RX-7 FD Ownership
Discussion
Update: 13/03/15
What a car! I still grin in second gear and I spend half my shift looking at all my photos of it! Its such a lovely car! Its been trouble free and never missed a beat - my only criticism is the MPG which I'm not too fussed about seeing as it is a 21 year old sports car!
Having said that - it rarely gets used anymore, I think I have too many cars (I'll hand in my membership on the way out).
A 987 Boxster S is on the wishlist, so this will have to go at some point this year!
Original post - the story of how it came to be!
After quite a lengthy 7 months of membership I have reached my 100th post and though some people on here have tens of thousands I wanted to make it a little bit ‘special’.
I’m sad like that.
Anyone who’s conversed with me in the forums before probably know that I have an RX7 that I always bang on about, so for my 100th post I have decided to give the story behind my how I came to own an RX7 and share a brief view of my first impressions of performance car ownership.
It’s a rather lengthy post, so if you have 15 minutes free, sit back, relax and read about my dream coming true…
In March 2012 a photographer I knew was doing a shoot at a farm in Kent and I got invited along to be one of the models, I assumed I was invited because I am so good looking, though it’s likely I got an invite as I was the photographers boyfriends best mate!
The photos were a success:
But little did I know that day would become more than a few photos for a magazine!
On the farm where we did the shoot was a hanger where we were all having our makeup done and in this hanger was an old hot rod, whilst admiring it the farm manager appeared and I got chatting about cars with him, whatever car I mentioned he said “I own one of those” or “I used to own one of those” and in all honesty, at first I wasn't sure if this bloke was telling the truth, until he showed me his fleet! I kept in contact with him afterwards, adding him on Facebook - yes, I know this sounds wrong so far, I was 19, he was 30, we spoke online… Anyway, me him and a friend of mine went to see him and his fleet on the farm a couple of times, we went to a few Sunday Services with him too, normally in his Twin Turbo Legacy GTB but one day it was just me and him going to PHSS at Brooklands and because the weather was good and there was just two of us we went in his RX7 Twin Turbo. On the way there I was chatting about the RX with him, asking about the car, how much he paid, reliability etc. – I had no interest in buying it, even now as a 20 year old I’d never get insured, nor was he willing to sell, but I was just curious. So I had a rather truthful insight to its history, how it had been treated and what the car is like to own… A few weeks later he told me he’d decided to sell it as he wanted to replace it with an EVO 3 which he’d make his own and personalise. As a joke I told him I’d buy it if I could get insured and he joking replied it’s a deal. I gave my insurer a call and 20 minutes later hung up the phone with a very reasonable quote, rather than the 4 or 5 grand I expected, I was offered a policy for £1,800. I spent hours after that doing man-maths which is always dangerous but I worked out that I really could afford it.
I went to him with a proposal, we agreed a price and I even contemplated buying it off him in installments, however in the end we decided that I would pay for it outright but he would save the car for me for however long I needed to pay for it, whether that me 1 week or 1 year. We had a deal.
Now, I’m on a low wage, lower than you’d expect for a 20 year old who works as hard as me with as much experience as me. Under a grand take-home isn't a lot of money, but it’s even less when you have to pay rent, insurance, buy your own food shopping etc and to top it all off I regularly go out on the piss with my mates, usually at LEAST once a week spending £30-40 a time.
This was early November 2012 – which made things even worse. My Clio’s MOT was due at the end of the month and the work needed to pass it far exceeded the value of the car itself, I had no choice but to scrap it and buy another car! Luckily I sorted myself out with a crappy L-Reg Corsa, complete with chav rims and a drainpipe exhaust, which above 50mph is unbearable. Thankfully it only cost me £100 on top of the £300 I got for the Clio. So, Saturday December 1st 2012 after taking delivery of the Corsa I could finally save for the RX7.
I stopped buying booze from the supermarket. I cut going out on the piss 4-8 times a month down to 1-2 times a month. I stopped buying good quality food and resorted to cereal, cheap pasta and ready meals. I stopped buying heaps of games for my Xbox. I started charging friends money for lifts to town and just 6 months after living like a hobo, eating crap, barely leaving my house I had the money sitting in my bank account, itching to be turned into an RX7! All that I needed to do now was get an insurance quote, praying they’d stick to the £1,800 quote I’d got prior… After 45 minutes of flirting and bartering with a ditzy welsh girl I had my quote on an Admiral Multicar policy:
Corsa: £448 PA
RX7: £853 PA
I was getting an RX7!
At 20 years, 9 months and 12 days old, after a lot of hard work saving for what felt like an eternity I finally took delivery of my spectacular Mazda RX7 FD:
There we have it, my first performance car at 20 years old, a nice clean 1994 RX7 running 300+bhp with just 40k on the clock, backed up by a decent chunk of history.
The first 3 days were the perfect introduction to my ownership and in those 3 days I racked up a whopping 800 miles, driving around Essex and Suffolk, showing off my new purchase to everyone I knew. I do consider myself a good driver relative to my age – but mainly consider myself a safe driver, when its a 30 I'll do 30, when its a 50 I'll do 50 and when it’s the national speed limit, well, I'll go as fast as what is safe, which I think is responsible enough.
