Hi guys. Ive always been a fan of fast cars, raised around a family of gearheads, but it seems like my generation is the one thats interested in the rotary engines. My cousin has an RX7 and has a blast with it, but I find the Rx8's a little more to my style. I'm 18, and have driven only sports cars since i got my license (1997 chevy camaro RS, 1992 chevy camaro RS being my current car). I love that feeling of acceleration i get from my torquey v8 now, but Im really into drift/rally style racing and love something that can take a turn. Do you guys think id be able to buy one of these and pay for the insurance with my current $500 a month income? Im currently looking for a better paying job (something in the automotive field. My goal in life is to become a mechanic), so if you dont see that as being a reasonable income for a 6spd car what would you consider a good amount to be making monthly before i consider buying one? Thanks for the help!

 

I'm 24 I pay 196 a month for full coverage. My car is paid off. I have 3 cars. The 8 and two BMWs. Repairs are pricey but its easy to DIY a lot of it. But 18 and 500 a month idk man. Id say you need to double that. Insurance will prolly use a big part of that. Are you going to finance it? 500 won't do it bud. But I could be wrong. Just head over to the buying and financing threads you find out what other drivers are paying and stuff. Good luck bud.

 

If you are planning to finance it I doubt you will be able to afford it on $500 a month. (maybe if you want to get an 04 with high miles or something)

I would wait until you are finished with school / mechanic training etc. Then when you have a good job lined up you can buy a car based on how much you steady income is.

 

500 a month will be your gas lol.. okay im exaggerating , but you guys have cheaper gas then we do up north. if you doubled your income you should be fine.

 

get an fc

 

FC is more in your league (Which is OK, I've had a bunch of em..LOVE EM!)

 

yeah id be financing it. As for the increasing my income, now that its warming up its highly likely. My boss loves me, & everyone comes to me when they need their shifts covered, so I should be getting more hours (working at an icecream place during colorado winter=SUCKISH pay!) and im supposed to get a raise soon too, if i dont manage to find a better job. As for gas, there is NOOOOOO way an rx8 gets worse gas mileage than my Camaro lolz. My dads f250 truck gets better gas mileage.... And an FC? Im not to big a fan of the FC's, plus I REALLY dont want another older car that has pms and breaks once a month. Its happened to my camaro 5 months in a row. First the fuel pump, then the panhard bar/rod/whatever you wanna call it, then the front driver side tire, followed by the alternator, and this month it was the passenger side front tire. oh wait, six months, the exhaust from the catalytic converter back rusted over and fell right off the car a month after i bought her. O.o

 

Personally, I've found credit unions to be more lenient, but to each his own.

- Credit
- Credit history
- Income
- Proof of Income
- Price Range ( $8k-$12k in your case for an RX-8)
- Co-signer always helps
- Nice down payment will help as well as a trade-in (Two things that will add leverage)
- Don't forget car insurance and make sure you have not a single moving violation.

IMHO, $1000 or less in income per month may not help unless you have a co-signer. They may or I should say will automatically factor in extra expenses regardless of you having any or not. I don't see you just having to pay for a car note/insurance on your own as other expenses usually arrive.

 

What kind of mileage is your camaro getting? Most people around here get between 15 and 18 city mpg depending how they drive.

 

you might* be able to afford a rx8 on 500 a month...

IF it was paid for 100% in cash and you get liability only insurance.

Other than that. Count this car out until you make 3x what you are now monthly.

 

I would say hold off for now until you get a better paying job...Even if you were able to make the payments on the car as well as the insurance, you'll want to have quite a bit of money saved on the side for when things go wrong...and YES they will go wrong...The RX8 is a great ride...But if you don't have the extra money, go with a car that isn't so high maintenance.

 

18yo and $500/mo, you ONLY want to be buying cars for cash. You don't want to get saddled with a loan, and then get stuck with not being able to pay if something happens at the ice cream place. Remember that the loans are multi-year agreements (ie, as long as you were in HS, to put it in perspective). It's a REALLY long time at 18. It was a REALLY long time for me at 22. Now that I'm 33, 4-5 years doesn't seem like so much, but it's still a while.

Stick to cars that are paid off, and if that means that you can't get anything <10yo, then so be it. If you really like rotaries, hunt down an RX-7. But it's going to be more maintenance than a V8 camaro. Hard to beat the chevy small-block for durability and running forever, even when it's not exactly kept 100% on top of the maintenance. It might burn oil after a while, but no more than the rotory is going to inject, anyway.

 

Pretty much just agreeing with everyone else here but ill let you know how much of my money this car takes up. I bought a 2004 mt with 80k on the odometer and also extended warranty.

Payments on car each month are $250 for the minimum which unless you wanna pay for a long time its nice to try and pay a little more.
Insurance for me is about $150 but my RX8 is on the same plan as my parents if it wasn't I would be paying $400 a month.
Gas isn't too bad for me since I have a cheap DD that gets 23 mpg but before I had that I spent at least $30 a week and that wasn't driving very much.

So its maybe possible for you to buy this car but you wouldn't have any money left over for anything else and if somthing went wrong with the car you may be screwed. So if I were you id try and wait a few years still.

 

On $500 a month, I really suggest you do not get an Rx-8, especially since it sounds like your job isn't stable, even if you work a few extra hours, how do you know if you're always going to have those hours?

My Rx-8 was my first car and I got it when I was your age as well.
I was working at a music store (guitar instructor), plus making money online with online marketing and I owned a few vending machines, so I thought I had a steady income of about $1,000-$1,500 a month. My mom co-signed the loan because I did not have any credit and I put a nice chunk of a down payment, and only had $180 a month payments and about $180 a month for insurance. So, I'm 20 years old now, eventually my "steady income" suddenly did not become so steady anymore. Put about $5,000 in maintenance, new tires, brakes, clutch, tune-up (including coils) etc and right now, I'm only making about $650 a month and I still owe about $8,000 on my car. It seems like you can afford the car but honestly unless you have the cash to purchase the car, you can't. You do not know if you're going to have a job for the entire length of the loan, and you're going to pay a lot more for the car, depending on the interest rate, if you finance it.

Plus, maintenance on an rx8 is going to get at your wallet. You're going to need to find a mechanic that actually knows about rotaries, so you save money instead of going to a dealership. Don't think that for entire length of the loan, your car is not going to have any problems. With gas prices, supposedly going up to $5 a gallon for 87, which you can't put in an Rx-8, you have to put at least 91, so that's probably going to be a bit more than $5.
Also, a lot of Rx-8's are abused and not maintained properly, so there's always the risk of the previous owner not taking care of the engine, and we know where the story will end.

Pretty much where I'm going at is, even if you have enough money to pay for the car, you're not going to have enough money to do anything else. All you're going to be doing is working to pay for a car that you use to drive to work because you won't be able to afford going anywhere else. School is going to cost money, normal living expenses, etc.

I'm taking a break from going to college until I have my car paid-off because honestly I cannot afford to do both, especially with the income I lost and I do not want to ruin my mom's credit with a volunteer repossession and trust me, I've tried trading in the car, even though I only owe about $8k, car dealerships will only give you about $7000 for a trade-in, I didn't even show them my car and they were low-balling me and I have an '04 Grand Touring with only 74k miles and I do all the regular maintenance, oil changes every 3 months or 3k miles, top off oil, premix, and changing the plugs every 20k miles + changed coils, (which I unfortunately have to service at a dealership.)

Sorry if this is not what you want to hear, but I'm around your age and I'm just being honest with you. Keep the Camaro or get something more reliable and practical.