Today I took a mini-road trip with my wife to check out the 88 10th Anniversary TII that I've been talking to you guys about. Pics are available here --> http://www.pbase.com/clumzy/fc_ham



*Please forgive the length of this post. I'm very excited and I get wordy.



Body



As you can see from the pics, the paint looks decent ... wherever it's not peeling. It's got serious peel on the hood and both popup headlights. It's got a little peel on the sunroof and driver door. The paint is a little cracked on the bottom of the front lip .. but otherwise for a 14 year old car it looks GOOD.



There's also paint peeling off the rear hatch troughs. Since this is a little out of the way I may just attempt to touch up these spots.



I must stress that there is NO RUST on the spots where it's peeling. I think a repaint of just the hood and lights is gonna run about $500CND.



Rust



To say it's rust free is only slightly untrue. There is zero perforation that I could see. Because it was so low I couldn't get underneath the car but when we go for an inspection at my mechanic he will put it up on the lift and I'll get a full view of it.



There are a couple spots of rust on the bottom inside edge of the doors. I took a couple of pictures of it so please take a look at them. I believe they're relatively minor and I plan on sanding them down and priming them myself because you can't see them from the outside.



I'm planning on also getting the thing rust sprayed with oil for $100CND.



There's also a spot of rust on the driver door where it looks like the paint is chipped on the edge. Took a pic of that. I think I'll sand, prime and touch up that spot.



Cold Start



On your advice I ensured that he had not driven the car since the day before ... so it was sitting for maybe 12 hours. I started it without gassing it and immediately went to 3000rpm and down to 1500. After 5 minutes of idling it was at 1000.



Turbo Rebuild and bad idle



I was mistaken when I told you that the turbo had been replaced. It was actually rebuilt. The story goes that he was hearing some noise from the turbo and took it to Mazda. He had a bad bearing in the turbo. So they rebuilt the thing. Now it's leaking oil into the engine?? And it's causing the idle to be messed. It'll idle at 700-800 and drop to 500 .. back and forth, like reverse surging. It even stalled once on my test drive!



He's getting it repaired under warranty and he assures me that it'll be perfect or they're going to have fix it again until they get it right. They're getting another rebuilt turbo in there this week.



Of course I will have my mech check it thoroughly to confirm that it's fixed right.



Electrical



Everything works. Mirrors, windows, pop-up headlights, AC, moon-roof, security system, etc. Windshield and headlight squirters work ... cool!



Exceptions are that the stereo will sometimes reset itself like it's been disconnected from power. I think that's a bad power connection back there. The driver-side control for the passenger-side window doesn't work. The control on the passenger side works tho. The antenae motor is gone. Rear wiper doesn't work. The motor works by connecting power from the battery directly and the switch is sending juice to the wires on the driver-side hydrolic .. but a connection from there to the wiper is bad.



Test Drive



The engine is strong and the turbo kicks. On the hiway the thing is quiet and smooth smooth! I like I like!



Weird things and questions:

1. The gas pedal is very soft on the top and gets firmer on the bottom. I have NEVER experienced this before .. is that normal??

2. The shifter has alot of play in the neutral area ... caused me to grind going in to 4th once! Is that normal? Getting into 1st seems like it's a diagonal up?? That normal??



Other than those 2 things and the turbo bein' weird it drove well. The sell actually said he'd prefer that I didn't test drive it until the turbo is fixed. He realizes that it's a HUGE concern for a buyer so he told me he's getting this worked out ASAP and will get back to me as soon as it's fixed for another inspection/testdrive.



Buy?



Yeah as long as my mech OK's it. My areas of concern are:

- paint peeling

- rust spots

- TURBO!!

- gas pedal .. normal?

- weird shifter? Something broken?



Your advice and expertise is appreciated. I apologize for this long post but I'm very excited about purchasing it. Please knock some sense into me if you see something that I didn't!

 

Damn Canadians and their headlight squirters. sounds like that car is in ok shape. didn't look at the pics though.

 

looks ok minus all the pain on the hood and stuff. that one spring you had a picture of looks a little wierd. what is that, a hole rusted through the thing?

 

what's the price

 

damn i didn't want to read that, how much is it?

 

The seller is asking $7000CND for it. So that's about $1.25USD



Really sorry about the length of that original post ... I'll try to summarize my questions:



1. The shifter feels like there's a lot of play in the neutral area. Is that normal?

2. The gas pedal feels very soft on the top and very firm on the bottom. That normal?

3. The turbo is leaking oil into the engine but will be replaced. Does that sound like it would cause a drop in idle from 700 to 500 (reverse surging?) and almost a stall.

4. Rust on the bottom of the doors, think I can just sand and prime?

5. Peeling paint ... think that means the whole car is ready to peel?



Thanks for your responses!

 

$1.25 sound like a good deal, don't ya think . So 1250?

 

I can tell you that after working on another RX-7 with the spot peeling of the paint- you will have to remove ALL the paint to insure a good bond because what hasnt peeled yet- will. When I put some masking tape on the adjoining area, it peeled the paint off with it. The paint is just too unstable. If you go to touch up the areas, I would say that you would be wasting your time. You can sand and paint rust, but it will probably come back another day in the future, but thats not a deterrant. So if you feather in the bad areas, not remove all the old paint, and repaint the car- its almost certain that the new paint will peel off the old because the old had never properly bonded to the primer. That paint in the rear hatch areas will come off with washing its so unstable. It hasnt rusted because the primer underneath is protecting the metal, the hood is aluminum so its not going to rust, but given time exposed, the peeled areas WILL rust, the primer ( that grey that will turn greenish looking crap on the car where the paint has peeled ) , has no UV protectant.

 

$5600 U.S. should buy you a near mint car, not one that needs alot of work.

 

$5600 U.S. should buy you a near mint car, not one that needs alot of work.[/quote]

$5600 = LOW MILE PERFECT TII!!! eg 40k miles.......