Another Newbie
 

Hey Guys - Just got a 2004 Red GT 6spd. Love it. Have had an 86 and 87 Rx-7 - loved them. Wife's got a Mazda 6s 5spd, and I traded a 2002 Pr5 in on the Rx8.

Welcome to the club!

Congrats, you'll find lots of useful information on this forum. What's a 2002 Pr5?

Protege 5.

Have fun. I'm thinking of getting one myself. But mine will be Winning Blue, I think.
Did you lease it? I got a price of $378 for 30 months with 2gs down and I didn't negotiate at all just yet. Grand Touring with Nav. None of the extra body stuff. That sounds like a good lease deal to me, what do others think? I don't know the residual or anything like that, I just got the price and left. Still deciding if I want to pull off a deal so I didn't want to waste the guys time.

ERIK

Yeah I did end up leasing, mainly because I got an extra 2500 off the price, and I'll end up buying out the lease probably before it's finished. Its a GT with Spare Tire. FYI my final purchase price was 25500 after a 2500 rebate, 500 college grad, and 3100 negotiated off the price.

The residual is only needed if you intend to buy the car at lease end. 99% of the time its best to get a new car rather than buy it as you will find the residual is above blue book. Sometimes you can negotiate the residual down at lease end cause Mazda does not want the car and so is willing to move some. The some is the important part and is based on market conditons. Keep in mind that on a lease you are keeping the car looking good for someone else. No dings and you need new tires when you turn it in. No interior tears and carpet heel rub throughs. They want to find ways to charge you more if you don't have these fixed. To keep a car for three years without one ding is near impossible. Mazda has a ding tolerance level but its a small dent allowance. Better than some like GM. If you like to change cars every 3 or 4 years and can keep within 12,000 a year, Not over 36,000 at lease end then you will be ok. Otherwise just make a regular loan and try to negotiate the price down. The lease gives you $2,500 off the price of the car. Not too bad with that deal. Know your prices by looking at Edmunds.com. You need to know how much over invoice the car is being sold to you for. Don't get stuck with the dealer crap of "what can you afford in payments each month?" Well if you give me the car I don't have to worry about monthly payments. LOL Anyway, look at Edmunds.com to give you an idea of how much over invoice or under invoice cars are going in your zip code area.

Excellent choice! Welcome aboard.
There has been many new owners on the forum lately.

Thanks Tanyninh for the advice. I'm very familiar with leases, but the residual is important in determining the lease price. The lower the residual percentage, the higher the lease payment. I leased an S2000 before and didn't have any problems returning it. 30 months isn't a long time, and I know the car will be kept in good shape.

I will start to negotiate from the price from now on, but I was trying to strike a deal with a terrible trade and wasn't able to so I just asked him what they would quote me without the trade.

So invoice for my car is $30,341 for a Winning Blue MT with the GT and Nav according to Edmunds. So to get a deal near Zoots, I should be paying around $27,200. Thanks for the info Zoot. If you don't mind, what kind of residual did they give you and what was the money factor.

Thanks for the info.

ERIK

residual after 48 months was 45% - but I financed through Chase... Mazda America Credit has better residuals but worse money factors, the one I got through Chase was about 0.0026 or 6.25%. MAC would have cost me more a month, and then I'd have to pay more when I buy out the lease (which is my plan). I think Mazda's residual was 63% after 24, 54% after 36 months, and 48% after 48, but I'm not 100% on those numbers. I know the dealers got an additional 1000 kickback per Rx8 sold, but I'm not sure that was extended past September - my intuition tells me it was, since Mazda is trying to move the 2004's w/o offering customer rebates that would drive down resale values. By the way dealer holdback is about 2% for Mazdaspeed cert. dealers, and 1.25% for normal dealers.

Welcome to the cult!!

- Irish :cool:

Welcome to the Cult :p :p

You have some fun roads around C-ville to run your 8 on. Enjoy!!

Even if the final payment is a bit over blue book, you *know* the history of this car. There's no risk that the previous owner treated it in a way you wouldn't have. That's worth something.

Yeah and if you have any additional costs - high mileage or minor damage/dings/wear they want to charge you for add that to the cost if you don't buy-out. In other words subtract that from your residual.

I'll probably buy the lease out before it's up - save myself some in finance charges at least. I get to drive some fun roads everday back and forth to school/work (engr grad student, school is a paid job). I spend about 10 miles on windy little 2 lane country roads through the hills, 5 miles on 64 :(, and then another 3 in C'Ville (which takes the longer than the preceding 15)

Welcome to the family....... just remember to use the Search button. j/k :)

I've been a member of the rotary cult for awhile (2 2nd gens) - it's nice to own a car people feel passionate about - but isn't that what defines us rotor heads - we want something other than a couple pistons banging around.

Amen brother! :)

My first time here also. Got my 8 in March but just found out about the club 2 weeks ago while on vacation. Say Dr. Radars car and had to ask questions. Anyway I am diggin mine!

Congrats and welcome to the cult!