So over those 800 miles I sampled how the car behaves around town, on a cruise on an A road, in traffic, on B roads, in tight bends, in wide bends, when my foot is flat on the pedal... They perfect honeymoon period.
Since then I've had a bit of work done with it, I've read a lot of horror stories so I wanted to prevent as much future maintenance work as I could afford, so far I've:
Replaced the pulleys, hoses, plugs, oil change, rear pads, track rod ends and fixed an oil leak that has already developed. Nothing major but just to be safe, I have no mechanical knowledge myself but thankfully I know a very good mechanic who did all the work for a bottle of whisky – and I’m pretty sure he drank it after doing the work!
A little over 3 weeks into my ownership and I've done about 1200 miles, spending a little under £600 on fuel which admittedly makes me feel sick, I did budget for 5-10mpg, overcompensating on purpose so I knew I could afford to run it, but even with the 13mpg average I am getting I do feel sick watching the £90 fill up vanish so quickly!
There are a lot of things I dislike about the car itself so far:
Thank you for reading if you made it through to the end, happy motoring!
What a car! I still grin in second gear and I spend half my shift looking at all my photos of it! Its such a lovely car! Its been trouble free and never missed a beat - my only criticism is the MPG which I'm not too fussed about seeing as it is a 21 year old sports car!
Having said that - it rarely gets used anymore, I think I have too many cars (I'll hand in my membership on the way out).
A 987 Boxster S is on the wishlist, so this will have to go at some point this year!
Original post - the story of how it came to be!
After quite a lengthy 7 months of membership I have reached my 100th post and though some people on here have tens of thousands I wanted to make it a little bit ‘special’.
I’m sad like that.
Anyone who’s conversed with me in the forums before probably know that I have an RX7 that I always bang on about, so for my 100th post I have decided to give the story behind my how I came to own an RX7 and share a brief view of my first impressions of performance car ownership.
It’s a rather lengthy post, so if you have 15 minutes free, sit back, relax and read about my dream coming true…
In March 2012 a photographer I knew was doing a shoot at a farm in Kent and I got invited along to be one of the models, I assumed I was invited because I am so good looking, though it’s likely I got an invite as I was the photographers boyfriends best mate!
The photos were a success:
But little did I know that day would become more than a few photos for a magazine!
On the farm where we did the shoot was a hanger where we were all having our makeup done and in this hanger was an old hot rod, whilst admiring it the farm manager appeared and I got chatting about cars with him, whatever car I mentioned he said “I own one of those” or “I used to own one of those” and in all honesty, at first I wasn't sure if this bloke was telling the truth, until he showed me his fleet! I kept in contact with him afterwards, adding him on Facebook - yes, I know this sounds wrong so far, I was 19, he was 30, we spoke online… Anyway, me him and a friend of mine went to see him and his fleet on the farm a couple of times, we went to a few Sunday Services with him too, normally in his Twin Turbo Legacy GTB but one day it was just me and him going to PHSS at Brooklands and because the weather was good and there was just two of us we went in his RX7 Twin Turbo. On the way there I was chatting about the RX with him, asking about the car, how much he paid, reliability etc. – I had no interest in buying it, even now as a 20 year old I’d never get insured, nor was he willing to sell, but I was just curious. So I had a rather truthful insight to its history, how it had been treated and what the car is like to own… A few weeks later he told me he’d decided to sell it as he wanted to replace it with an EVO 3 which he’d make his own and personalise. As a joke I told him I’d buy it if I could get insured and he joking replied it’s a deal. I gave my insurer a call and 20 minutes later hung up the phone with a very reasonable quote, rather than the 4 or 5 grand I expected, I was offered a policy for £1,800. I spent hours after that doing man-maths which is always dangerous but I worked out that I really could afford it.
I went to him with a proposal, we agreed a price and I even contemplated buying it off him in installments, however in the end we decided that I would pay for it outright but he would save the car for me for however long I needed to pay for it, whether that me 1 week or 1 year. We had a deal.
Now, I’m on a low wage, lower than you’d expect for a 20 year old who works as hard as me with as much experience as me. Under a grand take-home isn't a lot of money, but it’s even less when you have to pay rent, insurance, buy your own food shopping etc and to top it all off I regularly go out on the piss with my mates, usually at LEAST once a week spending £30-40 a time.
This was early November 2012 – which made things even worse. My Clio’s MOT was due at the end of the month and the work needed to pass it far exceeded the value of the car itself, I had no choice but to scrap it and buy another car! Luckily I sorted myself out with a crappy L-Reg Corsa, complete with chav rims and a drainpipe exhaust, which above 50mph is unbearable. Thankfully it only cost me £100 on top of the £300 I got for the Clio. So, Saturday December 1st 2012 after taking delivery of the Corsa I could finally save for the RX7.
