My wife and I are thinking about purchasing her cousins rx8. It is a black 2005 MT with every option available (even has leather and navigation). It also only has 24,000 miles. She rarely drives it and it's always been garaged kept. What problems should I look for in the car and how long do the clutches generally last. Also, what would be a fair price for the car. She wants us to make her a "fair" offer. Thanks for all your help.

 

IMHO, the best way to come up with a fair offer is to look it up at Edmonds and/or Kelly. You'll get a wide range of opinions here, some straight and some not so straight. For the sake of family harmony, this kind of thing should be done by the book.

Clutch life depends on how it's been driven. Generally it should not be much different from any other MT car. I don't know enough to give any numbers, but I'm not expecting any surprises from mine.

Ken

 

I think edmunds and kelly over-inflate the value of the car. I say look for similar models online and pay what they are asking (or around it). Maybe like $17-$18-19k?

 

I'm not so sure, every 05 I see for sell is around $21 to $22k, plus it doesn't have many miles on it so he should be able to get more than that for it. But then again you have to add in your family discount.

 

KBB is a horrible source. I fair value would be a near the lower end of the price spectrum that you can find locally on Autotrader.com or the like. AS youi know, somehting is worth exactly what someone will pay for it...

 

Is the rx-8 prone to any problems and does the rx-8 require high test gas and do you go synthetic oil changes?

 

Check with Mazda to see if the recalls have been done.

Also, redline it and look for any odd noises, like Marbles in Teh Can.