Just received 2 emails from Mazda (Deby). If I knew how to cut and paste it'd put it here, as the second one is quite long.
Jon H and MarkW, you're giong to get it as well. Can either of you put it on the forum ?


Some points;

900 cars on the boat, on their way. So not enough to satisfy ALL 1000 pre-orders.

Mazda never committed to any delivery dates. Apparently its been the forum members that have fuelled speculation!

Problems in USA will be diiferent to UK/Europe was its being marketted differently.

Theres more info. I'll try and print it off and re-type it, when I have time.

The tone of the second mail has changed. Not nice.

AnilS.

 

Anils, If you want to forward them to me, I can put them up.

 

so if 900 are on the boat, are these all high power?

 

No lo-power on 1st shipment afic, lo-power were always coming later, as were non-launch colours.

Only 900 on first ship?

And not commiting to delivery? Sure, they havtn (until now) commited to anything (even BHP).

Now I have a letter stating November thats a damned commitment they better meet.

"Problems in USA will be diiferent to UK/Europe was its being marketted differently."

Ahh, so 30bhp missing is a 'marketing' problem...

 

Letter to Anils.

I'm sorry you are unhappy with your letter. As regards the delivery date,
this hasn't actually changed.

We have only had actual delay on this vehicle. The initial speculation
early on in the programme was that the vehicle would be in the
UK in the Summer. This, however, was never confirmed. We subsequently
announced September and at that stage were confident in our timings. Unfortunately,
as we have communicated to you, the demand is the home market was more than
any of us could have anticipated and the production schedule was then changed to accommodate
that.

We then communicated that these vehicles will start to be available at the
end of October, this has not changed.

With regards to your letter stating 'November', we are ensuring that we manage the expectations of all pre-order customers.
It may be that your vehicle is one of the ones that come through in October
(albeit at the end), but as you can imagine, with over 1400 pre-orders,
we cannot specify exact dates at this stage.

As I mentioned, I do apologise that you are unhappy with this latest update.

Please do contact me if you require further clarification on any of the
above.

Kind regards

Deby Gutteridge.

 

Second Letter

> We have been monitoring the forum and have noticed the displeasure currently
on the site. We have pulled together as much info as we can to keep you
updated.
>
> I will send this also to Jon H and Mark in response to emails they have sent me. Aspects of this email have also been sent to another forum member
in direct response to an email into our customer services department.
>
> I haven't had time unfortunately to reply to all emails in details recently
so hence mass email!
>
>
> As always, please do come through to myself or Michael or Chris with any
queries you have and we will endeavour to provide as accurate information
as we can at stage.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Deby
>
> A letter was sent out last week to all pre
>order customers advising them of the delivery month for their specific
vehicle and also confirming that they will receive further information during
September regarding a more precise delivery date. This letter also provides
details (to the first 1,000 pre-order customers only) of how they can collect their framed Mazda RX-8
pictures.
>
> We currently have 1400 pre-orders and are therefore unable at this stage
to say exactly when vehicles will be arriving in the dealerships. As mentioned,
customers will receive a further communication in September.
>
> For your information, the first shipment of Mazda RX-8 vehicles has left
Japan and is still on schedule for the first units to arrive at the end
of October as already communicated to pre-order customers. This boat is the first shipment of over 900 231ps RX-8 vehicles,
which will satisfy the first 1,000 pre-order customers who have ordered
the 231ps version.
>
> With regards to the vehicle brochure, this is out of the direct control
of Mazda Motors UK Limited as the brochures are produced by Mazda Motors Europe.

> However the brochure is being printed at present and we are expecting
delivery in mid September, and therefore you can expect a copy by the end
of September.
>
> Unfortunately the pricing of the accessories for the vehicle have not been
> finalised, however this should be completed shortly.
>
> The comments regarding the issues relating to the situation in the USA
are noted and we have also read the comments made by members of the forum with interest. The situation in the USA is
unique to that market and their marketing and advertising policies are not
applicable to the UK market. Because the issue in the USA does not impact
on the sale or marketing of the Mazda RX-8 in the UK we have not made any statement over this issue.
>
> With regard to the comments about the UK vehicles again being delayed
by several weeks, this is incorrect. There has not been a further delay
in the delivery of vehicles to the UK. I can only suggest that this is a rumour that has been borne out
of speculation within the RX-8 forum.
>
> We are all aware of the various comments made on the RX-8 Forum
> regarding the performance of Mazda Motors UK Limited and appreciate
>that the initial delay in the delivery of the first Mazda RX-8's into the
UK has fuelled some resentment amongst certain forum members. Please be
assured that your pre-order (and the other 1,400 pre-orders) is important
to us and that we are doing all
>we can to provide accurate factual information to all customers at the
earliest opportunity.
>

