zXShadow

Hey guys how's it going. I made a post a few years back similar to this but I want some opinions. I'm currently looking for a cheap daily. I've researched these for literal years trying to convince myself to buy one and now I'm finally about to pull the trigger. I'm mechanically inclined enough to do any work myself aside from a full rebuild. I found an 04 example with a recently rebuilt motor (less than 15k miles ago) and the paperwork to prove it. He's asking a good price and I'm tempted. I got my rotary tester in hand. So I guess this leads me to my question. This is going to be my daily, atleast for the next 6 months ish. If I take care of it the way it's supposed to be taken care of, and do everything correctly, what are the chances I wake up in a morning with a car that won't run? Can I rely on this car enough to atleast get me to work reliably? I'm a car salesman for ford, so I have direct connections with the service department for non rotary specific parts at a discount. I make enough money that I can fix it whenever it breaks, I guess my question is how often will that be realistically if I take care of it? Monthly repair bills? Maybe a couple times a year? What am I getting myself into/am I a complete dumbass for considering using it as a daily? The rebuilt motor gives me peace of mind, and if I can get 1 or 2 years out of it I'll be happy. Just a little worried it might be a rough 2 years.

Fool's Gold

I've had mine for 15 months and daily drive it, except for on days below 40 degrees (more a limit on the tires than the car). When I brought it home, all I had was a compression test and a clean Carfax, so I changed all fluids, plugs, got stronger coils and just followed everything that was listed in rx8help.com

Granted, mine is a 2009 and had 29k miles when I got it but you can't go wrong with just following what is listed for maintenance/care, especially if the motor shows strong compression. Do that and there's no reason you can't daily this car. My biggest complaint is the AC cannot keep up with the TX heat.

Loki

iTrader: (1)

I've had mine for 14 years and it has never left me stranded. You won't wake up to a dead engine, that's not how this works. You could easily eake up to a dead battery or, if it's not well taken care of, a flooded engine, but those are recoverable and/or not different from any other car.

Read rx8help.com, it's a good summary of things to expect & watch for.

Tamas

iTrader: (1)

I got mine for more than 19 years, put 145K miles on it (still on the original engine) and it is my daily driver. Like Loki, it never left me stranded yet. I'm sure it has low compression but it always starts and runs fine, hot or cold.
(now I probably jinxed it by saying this )

Joeyjoiner

Personally I think the RX8 is a lousy daily driver. In heavy traffic its slow and thirsty.
That being said, it has never let me down, apart from a flat battery, after letting it sit for a while.
Had mine for just over two years, but I had the motor rebuilt when I purchased it. My two-cents.