Pros: Handles like a roadster, 4-seater practicality like a sedan, good safety features, price
Cons: Watch out, you may already be speeding! Poor fuel economy in city driving.
The Bottom Line: This is a practical sports car. Very recommended except if your driving is 2 mile short trips or if you are not comfortable with stick shift.
This is a review written by a real owner who drives his RX-8 (about) every day. Exactly 3 months ago, 9/16/2003, I was at my dealership for an oil change of my previous car and fell in love with a black RX-8. I had read about it here and there before and I had seen a yellow one a few weeks earlier on a sales event at the mall. Yellow is too much of a toy color though to be seriously considered. 2 test-drives convinced me I had to leave the lot with this car.
Pricing
The first models of the RX-8 arrived in L.A. late July this year, and many had been pre-ordered, so when I bought mine, I had to pay full MSRP. Many dealers in the Bay Area actually marked it up by $2000. Now, in December, you should get MSRP everywhere (it went up by ~$100 though) and last week I saw even an ad offering $3000 off.
The base model starts at $25,000 with an automatic transmission or $26,000 for manual. (The invoice price is about $2000 lower each). I strongly suggest to get the manual transmission (40 more hp). The MT version redlines at 9000 rpm (no power at 9500 rpm), the AT version peaks lower because Mazda couldn’t come up with an automatic transmission that could handle 9000 rpm.
The most popular package is the GT package – it adds heated leather seats, xenon headlights, dynamic stability control, traction control, sunroof, Bose stereo and I think the curtain airbags. I definitely wanted these features except that I didn’t care for the leather seats. With the GT package the price goes up to $31,000 and then you may add a DVD-operated navigation system (not GPS!) for another $2,000. Cool gadget, but I’d never use it so I saved $2,000 here.
Basically, with the heated leather seats, you’re looking at a luxury car. It comes with a strong warranty of 4 years/ 50,000 miles. Since I have a long commute, I bought the extra warranty for $1900 .. 5 years / 100,000 miles.
Strengths
- Practicable
Competitors to the RX-8 are the Nissan 350Z or maybe the Honda S2000. Both are 2 seaters. The RX-8 has those cool reverse opening rear doors aka “suicide doors”.
Full backseats for 2 adults, even when they’re 6 foot tall.
- Great control
This car gives great confidence when you take a curve a little faster than you should. I found that in my third week, when I did a late night drive over curvy Highway 17 through the Santa Cruz Mountains. In a left curve, I was behind a Camaro (the V8 version), the posted limit was 40 and I very easily passed him on the right doing something like 70 mph. I’d been driving an F-body thousand times through these curves and I knew you cannot go faster with that car in curves. In a straight line the 300 hp Camaro would outrun the 240 hp RX-8 easily, but on a real road with curves, it’s a completely different story.
Former drivers of torque monsters like Camaros, Mustangs will find that the RX-8 is slow and that’s true in the low rpm range. You definitely need to shift down in order to get a rush. The high-revving engine doesn’t mind dropping in 3rd or 4th gear at highway speeds. You can take it to ~70 mph in 2nd and 90 mph at 9000 rpm in 3rd gear!
The engine is small – only 1.3l displacement - and they mounted it as far backwards as possible. The front axle is as far forward as possible. This makes for a perfect 50/50 weight distribution, which explains the great handling. A side effect of the motor so close to your feet and the high rpm is that it gets comfy warm at your feet.
- Safety
Curtain airbags protect your and all your passengers’ heads. Dynamic stability control (DSC) will apply brakes on one side if it senses a spinning tire. Very nice, this makes an average driver look like a pro when the car straightens out itself very quickly.
To increase the stiffness of the chassis (no pillar between front and rear doors), there are extra braces behind the back seat. As a consequence you cannot fold down the backseats.
