Someone offered me an 88 Mazda 323 with 79k miles on it for a decent price. Besides it being a nearly 20 year old car, are parts affordable and readily available? Are these cars reliable? It would be a daily driver.
88 Mazda 323....worth a look?
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I had an '88 Mercury Tracer, a clone of the car you're looking at. If I could find another one, I'd want it.
One problem during my ownership... My brother scratched his head over the engine while I complained of running on three cylinders. He diagnosed a faulty injector resistor and wired two injectors to use the same resistor. Certainly not ideal, but worked just fine until we sent the car to the scrapyard a few years later.
The front rotors are a pain in the neck to get off...something about the way they mount with relation to the hub, I can't quite remember.
30 mpg without regard to driving style. The 1.6 liter is essentially the same as the early Miata engine. Parts should be dirt cheap by now.
One problem during my ownership... My brother scratched his head over the engine while I complained of running on three cylinders. He diagnosed a faulty injector resistor and wired two injectors to use the same resistor. Certainly not ideal, but worked just fine until we sent the car to the scrapyard a few years later.
The front rotors are a pain in the neck to get off...something about the way they mount with relation to the hub, I can't quite remember.
30 mpg without regard to driving style. The 1.6 liter is essentially the same as the early Miata engine. Parts should be dirt cheap by now.
IMO, it's a horribly tiny and ugly. If you're OK with that, I guess it's worth checking out. I wouldn't take one if it were free.
I dont' know about parts availability, but for the right price, why not. You probably can't get trim pieces anymore, but the mechanical parts are probably still available.
Watch out for body rust.
Watch out for body rust.
I'd buy that car.
What I would do:
Spend about 300 dollars on a paint job.. clear up and fix any rust spots.
Shampoo the interior, put on seat covers
Wax it, shiny rims.
Tint the rear windows.
Say the car is.. 2000.00
Mods are
-Paint job roughly 400.00 basic
-Rust proof the frame yourself, few hours labour
-Pretty rims, eh 100.00
-Seat covers, 50.00
-Shampoo 40.00
-Window tint 200.00
-Engine Tune-Up 200.00
-Redline SI-1 fuel system cleaner. 10.00
-New fuel filter 20.00
Total cost of making this car long lasting and beautiful:
roughly $1020.00*
Total car cost : $3020.00 not bad.*
*Possible calculation errors
What I would do:
Spend about 300 dollars on a paint job.. clear up and fix any rust spots.
Shampoo the interior, put on seat covers
Wax it, shiny rims.
Tint the rear windows.
Say the car is.. 2000.00
Mods are
-Paint job roughly 400.00 basic
-Rust proof the frame yourself, few hours labour
-Pretty rims, eh 100.00
-Seat covers, 50.00
-Shampoo 40.00
-Window tint 200.00
-Engine Tune-Up 200.00
-Redline SI-1 fuel system cleaner. 10.00
-New fuel filter 20.00
Total cost of making this car long lasting and beautiful:
roughly $1020.00*
Total car cost : $3020.00 not bad.*
*Possible calculation errors
I spoke to the owner and it turns out that it's a sedan and not a hatchback that I am looking for. Back to the search for a Geo Metro...
I'm curious about 91-96 Escort hatchbacks. How are they reliability wise? The one or two i've found have around 125k-130k miles on them.
the escort gt has the same 1.8 motor thats in the 323, or the protege, or the mazda miata. its a strong motor. if you get one with the 5 speed trans code "g" its a very strong trans that can take a beating. i used that setup for rallycross and beat the SNOT out of it and it awalys came back for more. the only thing that did it in was a guy hitting me from behind at 60mph.
My wife had this as her college car. 88 323 sedan with 5 speed. We drove it till the AC went out and I didn't want to replace it. Gets to hot in Texas for the kids in the back seat. I gave it to my BIL who is still driving it as his DD has over 250K on the clock now. We just got have from Europe and a family member loaned us his 88 323 hatchback. I really appreciated that little car when I had to fill it up with gas and it cost me over a hundrded US dollars. These cars are bulletproof IMHO.
Most you'll find have the 1.9L Ford CVH engine. My brother had a couple of these, one of them had 170K on it when he got rid of it because he no longer needed it. The timing belt is pretty easy to replace on these. One of them needed a replacement MAF because somehow a piece of hair got stuck on it (I'm gonna guess someone ran it without an air filter...), that was about $35 from a wrecking yard. It was causing the check enging light to come on. Parts for the Escort are plentiful at wrecking yards, so there's rarely a need to buy anything new.
Also the 1.9L CVH engine is non-interference so a timing belt failure does not destroy the engine. Oh, CVH stands for "canter valve hemispherical" so it really is a "hemi" engine. But don't let the lawyers hear you call it that
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