Hi everyone,

I don't want to rub your face in it, but let me tell you that being in the car feels great. I just got off a 20min drive (as a passenger, I can't drive the car) and I have to get some money and buy one.

The engine is so quiet it's hard to believe. Even at 9,000 rpm you can hear it, but not too loud.

Apparently, the sound system is extremly good. A lot better than in the Mazda6.

The seats are very confortable. Especially the back seat. They are pretty much bucket seat, as the front, and a lot of room and headroom. And the impression of speed is much more present in the back seat than in the front.

Apparently, the rear view is very good, except on the side mirror. There are big blind spot, and it's pretty dangerous since on the highway people drive near the car to see it and they stay in your blind spot.

For you information, the tan interior looks VERY good. After seeing it, the all-black looks kinda normal. I wish more colours had tan inserts.

I will let the joy and excitment of being in the car wear off and come back later to had comments if I forgot anything. If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them.


MarLo

P.S.: All the press car have been return to QA this morning, so no more RX-8 (except the President's car) will be out there.


P.P.S.: All of these are personal comments and do not involve anything official.

 

First of all welcome to the forum MarLo!

I was just curious as to how you were able to get a 20 minute ride in one of the cars? The sound in the Mazda 6 has received some tremendous reviews, looking forward to hearing the RX-8 sound system for myself. Did you actually here the sound system?

Cheers!

 

First, thanks for the welcome. I've been reading this forum for the last 2 years, but now I have things to say so I just registered...


Let's just say I know the right people... :D

For the sound system, I couldn't experiment with it. We were 3 in the car, talking and commenting, and the driver put the radio on but not with good volume. He's been driving it since last thursday (that was he at the golf course, with the yellow RX-8) and he says it's incredible...

 

Hi MarLo,

So how good is the headroom?

At 6'2", it's always a bit of a concern, which is why I went with no moonroof. Hopefully it's at least as good as my MX-3, if not better, since I've never had the seat in that all the way upright.

Also, any word on if the first shipment is on rail yet?

 

With properly-adjusted mirrors, there's no such thing as a blind spot. And by "properly adjusted," I don't mean aiming them so that you get three different views of the car behind you, but instead adjusting them so that their fields of view overlap. See this page for an illustration of how to do this on a Miata, but the procedure is similar for any car.

 

Jasper:

In the back the headroom is very good.

In the front, my seat was not adjusted properly (someone sitting behind me) so I can't give a definite answer. And I was in the passenger seat, it's always different than the passenger. But from what I felt, front and pass, the headroom was "ok" for me (I'm 5'10). I've been in other car that were worst, but it didn't feel roomy up front. Again, this is my opinion in a badly adjusted seat...

And I'll see later if I can get some news on the cars in Vancouver.



eccles:

I'm with you on this one. Since I adjusted my mirror properly on my car, I barely need to turn my head to the sides. But I still do and it saved me from a couple of accident. IMO, there is still some blind spot even with well adjusted mirrors.

Concerning the RX-8, I wasn't driving, so I don't know how the mirrors were adjusted.


MarLo

 

Except that dosen't work for me with my 2003 MP5. The driver side mirror will not move past a certain point (the far let edge of the mirror still needs to turn away from me, at least another 1/4" to 1/2"), still leaving me with a huge blind spot (I'm not sure if it's because I have my seat pushed back as far as it can go to make room for my legs - and I'm only 5' 8")!

I've mentioned this to my dealer and they can not do any additional adjusting - so I went out and bought on of those little fish-eye/wide angle round mirror and attached it to my driver side mirror) ... I've been meaning of sending or calling Mazda about my complant, but have yet to do so ...



Sad, but I have found that to be true. I didn't find that to be a problem with my old 1990 Probe or our 2000 Passat ... But it's a problem with the MP5!

 

bwayout:

Anyway, with the arrival of the new Mazda3, I doubt there is still a lot of work being done on the P5. I wonder is it has been looked into for the M3. Sadly, this is the kind of things nobody can look into until the car gets here...

MarLo

 

MarLo, as a passenger did you find the small "hump" that protrudes into the footwell annoying at all? Was it even noticable?

 

Hi MarLo, welcome to the forum, too!

Since you got to go for an actual spin in the car, before most of us, here ... did you share JSG's experience?

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-discussion-3/its-getting-hot-here-5538/

RX-8 Forum > General Topics > RX-8 Discussion > It's getting hot in here...

I was just wondering?

 

Hey guys!

highspeed8:

Sorry, didn't noticed it. I don't even remember moving my legs around. I tried to see and feel everything, but there was too much details and too little time. I guess you could conclude that if I didn't notice it, it didn't bother me...


bwayout:

Are you talking about the heat? If yes I really didn't pay attention to it. I can tell you that the car was parked outside from 8:30 to 9:00 in a sunny day in TO and it wasn't warm inside when we sit in it. We drove for about 20 min in the sun, on the highway and on little road, revving up the engine and didn't notice anything weird. And when we parked the car (inside a warehouse) we still didn't felt too much heat. I suppose it's safe to say I didn't share JSG's experience. And the driver who had the car for more than 5 days and did more than 1200 km on it didn't say anything about it.

Hope this reassures you!



MarLo

 

MarLo: So, how did you like the ride?!?
I was lucky enough to get a ride in one last night. And man I was impressed.

My Impression:
-Any revs below 5grand and you can barley I mean barely hear any engine noise.
-Very smooth through the revs.
-We had 4 people in the car and the car still pulled good.
-One of my friends in front of me is about 6'2 and I was in the back and we both had leg and head room. Even in the back my friend still had clearence (we switched after about 10mins).
- All the seats are snug and hold you in very nicely even around turns at speed.
- Easy to get in and out from the back and front seat with the door wide open.
- The red paint looks amazing in person. Pics do not do the metallic in it any justice
- The red/black interior is very nice. Only thing I didn't care for is the dash is a little plastic. (it kinda falls between a GM pure plastic dash and a vinyl soft dashs in the early Rx-7's)
- Hardly any body roll.
- No wind in your ear from the open windows.
- The back windows remind me of port holes on a ship.
- The shifter feels really good to the touch and shifting is short and has a really good feel (I got to flip gears from the passenger seat).

That's all I can think of right now....

But my first impressions were very good car and "I WANT ONE"

 

Any thoughts on the quality of interior (plastics and leather) - is it up to BMW/Audi/Lexus standards, or even Mazda6 standards?

 

The interior quality is nice... The leather is wrapped good (not loose) and the red/black leather looks really nice.
Only beef I had was with the aforementioned dash piece (but it's a minor thing.)

 

What about the sound system? Did you get a chance to pump some tunes out, or was everybody making funny noises and touching everything...

 

Sorry, as all of us are big Rotary fanatics (read: Rx-7 owners), we wanted to hear the roar of the new Renisis engine.