I was a 16-yr old boy once, and I remember how I and my friends drove... NO WAY would I buy my teenage son a sports car. (Actually, he got my 4-banger Accord for his birthday, when I got my 8. )

It doesn't matter how mature or responsible he is. No 16-yr old completely understands the potential consequences to their actions.

 

So Furious Porkchop you started this thread and asked for our opinions. So many of us have responded. Weeks have gone by here. What have you decided or already done ?

 

Agree with much said above. To add, the RX-8 is a sports car, meaning it goes where you point it *right now*. A teen is the definition of a distracted driver. Also it's small, low and difficult to see and see from. No way my 18-20 yo got behind the wheel of my 8. At 16, he wouldn't have lasted a week, which is why bus, bicycle, and foot took him where he needed to go through high school and didn't get his license until 18.

If money is a major concern, do *not* get this car. Autozone won't have most of the parts and few mechanics know squat. A beater is cheapest but will take more time to keep running. A new Corolla or the like, the opposite. His time is not free - you are paying $$$ to keep him fed and in school and that's where his focus should primarily be. Auto maintenence as a life-skill is best learned on a used car that's like every other car and not on probably the weirdest one possible. IMO, no 16 yo should have his own car. If he does, make it a common inexpensive sedan, preferably one shared with the rest of the family. Have you looked at what it would do to your insurance rates? (Have the Tums close by.)

 

I ended up keeping the car.

Right now my son is attending his drivers ed, that 3hrs a day coupled along with 5hrs of football for him doesn't give us much time to go for drives anymore in the 8, but he still gets an hour in daily driving to and from driving school. Judging by the way my son has been driving with me, I believe he will be able to handle the car. I know you guys don't know my son, and some of you say you would never trust a 16yr old with an rx8 but I think maybe if you saw my son, you might make an exception. The behavior and maturity he has isn't like any other kids I've seen. As long as he keeps his grades up, behaves, continues to do well in football and then indoor track, I believe he and I will have no problems maintaining the 8 and a healthy father-son relationship at the same time.

 

You didnt read the threads. It is not about the father-son drives, where he is going to be on his best behavior. It IS ABOUT when he is driving alone and driving with his teenage friends that he will have the peer pressure to show what the car can do. Too many well-meaning parents have given their good teens an RX8 and wound up with horribly injured and deceased kids. As I said before just do a internet search , fatal accidents-RX8-teens, and you will see the sad stories of other good kids whose parents thought they were good drivers, and good responsible kids. Once they got alone in the car with their friends, everything changed and lives were ruined and lost.

I think from the first post you had already decided to give him the car, so why bother asking for our opinion at all.

You think you are being a great dad, and you may be a great dad in many ways, but I am sorry to say, here you are being an idiot, and risking the life of your son and any other teen that rides with him. . I just pray you don't live to regret this for the rest of your life. At this point there is no reason for this thread to go further, you had already decided from the beginning. Keep the car for yourself, but don't make the horrible mistake of giving it to your son. Grow up and think like a responsible adult and parent here.

 

"The behavior and maturity he has isn't like any other kids I've seen."

Yes of course, being the product of you, your son > my son and everyone else's on here with kid-raising + RX-8 experience advising you not to do this. There is not a 16 yo beginning driver alive today that I would put in an RX-8 and turn loose. There is not a 16 yo on the planet with a fully-wired brain either. Oh well, you didn't come here for advice, you came here for props on your dumb move. You remind me of the father of a best friend in back in high school who gave his son a tricked out new Mustang fastback for his 16th birthday. Lasted 6 months before he lost control at high speed on a road near my house one night, flipped, killing himself and 2 of the 3 other teens riding with him. I got to see the blood dried into the ground where they died, and the shiney chromed 390 V-8 his dad was so proud of sitting by itself in the ditch. Another dad who let another BFF drive his 'tang at 16 - he lost it driving normally on a wet road. Didn't kill him, but both paralysed his passenger and gave him brain damage; it took 10 years before he died of those injuries. Both Jerry and Reed were "A" students, btw. So was friend Gary (finished 3rd in a graduating class of 750) who skidded his Mustang into a concrete bridge support. Common thread: good kids + sports car = disaster.

Hope your kid and his buds survive your decision.

 

when(if) I have a kid, I will not let him get his licenses until he is 18 (which he can get it on his own)

I was young once and I know exactly what 16 yr old feels like.

