is the best "sports car" for racing and performance as long as you have the money to keep up with it. It is truly a bad *** car. i have spent around $14000 in repairs and upgrades over the past three years (two engines and tranny is the big ticket items) I would guess 7 out of 10 3rd gens do not have factory engines because somebody got behind the wheel of them that wasn't a rotory expert. Before you get one you must ask yourself the question, "am i a expert", if not you had better have 5000 in the bank as a pillow for repairs. Im sure this will **** alot of people off but o'well. If I could do it again I would buy the cheapest one with no engine and upgrade everything with new engine,power FC and single turbo, but that it self is alot of cheese.

 

oh no....not again!

 

well it really depends on how you drive it. if you baby it too much or too little it will crap out on you. all you have to do to keep it going good is first find a good one (this is the hardest part!) and then mainly do the relibility mods as well as drive it like a normal car, occationaly getting on the gas for some spirited driving. if you drive it hard all the time and dont let it cool down, expect something to go bad. you gotta remember most fds you find are gonna be from 1993, thats a 9 years year old car that may or may not have been abused by the previous owner/s. just make sure not to pay too much (should be about 10-13 grand) and save at least enuf for a new engine. one other thing you might look in to is extended warrenty but usually they only insure 94's and 95's. Like I always say, its cheaper then a new honda but twice as fast (even with a brand spanking new ported engine)!

 

hell no

 

I would say they're less reliable than most cars on the road. I guess reliability could be subjective.

 

Come on. Play nice

If you simply do a search for reliable, you will get tons of stuff up.

 

I could not disagree with you more regarding your advise to not purchase a 93 FD for more than 10-13K . I happen to be the second owner of a 93 R1 that is probably one of the best original condition 93 R1's in the country. The car has 36,000 original miles runs strong, with excellent VR paint. And if I were to sell it, I would not take a penny less than 20K. Of course, I have no intensions of parting with it any time soon! The way I see it there are three categories, modified, stock (rebuild or high miles) and mint condition. The latter of course is extremely rare for the FD. So really the prices for FD's vary quite drastically from just under 10K (rag) to over 20K (mint).

As far as reliabilty goes, the rotary engine itself is really a workhorse. The lack of reliabilty stems from the turbo chargers. The heat the turbos generate reaks havic on all sorts of hoses. All of these heat related problems were easily preventable, but for one reason or another Mazda chose crappy materials instead of aircraft grade materials that most of us now use as upgrades. If you regularly change the oil and perform proper cool down of the turbos prior to shutting down and be mindful of what is going on under your hood you should have years of
pleasure with one of the most exciting sports cars ever made!

 

Couldn't agree more. No really...there's no way anybody can top this.