 

OK, orders were supposed to be 80%ish Hi-power, so the first ship supplies all the Hi-powered pre-orders in the first 1000.

That looks about right - meybee some left over for dealer demo's?

 

Titanium Grey, many thanks for posting my emails. Its saved me loads of hassle.

Cheers, AnilS.

 

Thanks to both of you for posting the above information, at least we know that there is a boat on the way with all (those in the first 1000) of our High Power cars on board.

I think only the first 1000 have received (or will receive) the picture, so as I picked mine up today it gives me some solice that my car is on the boat.

Chris

 

Just doing my bit. :D

I think the response is quite professional and addresses most of the issues we have been discussing recently.

A bit of a shame it took so long, but I dont get the same 'tone' from the note as perhaps you did.

Thank you Deby G. for spending the time to pass on this information. All we ask is if you could perhaps provide a bit of a drip feed to the forum when you do get some confirmed information. It would help calm some nerves.

 

So you guys in the UK get a photo and a book? What else did you guys get?

Man we didn't get much in Canada compared to other countries

BUT it does seem like Mazda UK is doing the same as Mazda Canada did.... err close.

We didn't actually have a pre-order, it was kind of a "close match" order.

You guys are getting 900 cars for 1000 pre-orders. Because they assume at least 100 will drop out and not buy!

 

No, the 900 cars are high power, low power pre-orders will have to wait!

 

This response from Mazda seems very fair, and we should not really complain about it!..

I believe that it was niave of Mazda UK to act as if the UK buyers would not have any interaction with the US buyers... and a statement to the effect that UK cars would not be affected by the US power issue (Be that emissions/EPA or whatever) would have gone a long way towards avoiding the romours which cannot be doing any of us any good, least of all Mazda UK!

There are a lot of lessons to be learned by both us and Mazda UK over this... and one of the more important ones is that "Internet Time" runs a lot faster than normal time, and updated information needs to be available, otherwise romours will inevitably spread...

Take for example the "Pre-Order" web site... This has not been updated since February... Which in "Internet Time" is long enough for a company to have gone out of business and be long gone... BUT we must remember that Mazda has not experienced this before, and I hope that they can work with this brave new world in the future, because our alternative is that the cars we really want will not be made public until much later..... which in itself will slow the development!

 

So all Hi-powers... regardless of colour?

Mine is Hi-Power, but ordered in Blue..


Blergh, but then my letter says December. So probably not. Not that I mind, so long as it remains December!


-andy-

 

Just to clarify some points:

1. is the contents of the boat coming only to the UK? In other words are all these cars UK cars or are some for our European friends?

2. If the boat has left and Mazda put the cars on the boat then they should be able to tell us now who is getting a car first and who is having to wait.

 

As I understand it these are UK cars.

Indeed they should

 

I'm certain that Mazda know what/whos car is on the boat. After all its a Japanese company (sorry Ford it is) and they are known for their efficiency! Sometimes their even economical ...............with the truth, information, providing customer care etc..........


AnilS.

 

Fingers drumming .... Foot tapping ...

 

If the boat has left and on average takes 25 days they should arrive beginning of October. So the cars our going to take a mont to deliver.

 

Yeah - 2/3 weeks through customers and delivery to dealers. There was mention of a few people getting cars at the end of October which would be about right, assuming this timescale. Lucky sods!

 

I wonder how long they are giving the ProDrive guys to prepare for there courses? I know that the dealers are going to Silverstone towards the end of October for their ProDrive day after which they will take their demonstrators back to the dealerships. You have to assume that ProDrive will need a couple of days if not weeks to prepare for this, maybe that's where the press cars are going in a few weeks time.