Why is it that a 3rd gen. RX-7 has such a low value?
 

My question might be stupid but if you compare supra ($25k ~ $40k) and rx-7 ($12k ~ $25) value.. Why there is such big difference? i know rx-7 break down easily and there serveral problem and all but Rx-7 never looked under $30k to me and most of people i know.. :) Why rx-7 owners selling their car for soo cheap?? like i see one on EBay for $12k... Any idea?

12k is not cheap foe a 10 year old car IMO,also bear in mind that most of these cars for sale need some kind of work......,high maintanance.....

the cars sold a few grand over 30 to begin with, supras were like $54,000. I think 94-95 FDs could get to about $40,000. Plus ebay is an auction remember.

Rx-7s can be found for much higher prices. a dealership around here is selling one for $29,000, and that's a 93. Rx-7s of late have a gained a bit of resale value back too. I've seen supras for $16-18k also, so really price depends upon condition of the vehichle and year. I think supras went until 98, and rx-7s were gone by 96. $40k for a TT supra in a 98' or 97' would prbably be about right?

I believe the movie "Fast and the Furious"also has something to do with the price change of the supra.

Rx-7 was in that movie also but how come only supra value is changed?

There are also fewer Supra TT in the US to begin with.

Supras initially had a higher selling price. Also too, some of those supras are more recent. The rx-7 FD stopped selling with the 95 model. Remember too that a good 95 model is often sold around the 20k price range, 93's going as low as 12k. It'a a matter of what condition the car is in, but the market bearing price has a lot to do with it. People will buy the Supra for higher prices, so it's sold for those prices.

Even though they were sold over here for 3 more years then our RX7s?? :confused:

Yes. Strange that I still see far more of them then FD's.

I believe it's yes for the Twin Turbo ones. Even less for manual TT's.

The TOTAL number of MKIV Supras sold here was less than FDs, when you talk about 6sp Turbo Supras, then you're looking at 1/3 the number, so they are far more rare (although the canyon carving driving habits of FD owners has closed the gap slightly with all the wrecks). Also, imho, FDs in general aren't as well maintained as Supras. That is a combination of them being more difficult to maintain, the owners having less money to spend on them, and the average FD owner being more abusive. This is just an observation but who doesn't drive their FD like they stole it? There are a lot of very powerful Supras out there but it seems like every other FD is hitting the track on weekends, not as much with Supras despite the fact that they are still fast (shrugs).

i bet if the rx7 didn't have reliability issues it'd be going for a lot more. toyota also has a better name/rep so that adds to the resale value.

:werd:

n00b in this forum. hmm.. speaking of value, MR2 turbo seems to also have a high resale value. recently '91 models tends to price around $8-10k! for a 12 yr old car with decent mileage. i was going to buy an '93 FD for $14k but then i need it to drive to school, places almost everday, reliability became an issue for me. so i ended up buying a '94 MR2 Turbo. did i regret it? maybe.. but i dont know yet

The FD got a hard hit with the reliability issues, I really don't think the FDs are as unreliable as people say. Well I do have to spend more on my FD than any other cars I own. I would say FD owners just have to becareful and take good care of the car as the engine doesn't take much abuse like the ones in Hondas and Toyotas. People are scared away that is why the resell value is so low, and in a way it might be a good thing because more FD owners will keep them instead of selling them cheap. No matter how much they cost FDs are really nice cars.
IMO the reason you don't see as much Supras than FDs on track is FD just performs soooo much better on track than the Supras. Supras are just not meant for the track like the FDs are.
To SW20 do becareful with the MR2, they are very nice cars 3 of my close friends had one and all in white. They ended up wither being sold or totalled. MR2s are just not very good in handling. The rear end tends to go loose very easily and quite violently.

FD's are just as relible as pistons, its just when you try to double or triple the Hp out put and not really provide the tuning or necessary upgrades other then upping boost is where all the headaches come from (BTW: this is pretty much the same with any engine!). Try getting 600-900hp out of a V-8 with just boosting it and you get the same exact result as a rotary! Well that and improper maintience.

I think the reason why most guys are selling so cheap is cuz they just want/need the cash for other things in life which are more important like a house, food ect. Perhaps its because they got way too many tickets and insurance is killing them or perhaps they can't do maintinance/engine rebuilds themselves and give up.
Perhaps they grew out of the phase of racing/driving fast cars (idk how the hell this could ever happen but I guess it can...).

