About to buy MSP, Have questions.

[odie]

My brother is about to buy a 2003 black MSP with 40K. $16K and they are going to give him 2K trade in for his POS kia (which isn't worth $500). There are a couple of things that worry me though. The dealer says that it still has 10K on the factory warranty.
When we test drove the car, the rear left wheel made a kind of hollow clunk sound. Could a shock be blown? Would it be covered under warranty?
Also it has the mazda in dash 6 cd changer like my P5 came with. I thought the MSP's came with the Kenwood system. Did they also come with the regular Mazda radio?
Except for the wheel issue the car drives very nice and seems very clean. Clean carfax, had the tranny replaced under warranty by the previous owner.
Is there anything we should look out for or have the dealer check before we buy?

Thanks

[Omar MSP]

yea, that radio isn't stock.

the left clunk could be many issues with the suspension. it could also jus be the rubber insert that holds the springs could be missing or a blow strut. could also be a loose tie rod.

my tierod was loose when i first installed my eibachs. it made a clunk sounds, easy fix though.

and yes its covered under warranty...

i'd say its an ok price. talk them down to 15k.

i got my speed for 15k after taxes. it had 41k miles on it.

[ChiMSP]

16k is really steep for a MSP. I sold mine for around 14k with 16,000 niles on it... plus the engine was forged!!! A replaced tranny is a warning signal that the car was driven hard, so who knows how long the the internals will hold up. there is tons of info on here about the MSP read it all before you commit. So in short, 16k for a MSP with 40k miles with those possible issues... i'd pass.

[MP3Architect]

yeah i would REALLY work them down in price. if anything else do some searching on here for past msp's sold..and see if you can find some autotrader msps and print them out and use it to negotiate. believe it or not people were able to talk these guys down to 16k when these cars were brand new. i pais 12k for mine when it only had 5k miles! thw warrenty is good on these cars till 50,000 miles though, so they can fix the suspension issues no problem. also all msps came with the kenwood system. check the trunka nd see if theres a sub/amp in there. if all that is missing (shit open the door panals and see what speakers are in there) then you should DEFF get them to take another $1k off since that audio equipment is part of the NADA msp package. good luck!

[MSpeed2397]

What you should do is talk them to $12k or $13k then take the $2k trade and you have yourself a little bit of a deal.

[odie]

Thanks for the replies. We're going back in the morning and I plan on kicking them on the price.
I'm a little worried about it having the regular protege radio if all MSP's came with the kenwood. Maybe the kenwood was problematic so they replaced it with a stock unit? What does the sub look like? Is it the same as the spare tire sub that came with my P5?
I think it's a good thing that it has a new tranny as there is a very good chance that this kind of car was driven hard.

Also, what wheels came stock on the 2003 MSP's? I want to make sure that this car has everything it should.

[protegeric]

see that weel in mspeed2397`s avatar? those are the weels... they probably took the kenwood headunit and one of the techs there has it in their car now... the transmission is always going to be weak. if u guys want a car to modify and make go really fast, eether win the lotto or go get somethin else...


Thanks for the replies. We're going back in the morning and I plan on kicking them on the price.
I'm a little worried about it having the regular protege radio if all MSP's came with the kenwood. Maybe the kenwood was problematic so they replaced it with a stock unit? What does the sub look like? Is it the same as the spare tire sub that came with my P5?
I think it's a good thing that it has a new tranny as there is a very good chance that this kind of car was driven hard.

Also, what wheels came stock on the 2003 MSP's? I want to make sure that this car has everything it should.

[VermZ06]

17 inch racing hart rims with bridgestone potenza tires size 215/45/17 i believe.

[MP3Architect]

man your best bet is to just take a whole bunch of photos of the car and then post them up here. i recall someone last year who bought a titanium and afterwards they posted up pics and they were missing the wing...the rims...the sound system and i think somehting else. and they never even knew it. we can spot every mod or missing thing so just take some pics of it before you make the deal. heres what the stock rims look like...but i wasn't stock at the time this was taken so the car your lookin at should have a few other things (like a wing...and shouldn't be lowered as i am)
http://www.msprotege.com/members/MP3Architect/trip2.jpg

[odie]

Thanks again guys. I'm all over this because it will be my little brothers first "real" car.
I'm pretty sure it had the regular protege 16" rims and not the 17's I see in the pictures.

I just found a copy of the 2003 MSP brochure. I'm going to print that out and bring it with us as I'm sure they'll play dumb when I say "that's not the radio that's supposed to be there" and "those aren't the wheels it's supposed to have". This will probably be the best bargaining chip we'll have.

At this point I should probably make sure it's got a turbo under the hood as well! (it sure drove like it did).

[Captain KRM P5]

pending pics i would pay no more than 12k for that car based on what i have read. sounds like you will be using the balance of that factory warranty.

[MP3Architect]

check out this thread...it took me a bit to find it but this person didn't even know thier mazdaspeed was missing stuff when they bought it. i wonder if your looking at the same car....
http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123617709

[ChiMSP]

Look for another MSP.

[Dugg E Fresh]

Look for another MSP.
X2.
Not a very good deal. If he likes the car that much, search a little more and find a better one. These guys are trying to hide too much.

[FastMSP]

Search another dude...

[MrDiggler]

Yep, I paid 16.9k for my Spicy Orange with 8k miles on it...three years ago! Get that price way down or look for another.
Oh, and the clunk is probably the rear swaybar bushings. No biggie. FWIW, I thought the factory Kenwood head unit sucked.