Some people might think "Rx-8 is slow" so it's good for kids, that simply means this "person" can't drive for **** and have no idea what the rx-8 is capable of.

I also wouldn't get a Civic for my kids, if he/she wants something, go get it on your own. That's what I did and I think that's the right way to do.

 

If I can powerslide and spin 180* at AutoCross, then it is too much for a 16 year old.

The car might look good and get a lot of stares from pedestrians and such, but when I am on the highway, people have a hard time noticing me since it is lower and smaller than all the soccer mom barges. I get run off the road almost every time I drive my RX-8.


Get your son a ticket/card for public transportation. That is more than he needs.

 

Thank you for flaming me, because I did not act the way you want.
No matter what car my son drives, if he speeds and crashes there are going to be chances of injuries and deaths. For every car out there, there is a horror story. The RX8 has 4 stars for it's crash ratings. We got a great deal on the car.
And to those saying get him a bike/bus card, there is no public transportation around us and there is no busing to his highschool.

 

Furious, take how they are saying what they say with a grain of salt.

There are those of us that have varying motivations for saying what we do, or pushing a particular perspective. Some of us don't want to see your son involved in anything deadly or harmful to him or others (we honestly care), some of us don't want to see another RX-8 destroyed in the hands of a teenager (even if it isn't their fault, it's WAY too predictable), some of us don't want to see an RX-8 in the news as the cause of a tragedy (have been a few of those, degrades the reputation of the community), and some see it in more than one way.

Everyone has a different way of pushing their perspective, some people with personal experience that makes them feel intensely strongly and/or emotional about it, others take a more clinical and logical approach. And probably none of them are quite speaking in a tone language that you are particularly receptive to.

So take the 'attitude' and 'tone' of people's written words with a grain of salt, and see their intent more than how it comes across. It's something I encourage everyone on the forum to do.

 

i think what everyone here is trying to say is yeah thats true but your raising the potential quite a bit by giving him a car that get to the 'danger zone' much more readily.

when i was 16 i drove the family full sized van with a V6, no tickets or accidents till much later and in a different vehicle. one of my friends graduated 1st in our class of just under 1000 and his parents bought him an older M3 as a reward, before college started in the fall that car was literally broken in 2 around a tree. being smart and a good kid really has nothing to do your judgement as a teen.

 

Furious Porkchop think here. It DOES NOT matter if the RX8 has a four or five star crash rating. In the RX8 teen fatal crash near me, the kids lost control drove off the road into trees, and the car exploded and burned to the ground, burning them alive. No crash rating will save your son in ANY fast collision or accident. You are really trying to fool yourself into thinking the car will save your son from foolish or reckless teen driving. Boy both you and your son are in deep trouble here. If I can find the phone number of those parents in our news files, and will pass it on to you. Talk to them and see what in hindsight they would have done differently. They have tearfully stated they never should have given their "A" student son a sportscar, and they will carry the regret and grief all their lives.

Just don't come back here to the RX8 forum with your angst after a tragedy that YOU could have prevented. But I guess it doesn't matter how many posts from people with experience, and who have witnessed these tragedies there are. You are set on doing it, hell be damned .

 

I'm gonna echo the general sentiment here that even a good 16 year old kid with high GPA, varsity sports, and responsibility, won't have restraint enough to control the spontaneous spurts of hoonage. Even adults don't really have a handle on this, so how can a 16 year old?

Testing limits and occasionally crossing them is a normal/healthy part of teen development.

All it takes is one accident.

FWIW...

 

The Rx-8 may not hit 60 in 4 seconds but it can still go damn near 150 mph. I'd try and talk you out of it but you don't want to seem to listen. Your son may be an excellent driver, responsible and level headed but he has ZERO experience driving in the real world right now. The rx8 is a very forgiving car, especially if you know what you're doing. However, to be quite frank, your son does not at this point and time have that experience.

 

No, *you* got a great deal on the car. Explain what that has to do with the safety of your son (hint: you can't).

RIWWP says it best. What you interpret as flaming is an attempt to get you to see that this is a really dumb idea. You may be brilliant in every other area, but this *idea* is dumb, regardless of the great deal you think you got on the car.

(BTW the 8's fuel tanks are ~2 - 3" under the rear passengers' butt cheeks.)