Lastly, didn't you know that a boosted civic is mad quick yo :D :D :D or that a supra can handle as well as a FD (stock for stock) anyday haha :)

come on guys,
stop debating.

its because the supra cost 10k more to start out with,
and now its 10k more used...

its not rocket science,
thats the real answer, now SHOOO!

Funny, but I recall a post a few weeks ago asking why 3rd gen RX-7s are still so expensive...

I have seen many fs ads in autoweek for "cream-puff" low mileage "stock" fd's as high as $26000, but the highly modified vehicles dont seem to bring as much, even though they have had much money spent on them for the mods. an older completly stock vehicle will always retain it's value better than a modified vehicle.

No shit. So would Fiats, Alfas, AMC's, etc. Of course cars with reliability issues are worth less money.

AMC's?:D

I'll bet 99% of the forum members don't have a clue what an AMC is..........I could go for a mint Javelin with a 390 - now that's a rare car.

What really blows my mind is that the stock, low mileage 80's Firebirds and Camaros are now starting to bring big bucks. Friends, hold on to those stock FD3S parts!

I was thinking of their later models. Like this one:

http://www.rit.edu/~cjq2155/img/side2.jpg

Back then the words "Sport Utility Vehicle" had not yet been invented!

And who would have thought that the same people who brought us this:

http://www.avonhill.com/thumbnails/c...C_Gremlin.jpeg

Could follow it up with a home run like this!:

http://pacer.members.easyspace.com/77pacerdlwagon.jpg

OMG! You need professional help - you secretly admire AMC's!!! It's OK, you CAN come out of the closet!

I would love to drop a stroked 289 and some suspension mods in a stock looking Gremlin - they had some pretty awesome colors and graphics packages available. Lots of lime green and stripes. I especially liked the "Levi's denim" interior option. I could call it something like "Flower Power". Peace and love, it WAS the age of Aquarius after all.....

:evilgrin:

Actually, the sticker price on my '95 RX-7 PEP was $41,000, The sticker on my '94 Supra TT (auto, sport roof) was $41,900. There goes your $10,000 theory. :)

People did buy RX-7s for deep discounts when Mazda started having difficulty moving them ($28-32k), and the sticker price of the '93s was lower than '94 and '95, I believe. The same happened with the 300ZX. I can remember seeing up to $15k discounts in ads in the papers in '95 and '96, and the 300ZX TT was a $40k+ car, also.

The bottom line is that the Mazda brand has never commanded a premium (or respect, outside racing) or held its value in any car they've ever produced, that I am aware of. They've long been considered one of the "cheap" imports, one of the cheapest until Kia and Hyundai stole that dubious honor. Whether deserved (my opinion) or not, Mazda got a bad reputation for quality over the years.

For example, Mazda trucks usually had less features and cost considerably less than equivalent Toyotas. Add to that the reputation for head gasket failures (even on low mile, well-maintained examples) and you've got a recipe for low resale value. Sure, the purchase price was lower to begin with, but Mazda's reputation for cutting corners and features to sell at those prices didn't help.

Toyota, Honda, Lexus and Acura (among others) are all well-respected import names. The frequency of problems are much lower, the cars are generally of higher build and material quality (not to mention design), and although they did generally sell for more initially, they also retain their value much better than other import brands, including Mazda.

Back to Supras. Approximately 12,100 MKIV Supras were sold in the United States, and about half of those were turbo cars. Rarity and Toyota's reputation for quality and reliability are why the Supra retained its resale value extremely well even before the release of The Fast and the Furious. That movie just made it worse. Maybe if Dom hadn't parked the RX-7 and then apparently forgot about it for the rest of the movie... :)

Unfortunately, one "good" car doesn't change the reputation of a company. Even with all its good qualities, the 3rd gen. RX-7 was plagued (at least initially) with problems (three major TSBs, exploding batteries, engine fires, overheating, clogged catalytic converters destroying turbos, fading paint and peeling interior panels... and those are just some of the problems the stock cars had...). More importantly, though, the problems the car did experience meant that second and third (and so on) owners returned their cars to the market in poorer and poorer condition, lowering the price further and further as decent examples became very hard to find.

Sale prices are recorded by the DMV and used to set relative book value for vehicles, I'm sure. When you beat the living shit out of a car and then sell it needing an engine rebuild (just an example), that affects sale price. When that happens often enough, it affects resale value for everyone. When is the last time that you heard of someone selling a Supra with a blown engine? Something to think about. :)

the interesting part (to me anyways) is that the tributes, had 3 recalls (5 total, i think) before they even were allowed to be sold, have the same reliability as an fd (something is broken every 3kmiles), but its not percieved as an unreliable car.

mike