The RX-8 has big, strong brakes. This and because of the relatively low weight, it has an extremely short stopping distance. From 100km/h (62 mph) to 0 takes only an incredible 110 feet. (BMW M3: 112ft, Corvette Z06 116ft. http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1175&perpage=22&pagenumber=2)
- The sound of the engine
My first comment during the test drive was “sounds like a sewing machine”. Other people rather compare it to an UFO though it cannot fly. I find that I listen a lot less to music. I definitely will mute it when I am on a ramp.. it just sounds too good when the car is taken from a low 2500 to 8500 rpm.
There’s a lot more that I could list here, instead I will refer you to a great resource on the web: The RX-8 Forum, specifically thread http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9437
If you want to know all the nice little things, check it out. There is also a similar thread about “what should be different in the 2005 or 2006 model”
Weaknesses
- poor fuel economy
The car is small on the outside and has only a 1.3l engine, so one would expect it to be fuel-efficient. Not the case. With careful driving I get 23 mpg. At 5000 miles, I consider it now fully broken in. On the last tank, I redlined it all the time, routinely shifting at 6000 rpm. I still got 19 mpg but I do drive long distances. I imagine if I’d do a lot of city driving combined with the high rpms, I could go below 17 mpg. There are various threads on this topic on http://www.rx8club.com
In comparison, a Corvette supposedly gets up to 29 mpg.
- Interior
I think that the interior looks great, especially the CD player part. Kind of futuristic. But there are a lot of plastic parts, noticeable especially when you sit on the back seat.
I cannot come up with any serious weaknesses; I’m really satisfied with this car. Little complaints like “The trunk opener is kind of awkwardly located” or “A full tank only goes 270 miles”. “You cannot boil eggs on the heated seats”.
Here is a thread on said forum:
- The HP story
Originally the car was advertised to have 250 hp and pre-production vehicles had this number. Then in order to comply with 2004 EPA emission standards, Mazda had to modify the car slightly. (The following is what I learnt from rx8club.com)
EPA demands that in 2004 models and later, the cat converter lasts at least 100,000 miles. To guarantee this, Mazda had to change the fuel map (in a chip) so that it runs richer in the low and in the high rpm range. Said site has several fuel graphs posted as well as dyno runs.
The richer fuel/air mixture makes the car lose hp and is bad for your fuel economy as well. The general observation is that Mazda did this in kind of a last-minute fashion.
Check out this URL if you’re interested in adding back 25-30 whp (to the rear wheels!) with a piggyback chip. At this point it is unclear, if the lifespan of the cat converter is affected. I was surprised to learn that in order to comply with EPA, the car has to burn more fuel.
http://www.rx8club.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&forumid=63
- Oil pan problem
If you drive for an extended time (10 minutes ) at high speeds (95 mph seem to be enough), then your engine oil light may come on. I’ve experienced this once. The construction of the oil pan in some early models was poor. Your Mazda dealer will replace the oil pan if your RX-8 is affected. I’ll have my pan replaced in 2 months, since it’s no problem right now.
http://www.finishlineperformance.com/rx8/docs/01_027_03.htm
List of all technical service bulletins for the RX-8
http://www.finishlineperformance.com/rx8/docs/index.html
Other tips
The rotary engine needs a bit more care than a cylinder engine. By design it burns a bit oil so you need to check and refill every other time at the gas station.
Another issue is the danger of engine flooding. It’s not advised to start the car, and then turn it off immediately without warming it up. Then again, I do this every time when I wash it (and since it’s black, I wash it regularly) but I never flooded it. This might have to do with the ambient temperature.
With my last car (V6 Firebird), I found that it looked great with its T-tops on the parking lot and had nice punch. After owning it for a few months, I realized that it was cheaply built and had poor handling. The RX-8 is the opposite. While the interior and exterior design sure turns a lot of heads (question at the gas station: “Is this the new Aston Martin? No, wait, it’s a Viper!”), it’s actually how it drives in every day that makes me realize I bought a superb car.
This car is currently winning awards left and right and to any owner, it's no surprise why.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 31500
Condition: New Model Year: 2004 Model and Options: 6sp MT, GT package
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