MarkW

Anyone read it yet?

The scores they give are as follows:

Design and Engineering 9/10
Performance and Brakes 7/10
Handling and Ridr 6/10 !
Comfort, Safety and Equipment 8/10
Economy 5/10
Market and Finance 7/10

Overall 7/10 "Intriguing but flawed coupe"

They like some things and not others. Much of the critiscisms are the same as previous articles.

Most worrying is the road test times

60mph in 7.1
100mph in 18.1
Standing 1/4 15.3

These are poor indeed, I hope that is not indicative of all the cars.

Maybe someone can scan it in.

Cheers
Mark

Jon H

Just read it too - the words "nit" and "pick" spring to mind. Their experiences seem to contrast with those on the forum who have driven it - and EVO's. All in all, they seem to like it for its uniqueness and nothing else. Each to their own, I guess.

morganrogers

Not Autocar AGAIN surely !

Look , they dont like it - period. We know they dont like it. They seem to be unique in this. Disregard them accordingly !


M.

c170673

From reading the general discussion thread it appears that better acceleration etc is acheived with the DSC / TCS switched completely off (I think this is also how the claimed 6.4 sec 0-60 was acheived)

I can only assume that this test was done with the two devices switched on.

Chris

MarkW

OK, I know morgan said to ignore it but here's some positve snippets from the article:

"THe rotary engine offers mechanical smoothness that reciprocal piston engines cant match"

"An impressive setup includes double wishbones at each corner, a limited slip differential working in conjunction with a switchable traction control system, and light alloy wheels"

"Who cares about torque when at 9300rpm this engine sounds like a superbike with a naughty tailpipe. You just have to try it most of the time"

"Reassuring pedal feel and ample power characterises the braking performance"

"The integrated analogue rev counter and digital speedometer is a total success"

"Generosity is obviously the new black, in hiroshima: The RX-8 is loaded."

"We cant see many people bettering the 22.5mpg average we posted over 900 miles"

rich606

Not sure that they meant this one as a positive

However I will be happy to get 22.5mpg after reading USA threads.:D :D

I was probably averaging 19mpg in my old RX7

MarkW

I dont think THEY did either, but I thought it was :D

RX-Late

Well, at least they have something positive to say.

rael

Well done Mark, something positive can be taken from that overall negative report. Just hope they are not right.

rael

KEF

Accentuate the positive, feeling, negate the negative,

latch on to the affirmative.

Don't mess with Mr in-between

(my mate with his Focus RS had been getting worried about some of the negative comments in the motoring press, now that he's got the car he couldn't give a monkey what anyone else thinks, he loves it, once you've got the keys in your sweaty mit are you really gonna care about some clown at autocar?)

morganrogers

In fairness , I'd have been worried with an RS order given the kicking it got at the hands of TopGear TV and EVO mag....

Oddly though, despite TopGearTV giving it a kicking , the mag made it car of the year... go figure ?

ChrisW

The performance figures don't look too good. 0-60 can be affected by how aggressively they launch it so the 0-100 is usually a much better guide to overall performance and 18.1 is not very good given the supposed 228 hp and lightish weight.

Did they measure a top speed? Not very important in itself but it will tell us a lot about how much power the car is producing.

ChrisW

To answer my own question (just gone out and bought the magazine) the top speed they got was 142 mph (Mazda claim 146). Seems consistent with the slightly disappointing acceleration.

18ME

I started reading Autocar last night before I had to go out and briefly glanced at the RX8 figures and the first paragraph. I find the 0-100 very, very disappointing. 0-60 can vary a lot I know, depending on driver and lots of other factors but that's normally within about a second difference but the 0-100 is around 3 seconds slower than the R32 and about 6-7 seconds slower than Mark's STi which is worlds appart.

Has any other mag tested the 0-100 for comparisons?

MarkW

Dont I know it

If you look at the back of Evo for cars they have tested 0-100, there are several cars with supposedly less bhp and similar or more weight that the RX-8 that do well under 18 seconds.

That time just does not seem right to me for a 230bhp, 1350kg car. It is a bit concerning though.

To answer your second question, I dont believe any other UK mags have had timing gear on the 8 yet. Maybe we should wait until we have some more results before we take it too seriously.

18ME

I think we need Evo or Car magazine to do the proper times. I was expecting somewhere in the region of 15-16 seconds certainly no more than 16secs.
The 330ci I had previously is very similar in size/shape and power and that records around 15 secs to 100 and 6.5 to 62 so how can the RX8 be way off the mark.
I think they should have put that test car on the rollers to be sure it wasn't a crossbreed between the hi and lo power.

AnilS

Just read the article and NOT happy at all . Can't they drive ? Also read the article on page 17, refering to power loss and buyback scheme.

When a mag doesn't like the car, it does'nt like the car. MY god they even mention this forum (I seems) in the write-up.

The road test is negative. I've read it three times (whilst having my Focus MOT'd) and. although MarkW has tried to put positives forward, they are heavily outweighed by the negatives.

Sod Autocar, and all other mags come to think of it, as the only one that can make a valued objective and subjective assessment of a new car is the potential purchaser .... me. I've driven several cars for back to back comparisons, and the 8 holds its head up high enough for me to stcik with my decision.

AnilS.

morganrogers

Hallelujah ! ! !

ChrisW

Just comparing the performance with performance figures for other cars in the back of Autocar:

The RX-8 is considerably slower than an Audi S3 (225 hp and heavier) a BMW 330Ci (230 hp and much heavier) and has similar performance to a 325 Compact (192 hp and a fraction heavier). The top speed is also similar to the compact's, though the 8 must surely have superior aerodynamics.

Even allowing for the non-ideal gearing of the 8 and traditionally understated BMW horsepower figures it looks to me like the Euro RX-8 only produces about 200 hp (210 absolute maximum).

This is similar to the discrepancy observed between the US specification and measured power outputs.

I am assuming that any car that Mazda give to the press to test, knowing that it is going to be used for performance testing is not going to be unusually down on power and will be basically run in. So we can assume these figures are fairly accurate.

AnilS

ChrisW, if I were Mazda I'd be putting the full fat 247 BHP car to them, just like Skoda gave them a rs Octavia with 225 BHP not 180 BHP as Skoda had claimed.

ChrisW those figures are probably close to the truth, and if the BHP is down for whatever reason, god help Mazda.

Maybe another road test, for about 4 months will convince me further:p .

AnilS.