Paint or sell?
 

Firstly if I'm posting in the wrong area I'm sorry.

Before I sell my 2005 RX-8 Shinka I wanted to get some input from you guys. I'm the original owner, the car has 21,500 miles on it. No accidents and the interior is clean. The problem with the car is the roof has clear coat failure and needs repainting.

I took it up to CarMax last night and they offered me 7000.00 as is. Is this a good price or should I look into getting it painted and then sell it?

Heres a picture of the roof
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Find out how much it would be to get it painted. Hard to say what your car is worth without knowing everything about it. How healthy is the engine, ever been compression tested? Auto or manual?
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It's a six speed and I had the engine replaced as soon as the recall started because I had compression problems. It runs well now and the dealership gave it a clean bill of health.

Like I said it's clean throughout and even CarMax complimented me on the condition with the exception of the roof. I'll probably just take it up there and get the 7000.00

Let me tell you this Taylor, you can sell it for a lot more money, even with the clear coat failure on the roof. I was 'naive' and bought my '04 Red RX-8 GT for $9k at a dealership; oh it had ~98k miles and this is in terms of Chicago, where the prices are outrageous for a stupid rx-8.

I doubt you will get "a lot more money" for it either way. I have seen immaculate low mileage 07's for 12-13k. At most I would say it's worth 8-9k with the paint damage. Are you sure it was never wrecked? Paint issues are very rare for RX-8's.

However, you could get the paint fixed pretty cheap ($1,000.00 or so) by a decent body shop.

Thanks for all the replies. And yes I'm sure it's never been in an accident. I'm the original owner. I live in Fort Lauderdale and don't have a garage, that's the Florida sun for you.

Weird, mine looks near perfect and has lived it's whole life (8 years) in the Texas sun, it's only garaged at night. But a good shop should be able to blend it and re clear it. But if it's time to go then just trade it and move one, there is no sense dealing with the hassle to only improve it's value slightly.

You got very low miles in it. CarMax low ball you, and if i were you, paint it first, then sell it, good luck.

ive seen a winning blue 8 here with the paint going bad,
the owner now live in texas. and has not had anymore problems.
but 7000 grand for an 05 will be about right, you have to remember carmax
is looking to make a profit for reselling the car.
they cant make any money if they give you what the car is truly worth.

In a few months my current RX-8 will hit 8 years old...it's an 04 and it'll be at almost 100k miles.

All my paint failed on the roof too, as well as on the trunk and hood, and I decided to repaint it instead of sell it. This was mostly due to the car being pretty much worthless (I think I'd be lucky to get 7k for this now even though it has a new clutch, tranny, engine)...and also due to the fact there are no cars out right now that I'm interested in that are selling for a reasonable price...except that new Jaguar F-Type which hasn't been released yet.

I got mine fully repainted, and it was all R&I plus they took all the glass off too to get those impossible to reach crevices, for 2k. New engine was free from warranty, clutch and tranny were about 3k after labor and everything, plus I had to get new tires several months back as well, so I've already dumped over 6k into this thing in the past year when you include oil changes and spark plugs/coils too. Already getting to the point where more money will be going into the car than it's worth, but again, I just haven't seen any cars out there until just recently that catch my eye enough to want to finally retire the 8.

The low miles thing is mostly beneficial within a specific time bracket (especially within the first 5 years). But reality is the car will soon be 8 years old. It is an old car, with very low miles, but still an old car.

As 9k said, I would not go through the hassle of repainting just to get a bit more money. I would probably sell it as it is.