They claim this is THE LAST FD brought to the States...I coulda sworn someone on the forum said theirs also had a build date in 12/95 and even had a 96 ABS unit...

http://www.cars.com/go/search/detail...2&aff=national

PS...My FAV part of the ad is this "All inventory HUNDREDS under Blue Book!!!" then look at their asking price lol

 

hmmmm, only 10,700 miles huh? that car probably has done a whole lot of nothing for 6 or 7 years, wonder how much the internals have caked up.

 

true that

 

Didn't you participate in the thread where this was discussed ad nauseum?

There's an 00530 serial number out there somewhere, so this one isn't even the last one in the serial number sequence.

Since the cars weren't imported in order of serial number, it's not even necessarily the last one imported into the U.S. My '95 PEP (00237) wasn't imported and sold/titled until April of 1997, along with another '95 PEP. Because they were imported so late, they were updated with the '96+ ABS.

And finally, it's definitely not the last one sold/titled, because the thread I mentioned above was about the new ~100 mile '95 automatic Marlin (?) Mazda put on Ebay that hadn't been sold/titled yet.

 

The one from Marlin Mazda is truly a peice. Ive seen it in person, and now I know why people loved these cars when they first came out. Also I think Jimlab is right about the Marlin one being the last FD being sold from a dealership in the US.

 

come again? they didn't sell crap when they first came out...sticker shock I suppose

interestingly I seem to get more comments and compliments as time goes on....some old guy came up to me yesterday and said "they must have sold a TON of these cars, they are so good looking!"

btw Jim, if you don't mind me asking, what did you pay? tcb100 told me he got his FD brand new for $22k (it's a '93)....amazing

 

It might just be me, but seeing an FD in the MAZDA showroom is amazing. Then an FD that was hardly driven still in showroom condition after 10 years is pretty badass. The sticker might have sent people over to the BMW dealerships tho

 

Good memory. Yes sir, I did indeed. I didn't catch the serial # of that one tho.

Now that you say it, I faintly remember reading that they weren't imported in order of serial #. I didn't know that it was yours that was updated w/ the '96+ ABS. That's hot. You didn't get rid of that ABS unit, did you?!

 

$37,500. Plus 8.8% sales tax on half of that, title and license fees (~$1,000 at that time), and luxury tax...

 

I go to this dealer to buy my parts..never saw the car there

 

No, that's one thing I kept.

 

Niiiice Got any pics of it? (I'm guessing it's visibly different...given that the guys at PFS noticed that my 94 ABS unit was diff from the rest they had seen (on 93s)

 

 

Very very nice Jim. Definitely looks different. You painted your FD Z06 blue? I shoulda known...

 

Here's an older picture from the top, showing the part number...

 

I see they eliminated that heat shield/manifold that was on the 94s and 95s? Between the right edge of the ABS unit and the rest of the engine bay...

 

No, the heat shield just wasn't installed in the first picture. You can see it in the second.

The 1995 parts .pdf (Chassis, page 2-L 7) shows that FD31-43-7A0A was replaced with FD31-43-7A0B, and I've yet to find someone else with a 1995 who says their ABS assembly looks like mine.

There was an upgrade in the ABS unit mid-year in 1993, then again for 1994, then another (and the last that I know of) for 1996.

 

I did a little more research...

The 1993 Chassis parts microfiche lists FD04-43-7A0C replaced by FD04-43-7A0D, supporting the mid-year change. However, 1994 just lists FD04-43-7A0D, indicating that there was no further change until 1995, when the part number FD31-43-7A0A was introduced, which was replaced by FD31-43-7A0B at some point. Or at least that's the way I read it.

Part numbers immediately followed by a second part number in parentheses usually indicate that the part number in parentheses is the replacement and supersedes the original.

 

Interesting! I've got a dealer copy of the '95 shop manual that came with the '95 Service Highlights book, and it documents a different brake or ABS setup. I haven't studied it that much, but I'll have to look at it and see if they're referring to the newer/different ABS pump.

Do you know if there's any significant difference with the pump? Looks to be smaller, but hard to tell size-wise from the pics.

Dale

 

I believe the pump is smaller and the proportioning valve was changed somewhat, but I don't know in what way. My unit is fairly light (I didn't weigh it) and seems to be smaller than previous units that I've seen in '93s and '94s. That was one reason I chose to keep it.

 

Interesting. Thanks Jim for the research.

Does the 96+ ABS unit have any advantages, besides weight?

 

I've never been able to find any information on what was changed, besides the external appearance and (potentially) weight. In fact, I didn't even know mine was different than other '95s until someone commented on a picture I posted and said that it didn't look like theirs.

 

So should I assume that all years of ABS perform equally as well or are there advantages to certain years???

 

Mazda didn't update the ABS unit just for the hell of it. It's probably safe to assume that the newer the unit, the better it is.

 

Jim -

Attached are some pictures of the ABS unit in my 95 PEP. It looks to be indentical to yours, but I don't have any pictures of what a 94-95 unit looks like, so I can't be sure. I do know that it is definitely different from the unit that my R1 had. Does it look to be a 96+ unit to you?

My car has a build date of 12/20/95, a release-to-port date of 1/10/96, a release-from-port date of 3/21/96, and an in-service date of 4/11/96.

- Mike