I wasn't sure where to post this, but just another example of "Buyer Beware" when shopping for an RX-7 (or any car really).
I just got back from a 7-hour round trip drive to Pompano Beach (Ft. Lauderdale area) to look at a 1993 RX-7 R1 CYM that was advertised as being "stock" and "accident free" with 59,xxx miles and a recently replaced motor (work done by Mazda dealership). It's currently on eBay with a couple days left, at $13,100 current bid.
Here is the vehicle in question:
Mazda : RX-7 R1 in Mazda | eBay Motors
The car has the VIN number JM1FD3319P0206769 and is located in Pompano Beach, Florida. The seller's name is Gary Eichsteadt and his eBay ID is stock2180.
Short story: the seller is clearly misrepresenting and also flat-out lying about the history of this vehicle so he get it off his hands. The car has been in a fairly bad front end collision, has been completely repainted (poorly), and has other issues.
Long story: I got in touch with the seller a few days ago. In our first conversation, the seller told me he would sell the car for $15,000 locally. I asked all the basics and the answers sounded too good to be true: 1 owner car, "my wife drives it to and from work", no accidents, original CYM paint, all stock / all original, and there was a "new motor" installed by the Mazda dealership just 3000 miles ago. The car is listed with a vehicle history report that APPEARS to be clean and accident-free.
It sounded great, but I noticed a few things about the photos that concerned me: #1 the gap between the hood & front bumper looked inconsistent, #2 the black plastic headlight shrouds were missing, and #3 the front emblem was missing. I contacted the seller to ask about these things. He replied claiming that the emblem was "pulled off" when he "peeled off the spray-on clear bra that was previously applied" and that he "gave the headlight shrouds to a friend who needed them". I then checked the seller's eBay history and it showed that he recently purchased a stock air intake cover (the piece that sits on top of intercooler ducting and diverts air to the intake box) - I thought, why would this guy randomly buy that part if his car was already "all stock" and "never modified" as he had so claimed. I was still skeptical but decided to check out the car anyway.
This morning I woke up at 5:30am and made the 3+ hour drive to see the car. The seller met me in an IHop parking lot without the RX-7. He then had me follow him to his house where the RX-7 was parked in the driveway.
Before I was even out of my car, I could tell the RX-7 had been repainted: I could see that some of the trim pieces (that should have been black) were painted yellow. Also, all four fender wells had pretty bad overspray. I looked under the car and saw overspray everywhere. I then walked and looked in the front bumper opening to find a brand new shiny crash rebar behind the bumper skin. I also noticed some poorly installed aftermarket fog lights (they were literally held in place with caulking). I also noticed that the fender liners were loose on both sides and there were a number of random bolts missing throughout. I looked at the paint again, and I noticed that the entire front end and both sides of the car had been completely repainted with the wrong paint - the yellow didn't match that of the roof or the spoiler. Also, the paint was already starting to chip at the edges - on the doors, the fenders, and the bumper.
After seeing all this, I asked the owner how long he had owned the car, to which he replied, "I am the original owner." I then asked him when the car was repainted, and he said, "It hasn't been repainted. I did take it to Mazda awhile back to fix a small ding in the rear fender but maybe they just repainted the whole car." I told him that was very unlikely that Mazda would give him a free paint job, and also the paint job did not look to be Mazda quality.
After that I asked him to pop the hood. When I got it open, I could tell right away that the entire front half of the engine bay had been repaired, pulled-out, and repainted. It looked like the front half of the engine bay was repainted by hand using a brush and the paint color was completely off - it looked like "Ryder Truck yellow", not anything close to CYM. I also noticed yellow paint overspray on the alternator, factory, AST, and other places. The bolts that attached the fenders & hood had clearly been removed and reinstalled. The hood latch was also warped and it looked like the metal of the chassis had been pulled-out or even re-welded in some areas. It was clear that the car was in a front-end collision and the repair & bodywork must have been done by some half-assed body shop. It looked like a cheap Maaco paint job that was done in an afternoon.
I then checked out the interior and found random holes in the carpet, and miss-matched interior plastics. The car was a '93 but it had some random '94 interior plastics on the doors, and the passenger's side grip handle plastic looked like someone had taken it off and spray painted it gloss black. The interior speaker grills were somehow rusted. There was a cheap boost gauge glued to the dash / a-pilar and the dash was cut so the 3/8" thick wiring sleeve could go though the dash. There was also some kind of cheap fog light switch screwed into the underside of the dash near the hood-pop.
Then I checked out the brakes and suspension. I saw rust spots here and there, and more overspray.
After seeing everything, I said to the seller, "Look, be straight with me. I just drove over 3 hours to see this car. You told me it had never been in an accident and never painted. The car has clearly been in a front end collision and the whole car has been poorly repainted." His wife, who was standing around outside with us, rolled her eyes and went inside without saying anything.
The seller denied all of it. He said the car had never been wrecked, he said it had never been painted, and it was "all stock". I asked him where the work was done and he said "It's always been serviced at Mazda." So then I said, "OK, well do you have the service records?" He said, "No." So I said, "Can we get them from Mazda then - Mazda would have all the records." Again he said, "No." I told him that I wouldn't be able to offer him $15k for the car. I said $11k or $12k was more reasonable because of all the issues and the accident damage. To that he said, "I wouldn't sell it for that! I could spend that much money before going to lunch!" (What does that even mean?)
At that point I said, "Look, I know the car has been in an accident and repainted. And I don't believe that you would be unaware of such a thing if you are the original owner. If you had just told me the car was in an accident and repainted, I wouldn't have come to see it - you just wasted 7 hours of my time and $80 worth of gas and tolls." To that the seller said, "I don't like your attitude, get off my property." I told him he is falsely advertising the car and I was going to post all this information online and report him to eBay. He said, "I'll sell the car to someone who isn't an asshole like you!" and then stormed into his house.
Now, I've bought 2 RX-7s in the past though eBay - both times I got exactly what I was expecting. Just a lesson to everyone: BUYER BEWARE. There are lots of shady sellers out there who will lie through their teeth to make more money on a car.
UPDATE: After posting this same thing on RX7Club, someone was able to check Mazda's system for records on this vehicle, here are the results:
So Garry Eichsteadt has been caught flat out lying again: He claims that there are only "3000 miles on the new motor" and he told me (in person) that the motor was installed, "just a year or two ago", yet in reality the motor was installed in 1994 and should have at least 36,000 miles on it if the odometer is accurate.
Hopefully anyone looking to buy this car sees all this information before paying what Garry is asking.
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