I stopped buying booze from the supermarket. I cut going out on the piss 4-8 times a month down to 1-2 times a month. I stopped buying good quality food and resorted to cereal, cheap pasta and ready meals. I stopped buying heaps of games for my Xbox. I started charging friends money for lifts to town and just 6 months after living like a hobo, eating crap, barely leaving my house I had the money sitting in my bank account, itching to be turned into an RX7! All that I needed to do now was get an insurance quote, praying they’d stick to the £1,800 quote I’d got prior… After 45 minutes of flirting and bartering with a ditzy welsh girl I had my quote on an Admiral Multicar policy:
Corsa: £448 PA
RX7: £853 PA
I was getting an RX7!
At 20 years, 9 months and 12 days old, after a lot of hard work saving for what felt like an eternity I finally took delivery of my spectacular Mazda RX7 FD:
There we have it, my first performance car at 20 years old, a nice clean 1994 RX7 running 300+bhp with just 40k on the clock, backed up by a decent chunk of history.
The first 3 days were the perfect introduction to my ownership and in those 3 days I racked up a whopping 800 miles, driving around Essex and Suffolk, showing off my new purchase to everyone I knew. I do consider myself a good driver relative to my age – but mainly consider myself a safe driver, when its a 30 I'll do 30, when its a 50 I'll do 50 and when it’s the national speed limit, well, I'll go as fast as what is safe, which I think is responsible enough.
So over those 800 miles I sampled how the car behaves around town, on a cruise on an A road, in traffic, on B roads, in tight bends, in wide bends, when my foot is flat on the pedal... They perfect honeymoon period.
Since then I've had a bit of work done with it, I've read a lot of horror stories so I wanted to prevent as much future maintenance work as I could afford, so far I've:
Replaced the pulleys, hoses, plugs, oil change, rear pads, track rod ends and fixed an oil leak that has already developed. Nothing major but just to be safe, I have no mechanical knowledge myself but thankfully I know a very good mechanic who did all the work for a bottle of whisky – and I’m pretty sure he drank it after doing the work!
A little over 3 weeks into my ownership and I've done about 1200 miles, spending a little under £600 on fuel which admittedly makes me feel sick, I did budget for 5-10mpg, overcompensating on purpose so I knew I could afford to run it, but even with the 13mpg average I am getting I do feel sick watching the £90 fill up vanish so quickly!
There are a lot of things I dislike about the car itself so far:
- The air con is rubbish, though I suspect it just needs to be topped up
- The ride is unbelievably hard; running over a cat’s eye shatters your spine
- Parking it is a bit of the pain as the bonnet is so much longer than the sheds I’m used to
- The accelerator pedal is too far to the right
- There is nowhere to put your right arm when cruising which becomes very uncomfortable
- It’s so low that the bumper scrapes on speed bumps
Thank you for reading if you made it through to the end, happy motoring!
Edited by TREMAiNE on Friday 13th March 05:19
I'm sure this car is a bit of a pain on many levels but, and it is a big but!! The RX7 has to go down as one of the best Jap cars of that era.
Thus despite all the annoyances, the car delivers driver involvement coupled with astonishing looks like very few others. If only Mazda made something this cool today!!
Thus despite all the annoyances, the car delivers driver involvement coupled with astonishing looks like very few others. If only Mazda made something this cool today!!
ADM06 said:
The prices I got lead me to suspect that the modifications may not be declared? 
All cosmetic modifications are declared, but I will shamefully admit that is all. If I can insure it legit for £1500 or less when I renew I'll do it all properly as I don't want my policy to be void if I have to make a claim! TREMAiNE said:
All cosmetic modifications are declared, but I will shamefully admit that is all. If I can insure it legit for £1500 or less when I renew I'll do it all properly as I don't want my policy to be void if I have to make a claim!
Is it an import? Suprisingly that didn't make to much of a difference in the quotes, probably because they were offered in the UK too so parts (I assume) can be had from Mazda.I think I was looking at £1000 standard and £1400 modified. By comparison a TVR Chimaera was £350
ADM06 said:
TREMAiNE said:
All cosmetic modifications are declared, but I will shamefully admit that is all. If I can insure it legit for £1500 or less when I renew I'll do it all properly as I don't want my policy to be void if I have to make a claim!
Is it an import? Suprisingly that didn't make to much of a difference in the quotes, probably because they were offered in the UK too so parts (I assume) can be had from Mazda.I think I was looking at £1000 standard and £1400 modified. By comparison a TVR Chimaera was £350
I've done some quotes as if I was 21 and I'm getting quotes for a Gallardo for £1400 fully comp as the main driver, £1000 to be put on my dads DB9 as a named driver. Doesn't seem right to me really!
I'm 25 so I'm really failing to see why I can get a decent quote on TVR with no TC, ABS and a soft top but awful quotes on rice rockets. Insurance for an R32 GTR was £1600, and £1000 for an E46 M3.
None would be used for anything other than evening and weekend pleasure, maybe 5000 miles a year when the roads are quiet and the weather is good. I don't know where they get their statistics from because I've always thought that TVRs were very savage handling cars.
None would be used for anything other than evening and weekend pleasure, maybe 5000 miles a year when the roads are quiet and the weather is good. I don't know where they get their statistics from because I've always thought that TVRs were very savage handling cars.
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff