Alfurim

Hello, I'm a 25 year old from London, UK. I'll be including slight personal info such as my current income (well, that's it really) so as to ask for accurate advice from the forum.

I am currently earning £25,000 per year before taxes, and I have sadly never driven a RWD car before, as far as I can remember. While I am as much of a car guy as the next one in theory, my driving experience is limited due to my personal life and family. I have and still am etching every single bit of information I can find into my head, and I do have a love for working on cars and at least that's proven a bit, since I got to work with and learn from a repair garage that I know for a few weeks. However, I will likely not be able to have my own garage for some time where I can stuff proper equipment (most I may be able to do is do my oil change by myself and maybe plugs and coils).

Now, one advice I've seen that stuck with me was to try and spare 10-20% of your total budget on the car one wants to buy, as the rest will be fuel, insurance, tax and maintenance etc. And that sadly brings me down to about £3,000 maximum for my purchase limit. Many JDM cars that I love are out of that range, and living in the UK, used BMWs are a dime a dozen. My only JDM options are MX-5s, Toyota MR2s, RX-8s and a single 350Z that a lad can't sell apparently. I am thinking of an RX-8 because of my (theoretical) love for the RX-7, and the challenge and reward of a rotary speaks to me, as I hope most here can understand.

Now, I've made sure to read almost everything that is in the New and Potential Owners Thread, and damn was it a long read that I loved. I am truly happy that such a resource exists. However, I've also seen that being harsh to newbies is a warning, and I'd like it to be noted that I am fine with that. Tell me that an RX-8 is currently too much for me, or to stay away from JDMs for now, or just to get a BMW since being in the UK will help with maintenance and parts or whatever. Anything that carries meaning and logic behind it is advice to me. Having said that, here is the end of my post and a final loaded question: I will not be daily driving the RX-8 until I earn a more comfortable amount as we have an econobox Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 that will do the daily for me; I will spare whatever I comfortably can to slowly work on the car using the combined knowledge and experience I can find (proper coil health, oil maintenance, eventual cat delete etc.); and I will definitely be a bit unruly and try and put the car sideways on parking lots/tracks. Does it sound rational for me get myself an RX-8?

I hope I haven't made any errors with my post, please let me know if there's anything to fix. Please be kind, and thank you.

Loki

iTrader: (1)

I was with you until the budget alternative was BMW :D i don't know how it is in the UK but you can buy many RX8s for the cost of maintenance on a BMW over the course of it's life.

20% of your total budget on a car excluding gas/insurance/maintenance sounds nuts. The net total with all of those might end costing as much as your rent/mortgage, utilities and other basic necessities of life. But this is RX8 club not financial advise club.

If you're buying used rx8s, plan that at some point in its life it will need a new engine, which could cost as much or more as your budget for the car in the first place. Unless you find one with a recent engine or known good compression in that price range, which sounds a bit unlikely. So I'd suggest going with an MX5 instead. It shares a lot with the 8, without the risk of engine replacement. It's also cheaper on gas.

Have you driven any of your options?



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Alfurim

Thank you, and the BMW choice is more forced than willed, as there is a ridiculous amount of used BMWs in the UK :D

The 20% thing was, if I remember correctly, if my budget is 10k, I look for a car that is 2-3k, because (in my case) 1k will go to insurance, road tax for an RX-8 is I believe £680 or something like that, then potential emergency maintenance can follow (coils/plugs etc.) and then there's at least a year's fuel, I believe that was the whole breakdown. I may be wrong though, apologies.

Even if I wanted to spend a bit more, the prices rise quite sharply for Series II offers which I don't know if I want to save for.

On the other hand, I feel I can prepare myself for an eventual new engine, but one of my main reasons for asking here was to gauge whether that was logical or not. An MX5, I know there are tons of them out there and they're nice, is a 2 seater with limited trunk space, so I'm not sure if I want to give up the utility. Now I know utility isn't a point to care about when thinking sports cars, it just so happens that the RX-8 comes with an acceptable amount of utility. (And I must be honest, MX5s are a bit boring, the novelty of the rotary is attractive too haha)

And here we get to the very sad part, I sadly haven't driven any of them... As I mentioned, due to personal life, income and family (have seen absolutely no proper sports cars anywhere near my family whole my life) my only chance to ever drive one of them would be to either test drive before a purchase, or drive after purchase. Although I am currently considering going to a track where they lend their cars to customers.

Loki

iTrader: (1)

Oh, the utility is a big selling point for the 8, I totally get it. It's hard to match. Definitely test drive then in any case, it doesn't oblige you to buy any of them. I wouldn't put hard earned money on anything I haven't driven thoroughly. Good call on renting/testing on track. Do you have Turo in your area? It's like AirBnB but for car rentals, you can rent pretty much anything for a day and see if it's for you.

Alfurim

Oh that's great advice, thank you. I've checked Turo and some other services out, but turns out an 8 is hard to come by for rental services, and most tend to be rather expensive just to rent for a day. But I've got an offer close to where I live, may give a call and do a test drive. Although, if this isn't a bother for you Loki or anyone else for that matter, I'd like to ask if this offer has a proper price on it, because I don't really think so. Here's the link for it: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-det...o=2023&fromsra

This is the most "reliable" offer I can find at the moment, with plugs included in the sale as well as premix, and compression test results shown too, but (I even found out where the test was done and normalised it to sea level too) the compression results aren't super good, which makes me think the car seriously needs new coils or it'll go bust soon. And while the car is an Evolve, it's still a Series I, so my question is whether this offer is actually worth the asking price or not. No other Series I is this expensive, to note.

Thank you for all the help. <3

Loki

iTrader: (1)

Oh wow. It looks mint and only 36k miles. Surprising that the compression test is what it is given the mileage. I have no idea what is a good price in the UK.