Revolver

Yes, I can see it getting down to low 5's or even 5 flat but getting under that magic 5 second barrier seems to be pretty rare for stock sub-$100K cars.

Time will tell I guess.

Revolver

Since when were you shy of a bit of contro Kall?

labrat

I think those posters who mention other factors are on the right track. Confining ourselves to cars, I think you have to consider total cost of ownership. This can include initial vehicle cost, depreciation, and cost of running. In the last category you have petrol (of course!), maintenance, replacement spares and 3rd party and comprehensive insurance, not to mention rego or road tax. Perhaps it might be interesting to ask outside the Aussie forum what it costs to run an RX-8 in various countries. You could set up a scenario where the vehicle is a high power leather pack, nothing bolted on, running say 20k km/year, and look at the cost over say 3 years (when depreciation starts to bite). My punt is that Oz wouldn't be the dearest, and the USA would possibly be the cheapest with the exception of oil-rich states in the Middle East and maybe Brunei. I suspect that Oz is cheaper than Europe in spite of higher purchase prices, just because petrol, insurance and rego is so high.

It's the total pain in the pocket that counts.

takahashi

Good thinking 99 (labrat)

thisllub

The greatest thing about the RX8 so far (hopefully it will arrive Wednesday) is that because they hold their value so well I have been able to finance it with a realistic residual that will make the monthly payments less than I paid on the Ford Fairmont I had 12 years ago and $200 a month less than I paid when I bought the Caprice I have now.

Another bonus.

takahashi

Really?

Do not pay out the residual $ then .

My 2003 model prob go for $35K?

thisllub

I was going to go for 4 years & 30k but the paperwork came back 5 years and 25.
It looks like the average one loses about 10% p.a.
Excluding stamp duty and on roads the leather pack is about 50k so 5k a year over 5 years is 25k.
If I put too many ks on I will just offload it earlier.

takahashi

It is prob in the last chapter of the accounting text book

thisllub

Depends on the car.

If it is a Holden or worse a Mitsubishi then forget it.

January and June are the best times to buy.

I was offered a 350Z track convertible for 60000 drive away.
I got the Mazda for more than 5k less.

EZZY

the rx8 has a crap resale value.

Revolver

Agreed but resale generally is so crap these days that the depth of crap for particular models doesn't matter too much. You're knee deep at least no matter what you buy.

If you buy it new and get more than 50% of the purchase price for it in 3 years time you're doing extremely well.

Gibbo

The RX-8 actually has very good resale value. This is one of the things I contemplated when looking for this car. The first question I asked when shopping around was "Is this car fleet discounted?" If the answer was yes then it was off my list straight away.
If you buy a car that is fleet discounted and you are not the one receiving the maximum fleet discount then you are paying too much for that car. The logic behind this is that a your car is only worth what other ones are selling for in the market. If you say buy a Commodore for $35,000.00 on road you are paying too much, because large companies and local governments buy them for less than $28,000 on road. Before you even drive out of the lot your car is worth $7,000 less than what you paid for it. You know when companies and councils turn their cars over at 60,000km that they are going to be setting the price for all cars. That price is going to be a fraction of what you paid.

I had a 2000 SS commodore. I paid just over $50,000 for it new, I traded it in 3 years later for the princely sum of $23,500, mind you it had 100,000 on the clock. That was 47% of it's new car value.
I have just taken a deposit on the RX-8 and after 3 and a half years and almost 60,000 I retained almost 58% of it's value. Keep in mind that I also "wasted" a lot of money on over priced options that boosted the buy price of my car. If I had got them as after market mods then I would have had a return of almost 61%.

So there you have it the Rx-8 isn't that bad, when you compare it to most other cars on the road it is pretty damn good.
Remember when you buy the RX-8 you have paid stamp duty, dealer delivery and luxury car tax and GST. Those components are never regained in sale, especially stamp duty because the new buyer of your car has to pay that any way. So straight away you can write off 5-8% of your cars price becuase of stamp duties.

That is my 2c worth.

Cheers

Gibbo

Gibbo

WHAT!!! Now you tell me... where were you when I was looking for an accountant

Cromax

Actually ... the crappy resale value of the RX8 will help some of us as it means we pay less income tax.

thisllub

You don't know what crappy resale value is until you have tried to sell a Volvo.
A work colleague bought a S80 for $104000 and sold it 3 years later for $29000.

Revolver

Unless it's a Merc, Bentley or Roller all the big Euro's drop like a stone. Bimmer 7 series aren't much better than the Volvo in their depreciation rate.

EZZY

merc isnt doing all that well.... most probably becasue they bring out a "facelifted" model/version too often....

Cromax

Nah, it's mostly because they're high end goods and more people can afford them now, therefore the market is rife with old luxo-barges. If you're buying a car of that calibre (spending $150-300k) you're losing money unless you're keeping it for 20 years and have little or no problems with it.

In any case, I'm one of the lucky ones who doesn't really get affected by depreciation as much, so I'm not really too perplexed at the current second hand market. Not checking this up, but from memory the average depreciation of vehicles is about 50% over 4 years travelling 20000km a year. That'd mean if 4 year old RX8s with 80000km on their clocks go for an average of more than $30-35k, depreciation isn't too bad.

Oh ... if you get less than that, well, it's your bargaining skills at fault, not the vehicle.