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Old 07-12-2017, 01:33 PM   #1
John V
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What to do with the Mazdaspeed?

Our fleet is pretty satisfactorily full right now. Marisa is enjoying the CX-5 (and I'm learning to be OK with it... though I still hate the transmission). The truck is effing awesome. The Boxster is, well, it's a Boxster. I love it. And the race car is doing what it should do. My Silverado is gone to its new owner, who is enjoying it.

So where does that leave the Mazdaspeed? Our original plans were to sell it once I had time to clean it up. I did that a couple of weekends ago, and have been commuting in it on days that are too hot or too rainy or otherwise crappy for taking a two-seat convertible that I try to keep in nice shape. And... I kind of like it. It gets reasonably good fuel economy, is peppy, has really good A/C and has a ton of space. It's got great seats. It handles pretty well. It's fast enough to be entertaining. And I already have winter tires for it.

The other thing is that I don't think it's worth much. Retail blue book value is something like $4k on it. I can't see parting with it for $4k, or even $5k. Maybe not even $6k. I'm not sure what they reasonably sell for. Ones that are in not nearly as nice of shape as ours have been listed for $7k on autotrader, but that's asking price. I don't know what they realistically trade hands for in this condition.

The car is really nice (paint and interior are like new.. it's been garage kept and well detailed and it got a new windscreen last year) but it does have 180k on it. It will need a clutch soon. It really should get the timing chain tensioner and guides replaced (common problem with these engines). And it has a light clunk and a little on-center vagueness in the front end that I suspect is tie rod ends but could be ball joints. So, doing all the work myself, about $1k in parts and a solid weekend's worth of work to do.

Options:

1) Sell it, and do what I did last year which is drive the truck on really nasty winter days and drive the Boxster as much as I can during the winter (last winter was very mild ... I drove it a lot). The money would just go into investments.
2) Keep it, fix the issues, and use it as a winter beater and crappy-weather daily driver.

I was going to include another option: Keep it and don't fix any of the issues, just drive it until it stops running. But I know myself, and I can't / won't do that.

So what say ye?
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Old 07-12-2017, 01:42 PM   #2
wdc330i
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I guess I'd vote for running it into the ground first, then fixing the issues if you still want to keep it around at that point. Selling it for $4k probably won't recoup the hit to the Porsche if you put the miles on it instead. And who really wants to commute in a pickup all the time?

Seems like it makes the perfect beater car for bad weather and messy errands. Or parking someplace sketchy.
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Old 07-12-2017, 01:49 PM   #3
John V
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That's very logical. I won't do that. It's either fix it and keep it, or ditch it.
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Old 07-12-2017, 01:54 PM   #4
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Keep it.
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Old 07-12-2017, 01:57 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John V View Post
That's very logical. I won't do that. It's either fix it and keep it, or ditch it.


Ditch it and use the funds to buy AF's RX8 and fix that instead.
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Old 07-12-2017, 02:01 PM   #6
John V
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Ditch it and use the funds to buy AF's RX8 and fix that instead.
But then what would I do with the rest of the money?

No, as much as I'd like an RX-8 to play with, it would have to be a series 2 car, it would have to not be a grand touring (aka leather and sunroof) car, and either way I don't have time for another project for the foreseeable future.
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Old 07-12-2017, 02:09 PM   #7
bren
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The Fix it and drive it option sounds reasonable to me.

When you find it sitting for long periods of time then you can look into selling it knowing that everything is in top shape. It's not like a few thousand in profit and/or parts is going to impact your bottom line.
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Old 07-12-2017, 02:35 PM   #8
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Maybe this is something you have never considered, and I have no idea what type of tax returns you have to file, but . . . When we left our home in NJ to hit the road RV'ing, I had a ford taurus winter beater. I donated it to a local church group that provided "stuff" for needy people. (for all I know, they used it for their own use, who cares)

They gave me a very official tax receipt, and told me to fill in the blanks. Saved me a lot on my 2006 tax filing (but you can't be ridiculous on the value you asign to it) I also figured it gave me some positive karma points
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Old 07-12-2017, 03:30 PM   #9
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If you've got the space, keep it. It's a nice in-between car, and since you have the time and talent to keep it running, the benefit from keeping miles off the Porsche on shitty days probably far outweighs what you'll spend maintaining it.

Alternately, fix it up, do a thread like you did for Matt's car, and list it for (relatively) big $$$. I suspect you could get top-of-market for the car, given the way you take care of and document things, and if you don't, keep it.
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Old 07-12-2017, 05:42 PM   #10
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But then what would I do with the rest of the money?

No, as much as I'd like an RX-8 to play with, it would have to be a series 2 car, it would have to not be a grand touring (aka leather and sunroof) car, and either way I don't have time for another project for the foreseeable future.
Sheesh the sunroof thing again .. I totally forgot to look and see if it has one ...

I'd keep your mazdaspeed and put the maintenance into it ... I kind of know what you're going through ... I still have my sons white A3 and I just can't get myself to give it back to Audi. I drive it and it feels good but more importantly it was his first car and I think that gets me right in the heart.
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