Potential new owner
 

Just looking for advice. Trying to decide if buying a 2004 RX 8 with 155,000 miles is a good idea or a terrible idea. Clean Carfax and perfect service record. Just a little wary of the mileage.

rotary specific compression test

So I should request that from the dealer? Let me go ahead and admit I know virtually nothing about cars!

unless its a rotary shop or mazda dealer 99.9% of car lots will not have a rotary specific compression tester. yes it should always be done prior to buying a rotary car. you will get 7 numbers from the test. three compression for each rotor and the rpm cranking speed

Thanks, I'll have that done! nything else? I like the car, just don't want to buy something that will break down in a few thousand miles

Click on the links in my signature and start learning, then decide if it's a good buy for you.

Personally I suggest having a Toyota/Honda first, something easier to work on, to get a hang of how cars work.

I can take it in to fix it, just don't want to do it very couple months if the engine only lasts to 200,00 miles. Maybe the better question is how many miles do they usually last?

if its got 155k on the car its probably not the original engine, you can check for the blue reman tag or the cars history through mazda. comp #s are whats important. read jinxs links in his sig

So I found an RX-8 that so far looks good, but I don't understand the compression ratio they gave me. Please help, Compression ratio: 10.00 to 1

That's the ratio of the combustion chamber at its largest and smallest volumes. That's not what you want.
You want a compression test. This tells you how well the combustion chamber is sealing.

In piston engine cars, it tells you the condition of the piston rings, head gasket, and valves.

In rotary engine cars, it tells you the condition of the apex seals, side seals, corner seals, irons and housings. You have to get a rotary-specific test for these engines because there are three chambers per spark plug hole (unlike piston engines which only have one chamber per hole). It's critical that the test is done correctly and with the correct equipment.

Make an appointment at a nearby Mazda dealer and then take the car on a test drive to that dealer for a pre-purchase inspection (if the dealer doesn't offer that, just ask for a compression test).

So the Mazda dealer won't do a compression test as they are worried about "breaking the tips off rotors in the motor". Thoughts?

that translates to "we know the engine is shot and don't want to replace it on our dime"

That's what I thought...

If you're shopping for RX8s with 150-ish thousand miles, and you're not car savvy, I would find something else. If you don't have the budget for a good condition RX8, you definitely don't have budget for one in bad condition.