Should I buy a RX8?
 

I have been looking at purchasing a RX8, almost bought one last Saturday from the Autobarn in Evanston, after paying for a Carfax report I found out it was a Buy Back, this is the 2nd car I looked at and both were buy backs. They were both 04's, both dealers said they were lemon law cars and I would have to sign a paper that I new I was purchasing such a car. This has made me wonder if I should buy one. How about the 05's and 06's? Any help would be greatly appreciated. From everything that I have been reading it sounds like they have major engine problems. How do I find out if they have had all the recalls and updates?

It will say on the carfax report if there is an open recall. if it doesnt say then the recall has been done.


By looking around here you are only finding a small population of the people that own the car. You have to keep in mind when on a specific forum you will see a lot more stories of 'something broke' than "everything is great". The total number of engines replaced under the recal has been less than 1% of total ownership.

I have also heard some bad things about the Autobarn in Evanston but good things about the one in Countryside. Both dealerships seem to have a lot of RX*s on hand at all times as well.

Check out cars.com as well. There are always quite a few on there in this area. The RX8 is a great car as long as you stay away from the lemons or the ones that have been abused. Pretty much true of any car.

Check out the Mid-west regional forum and the "Chicago Area Lounge" thread. You will find a lot of great people that can probably help you out around there. If you want you can come check out a local meet and check out a large sample of the cars before you make a decision. We meet the first saturday of every month out in the western burbs.

Thank you for the reply, I am going to continue to look. I put down a deposit at the Autobarn and so far they have not credited me back, will have to call them again tomorrow. I also am going to stay away from any lemon law recalled cars. Since I am so new to all of this, is there a way to know if all the service recalls have been done?

Thanks again!

I think for that you would need to have the service dept at a dealership run the VIN of the car through their database.

Yep, just get the vin #s, call the dealership and ask them to check. Either way, even if they haven't all been done, you can always just get them done right after you buy the car. I had to do that with mine, had about 3 or 4 open recalls on my 04 when I bought it. Runs like a champ with 0 problems.