First things first, I'm an obvious noob and have never worked under the hood. With that said, I'm a quick learner and wanted to know what sort of things I should look for when examining an RX-8.

I have read something about sludge under the oil cap. Is there anything else that would be considered a red flag from a DIY inspection point of view?

 

i've never heard of that....

what you want to do is take the car out and floor it to redline. see if it pulls smoothly. see if it shifts smoothly.

 

I would never ever buy an RX8 without a detailed service record. These cars are simply way too sensitive to periodic and proper maintenance to just buy on word that it was done. I would buy the lowest mileage one I could, get the VIN, have it run through Mazda to see what warranty work was done if any as well. And contrary to most cars, if the owner says he babied it, I would pass. If he said he drove it like it should be driven, AND taken care of like it should be, then I would be interested.

 

I contacted Mazda and while they don't have the ability to look at detailed maintenance history, they were able to see what sort of warranty work was done on the car.

This one has only had minor stuff like a new gas cap and tail lights.

While it is 1500 miles out of bumper-to-bumper warranty, it still has almost 10000 miles on the powertrain and another 50000 miles on the core engine warranty.

Considering that the car has had a Mazdaspeed cold air intake and stabilizer bars installed, not to mention the 600watt amp and 10" sub, I would think this car was pretty well cared for.

The odds of getting detailed service records on ANY used car are pretty slim. I mean, how many people keep that kind of paper work around for days let alone years....

 

Get all service records. VERY important. Do a carfax *like any other car*. There really aren't too many "tall tell signs" that say "If you see sludge under the oil cap, it's bad". Cause..well..I've never heard of that

Also, if they installed their own stereo equipment, it wouldn't hurt to have a proper mechanic that knows electronics extremely well look over the work. I always hated getting into the 2nd generation RX-7's to see somebody mucked with the radio and the wiring looked to be done by a 3 year old.

 

The first thing I did was pull a Carfax report. It came up clean as a can be. No accidents, no outstanding recalls, just one owner.

Carfax doesn't tell the whole story though. The odds I could get service records are slim. How may people keep those handy while they own a car?

 

As others have suggested, a service history, even if it's just receipts for regular oil changes, means a lot. Also, a CARFAX or a VINCheck is a good idea. I ran a VINCheck on every car I was considering and they revealed some troubling info on many of them. Anything from past damage to rolled back odometers. I found an especially high occurrence of these on used car lots where the dealers bought them at auction. You can purchase a multi-use carfax or vincheck (vincheck is cheaper via nadaguides.com) so that you can run multiple vin numbers for a certain number of days. Well worth the money for peace of mind.

The car I ended up with came back with a clean vin check and very good service history. Everything from oil changes, brake service, to a receipt and warranty for the window tint. Between that and Mazda extending the engine core warranty to 100k, etc., I feel very good about the car considering it was used. It's very clean inside and out. Most people that have seen it were stunned to find out the car was used - it literally looks brand new. It had one little door ding that I had removed and the engine cover was dusty and the seller apologized profusely for those 2 little things - that said a lot to me.

Also, I called Mazda with the VIN and made sure any outstanding recalls had been taken care of and they were.

 

Have the car hoisted up so you can see the undercarriage, these cars are low and the last person may have thought skid plates are to be used regularly...

 

Well, yes, service records ARE a rare find... all the more reason to really like that car! Also beware of Carfax, accidents and such don't always show up, if they do, they take about 7-8 months after the accident to be updated. Accidents themselves don't mean anything. Th car could have just had its bumper cracked as we all know just how durable these plastic things are.

Im not so sure sludge under the cap is a feasible thing to look for here. The RX8 has a long filler neck.. not sure what you are going to see down there..

If they went to a jiffy lube or some other place, there would be a record of each change and what they had done to it including what kind of oil was used.

 

Make sure the Tranny is nice and smooth. Also.... redline it a couple times. If you want to look at the engine. Don't be afraid to pop the engine cover right off.

 

No, accidents don't mean the car is trashed. But when you look at a carfax and it says "frame damage", you may want to have a little concern. Odometer rollbacks are a red flag for me. If they did that, what else are they hiding?