I am in the market for an rx-8 real soon and have been doing research. why is it that on the consumer reports it shows the 04 rx-8 get a poor rating for fuel economy and the 05 get a good rating? what are the differences in gas milage for the 04-05? also the ignition got a poor rating, and i have read of a couple coil problems, is this common? do most of your coils go out? do you replace them with stock or aftermarket coils? lastly what does the average rx-8 put down to the wheels?

 

Oh I was searchin' through the forums ...

It's a sports car. It gets crappy gas mileage. Deal with it.

SEARCH

 

i know it gets crappy milage but that wasn't my question. i was wondering if there was any differences in the 04-05 because they gave different ratings for them. damn, i hope not everyone on this forum is an ***.

 

Go drive one and see if you like it. Then go from there.

 

some are asses, some aren't. some people have assy moments, but are otherwise nice. (just like real life)

now...the mileage question has been asked 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times, which is why you got the "search" comment.

that said, some people get really crappy gas mileage, others do better than epa, while most seem to be just under epa (which is pretty standard for most cars), so i'd say expect to be at or lower than epa. my personal best is 23.5mpg, worst 16.5 and avg is 18.4.

another thing to take into consideration is, for the first few thousand miles, you're mileage will likely suck ***...like 13-14mpg, but it will get better over time.

based off posts here (which is a fairly large sample size, if not completely scientificly sound), there isn't a difference between 04s and 05s in terms of gas mileage.

as for the ignition issue, that is probably related to flooding issues (another one that will likely get you the "search" response), that is by and large taken care of (although it can still happen, but, it can happen on any car...piston or rotary). another "issue" is long starts. not a problem, it just sometimes takes longer than normal to start up.

now when the car floods, the dealers are changing the starters out with a differnt version that seems to work much better. some dealers are also changing them when people complain of hard/long starts.

can't comment because i still have the "old" starter. but sentiment is the "new" one is vastly superior.

 

Consumers Reports rankings are based solely on the yearly survey sent to its subscribers. I wonder how many surveys they got from RX-8 owners as compared to Accord owners? Other than no Yellows the 05 is the same as the 04. Do to EPA CAT converter requirement Mazda had to reprogram the first couple of batches of RX-8 to prolong CAT life. The end result was poorer mileage, it took Mazda a few months to fix the early rush job reprogram so many early 04 got under 17 while the later 04 and 05 ‘ should ' get 18-20. Coils are not a major issue don’t worry about them. The common HP to the wheel from owners of stock RX-8’s is around 180, the RX-8 is not a plant your but in the seat torque monster. By the way I own a first batch RX-8 and have 57,000 great miles on it.

 

thank you very much expo1 you answered my question perfectly.

 

When you get the RX-8 it is a crap shoot as to what your gas mileage will be. City MPG ranges from 10 to 18 mpg and no body, including Mazda, can explain why. Test the mileage 1st if you can.

Love the car hate the MPG.

 

by this point, all the kinks in the 8 has been worked out, especially if you hold out for an 2006. The flash, sparkplugs, and recalls are all taken care of. The coils are a non issue for you.

As for mileage, I can get 17/27 city highway with some simple mods. its really how you drive and how well you maintain the car.

 

actually i and others have spent numerous hours explaining it to people who just dont want to hear the explanations. hell i even gave you a link to the statiscal analysis that finds exactly what many of us have said over and over.

 

I think we need a LARGE EASY TO SEE STICKY for potential buyers of the 8. This thread sort of come up every day and we all know its been covered somewhere already.

 

People I know alot of questions get asked a million times and it is best to do a search first, but give the newb a break. If you can't say anything but "go search"...then just leave the thread alone.

Again, I understand your frustration but not everyone is a forum junkie or knows forum etiquette.

I'll say this:

Coils have gone out, but it's a super rare event.

Flooding does happen, but almost 100% of the time it's user error. Learn all you can about the rotary engine...good and bad, do's and don't and you will be fine.

Fuel economy has been beaten to death (I'm one of the horse beaters myself) but I recommend going to the "Polls" section and doing a search on fuel economy. There are at least 2 polls asking what do people normally get from their RX8. Personally, I've never hit under 18.6mpg in all city with a best all city of 20.5 driving like a grandma to test what I could reach. My life time average (7.3K miles and over a year of ownership) comes in at 19.2mpg city. I commute 8 miles to work (16 round trip) and have a lot of lights but I also have a good amount of long straights to help me out. If you beat the car I've heard of getting as low as 10mpg (IF you beat the car) but if you aint hitting 9K with every shift you will probably average the EPA or a little lower as stated.

Like I said, I've had my 8 over a year and it's been good to me in these first 7K miles so I can't complain. I think I'm due for the alternator or battery change since sometimes (since I listen to the radio on my breaks and lunch) it takes a bit of time to get my car to turn on, but as stated there have been a lot of tweaks done to the car and now a days it's running pretty good.

WHP have come in around 180-200 depending on the particular 8, with most 8's coming in the 180's.

 

thanks for all the informative replies.

 

I agree with the 18/23 mpg except in the winter it can drop down quite abit in cold driving. Mazda says dyno's will be inacurate with the 8 because of safe mode sensers. It probably puts 200+ to the wheels but dyno's will not reflect that. The car feels strong above 5k and everybit 200- 210 at the wheels. You got to rev it to feel the power surge.