that would go for ANY car, lol

 

These cars can be reliable, I've daily driven mine for about 8 years now. You definitely don't want it to be your ONLY car though.

About 6 months ago I went out one morning and it spit an apex seal on cold start, funny thing is it didn't damage the rotor housing or the rotor, turbos were fine as well. (about 85k miles on engine)

So I spent a lot of time going through the forums and making lists of changes I wanted to do. My power needs are modest and I had already been planning on a rebuild anyway.

Got all new hoses, fasteners, ceramic coated a lot of parts, rebuild kit and a lot of other little odds and ends like FPD elimination, SARD FPR, fast air sensor, engine mounts, etc. Slapped that sucker back together and it's running like a champ.

At stock or near stock levels you can do the work yourself. In fact I enjoyed working on it almost as much as driving it, and I think that's what it boils down to. If you enjoy working on your own cars, this is a great car to have. If turning a wrench annoys you it will be a very expensive car to get it where you want it.

People act like these engines are made out of glass or something, but the truth is most engine failures come from people trying to get more power without understanding what they're doing. Either that or they try to put a bleeding edge tune on it where there is no safety buffer.

It is true there's not much margin for error when you are doing things on these cars, but that makes it all the more interesting to me. I'm certainly no guru, and these cars can make you bang your head from time to time, but it's been a great experience for me owning an FD.

Also... so what if you get 60-70k miles out of an engine, thats YEARS worth of driving.

 

I bought mine in 1996 been a DD the whole time. One rebuild because Mazda let it overheat in the parking lot with failed water pump replacement @80k. Drove it for 6 month with bad coolant seals. Sees red line multiple times daily, about 130k on the chassis. It's not reliable at all...

Properly tuned and maintained it's a reliable sports car. Now the problem is age, they're getting pretty old. Without going into the motor or turbo's you can mod it to exceptional performance levels when compared with modern sports cars. It's still one sexiest cars of all time.

I'll add this if you don't know if this car is for you it's not. That's been true from the first one ever sold to now.

 

Iv been DDing my FD for about 6 months now. (and on and off before that)
Iv had it over 3 years and its reliable as long as you know what your doing.
When I get home, I open my bonnet, leave the fans going for a couple of minutes and spend some time just generally looking over the engine bay. I inspect rubber hoses, oil levels etc etc.
Get into the habbit of doing that, along with changing your oil, coolant and plugs, and obviously dont boost on a cold engine - and the potential is there for a bad *** reliable DD FD.

 

If you buy an FD, all I have to say is: "Welcome to the grenade range... err.. club"

 

Mine has been good to me besides one of the wires on my wiring harness shorting causing me to rewire the whole thing(found out the wires were in pretty bad shape) Remember these cars are 18 years or so old and wear and tear will happen and thats what happened to me. Otherwise its been good to me. Never had any problems. But since it was stock I have dumped a ton of money to get it to where I want it (Never will be).

 

Fix all current problems, do reliability mods, tons on this forum about those mods, get a boost gauge and a new temp gauge and your car has the potential to be as reliable as any car on the road assuming:
a) all maintenance is done on schedule, and the
maintenance really is quite demanding
b) you monitor your gauges, if something does go wrong, pull over.
c

 

Yeah one big issue about these cars is that the stock gauges are pretty worthless.

No stock boost gauge (which was added to the later japan models, btw), and the biggest issue is the coolant gauge. If your stock coolant gauge shows excessive temps you're looking at probably rebuilding due to coolant seal failure.

Like someone already mentioned, they're like demanding women. You just need to pay a lot of attention to it.

 

Yes. Yes it was

 

^ Ditto on the video!

 

the problem with rx7 is heat, it runs way hotter then most cars.
what that means sensors, plastic, electronic wires, and rubber hoses
life has been shorten have to be replace more often.
1. getting aftermarket cooling parts will help.
2. venting the engine bay will help.
3. buying gauges or power fc will help.
either way, it's a not a cheap car to own.
this is my 2nd one and the only reason I'm getting back to it
again is because I have a lot of connection with shops here and
my friends are in Japan so I can get parts cheap.
anyway, if you have extra money laying around after buying the
car then you can afford it, if you are living from paycheck to paycheck
forget it.
good luck

 

There is one exception to the sight unseen rule. While I still don't recommend it, scope out as many classified ads on this site as you can. Don't look elsewhere as all the great FDs that are for sale out there are owned by members here.

Look into ads and threads that are posted by people here that love and take care of their cars. Many of us are reputable sellers (I.E. the car may not be 100% but the negatives will be disclosed) so do your research. Often times, classifieds from good sellers will be littered with praise from previous "customers". Stick to these types of for sale ads and again, do your research. There are about a dozen guys that I know that, if I had the money and was in need of another FD, I would not hesitate to take off their hands.