 

I just read this post and I too can add to this list from my experience in high school. I'll save the details, as this is all too common.

 

I think the best thing to do for your son is lock him in a padded room and keep him as safe as you can from the dangers of this cruel world... I mean think of all the hellacious things that teenagers might get themselves into.. If you take away all of the opportunities for them to make stupid decisions they can never make them! What a wonderful idea.

 

You said it yourself "No crash rating will save your (my) son in a fast collision or accident." That applies to every car out there that can travel on a highway. I'm not trying to fool anyone. But you obviously are so smart that you know me and my son better then we know ourselves, so please, tell us what we are going to subconsciously going to do next?

Regardless, this will be my last post on this thread. No matter what car I put my son in, there is going to be a risk he will crash and die. There is that risk in every car out there. There is nothing I can do, or anyone else can do out there. The only thing these crashes have in common is what caused them, whether it be drinking, speeding, distractions, other drivers, etc. It isn't the "car" that kills teens, it is the people driving them in extreme circumstances.
I too can name off deaths from when I was a young adult, none of those involved an rx8, but yet they still died. I guess that we shouldn't drive cars at all, because all cars are dangerous.
To the gas tanks under the rear passengers: I would assume in any car if the gas tanks/gas was ignited that there would be no survivors/fatal injuries.

Edit: Thanks kingdan2, it seems you actually understand what I'm saying.

 

YOU JUST DON"T GET IT!! YOU ARE SO THICK HEADED !! Yes a teen can die in a civic or an RX8, but the RX8 will do almost 150 mph and will get you into worse trouble as a teen pushes it to its limits and beyond. And at this higher speed and traction limits there will be less time or ability to recover from any mistakes.

Why did you even bother to post here? A complete waste of everyone's time. "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink." "You can try to enlighten somebody, but they have to have their mind and eyes open to see the light"

Your mind is closed to any possibility. Like so many, "It could never happen to my teen" But it does !

You just wanted someone to validate your decision to give this RX8 to your son, and you thought RX8 enthusiasts here would. Surprise, we who own and drive these cars (some of us driving rotaries for decades) know better what horrible risk giving any sportscar to a 16 yr old is. So now that you got 99 % negative feedback you will just go ahead and do what you had decided at the beginning. So be it.

 

how is 150mph that much worse than 120mph? You have not really convinced him that the car is killing people instead of people killing people. have you ever thought that maybe the reason your not persuading someone is because your argument sucks?

 

Hey Kingdan2 , Go ahead and give your teen an RX8. It's your choice. You two fathers can get together on this. Its a free country, even for dumb decisions.

 

Thank you sir, peace be with you.

 

^+1. I get it now. It's the same mentality I've been hearing for years, full of either/or thinking. Either lock him in his padded bedroom or put him in a car that maximizes the risk to himself and others. No middle ground, no process of learning acknowledged. "Real Men" take stupid risks, got it.

Humm, football season about to start. I'm betting after some game (dark night, wet road), this car is toast.

Waste of time to continue. <unsubscribing>

 

this is the same as giving someone that has no exp with firearms an ak47 or a popgun, yeah you could kill someone with either one but its far more likely that someone will die by accident from the ak....

 

I think...what the majority are trying to emphasis before it got out of context is that it's not wise to buy a sports car for your kids 1st vehicle. Reasons being multiple:

1) Usually more power (not in the 8's case) for trouble
2) Sporty feel for the kid to want to push boundaries and feel like a racer on the road
3) High cost associated with repairs (very relevant to our case)
4) Peer pressure from friends to speed excessively or do crazy things in traffic with a sports car than a typical sedan and/or truck.

Under those premises I would agree and I wouldn't get a sports car for my kid either if I had one. Start them out in a sedan or light truck that has about the same hp as the 8 keeping in mind they're much heavier and not as aesthetically attractive to work over someone to push the boundaries of the vehicle.

Regardless if you think your kid is a saint, it's not a matter or if but when your kid pushes it beyond the vehicles limit especially for a boy. It's part of growing up and finding those fine lines of what to do and what not to do, it will happen, we all have been there. Only question is will it be something they'll laugh and talk about years later with their friends how stupid they were growing up like we do, or will it be something everyone else will be talking about year later while they're in the grave.

We're not saying stuff them in a padded room, just chose wisely what vehicle you get them for starting out.