mikey1967

Hello!
Newbie to the forum here but I'm a longtime Mazda owner. I currently have an 18 CX-9 and I just restored a 91 B2600 4x4. I found a 08 RX-8 40th anniversary at a local dealer. 6 speed manual, 37,000 miles. Advertised for $12,900. I read through all of the new member must read forums and FAQs and the one thing that stands out to me is the compression test. If I take this to a Mazda dealer how much does the test cost and what is considered "good compression" to the extent that it has yet to be damaged and if I follow the correct maintenance I should be fine? Any advice or insight would be appreciated. Thanks.
Mike

Loki

iTrader: (1)

The book value of the test is something like 1.15 hours, so about $125? Make sure the dealer has a working rotary tester before you sign up. They're getting old and breakey.

As far as what is good compression, if you read the FAQs you should have seen a graph that charts good and borderline compression over rpm. What you should get from Mazda is 6 numbers @ xx rpm or normalized to 250rpm. You want to be above 7 kg/cm2. The more above the better.

As for whether you'll be OK, yes, preventative maintenance will go a long way. It doesn't need that much, it just needs a few things to be done right and proactively. If it had a good life before you, great. The comp test will give you an idea.

12900 sounds like way too much even for low miles. 10 is reasonable.

Rx8help.com for easy reading. Compiled from this forum.

mikey1967

Loki,
Thanks for the info! I'm seeing prices all over the spectrum so it's confusing. I saw a 2005 Shinka edition with 130,000 miles for $6K. Dealer is stating that "it has a hard time restarting when warm". What type of underlying problem is that?

Loki

iTrader: (1)

Hard time restarting when warm = poor compression most of the time. It's possible it's running really old coils and plugs, but 99% of the time that's the first tangible sign of engine failure. If the body is in really good shape, my play here would be to get a comp test and use that as leverage to bring the price WAAAY down (a new engine is $5-6k if someone else does all the work, so take that out of the selling price), then get a replacement engine and enjoy many years of happy rotoring. Or, have the dealer do the engine replacement (with an official Mazda reman!) as part of the sale.

People ask all kinds of crazy prices these days, especially if they want to think their RX8 has RX7 classic status. I'd be surprised if 2005's are actually selling for 6k?

delhi

There was a 40AE that sold for over $42k over at BaT recently. It has low miles. Quite a few bids towards the end.
The recent used prices of many cars have gone up. Likewise RX8s too. Good ones will not be cheap. My advice is to find the cleanest specimen that's well cared for. If there's a premium on it, so be it. This newbie forum is full of folks buying junk for pennies and spend the rest of their time spending money to get it back to health. You get what you pay for. Start with a good one and enjoy the car.