As a 2 week old RX8 owner I thought I would add a few thoughts.
Most are from reading other threads/posts in this forum.

1. I changed my oil at the 1000 mile point. Maybe not necessary, but it's a habit I've gotten into on new cars. I drive/commute about 155 miles/day (round-trip) to Birmingham, so I have about 2100 miles in 2 weeks. (I traded my 99 Miata(new) with 163K miles on it, never any problems.) I had no trouble getting the oil filter off with one of the tools that goes over the end of the filter and about 18" worth of extensions. I was suprized to see no enough oil came out of it when loosened, to drip off the engine, Just wiped the what ran down off. (No hole punched in it either)

2. I'm a little disappointed with the mileage, but it's probably a fair trade-off from the Miata. (Did I say I really liked that car). From what I read I have nothing to complain about. My normal commute is about 30 miles of back roads (approx 60mph), and 110 miles of interstate, usually in the 80's, with the rest city streets. I cannot go 2 complete days on a tank, and even ran out last Fridat trying. From bone empty, I figure I put 15.4 gallons in the tank. I WILL settle on a gasoline grade eventually, but don't see a lot of difference so far. Can't say I've really stomped on it much, just a couple 4th gear passes when people won't get out of MY lane.

This is my excel file of mileage so far:

Miles Gals. MPG Octane Running Average
290.2 13.93 20.83 93 20.83
308.3 14.86 20.75 93 20.79
240.0 11.23 21.37 87 20.95
298.8 14.50 20.61 87 20.86
307.4 15.35 20.03 87 20.68
166.2 8.01 20.75 89 20.68
297.8 13.86 21.49 89 20.81

3. Really thouht the idea of the Nav playiong movies would be great. I'm still not so sure it's a hardware thing. I saw some posts that said it was a Panasonic unit, so I little research on the net has turned up the cn-dv2000 that Panasonic sells in Britan. Their manual (available on the Panasonic UK site) shows that that model plays music, and movies, IF the parking brake is set (ie. Jumperable) The manual is at least as good as what we get. It also shows other options, we don'y have. They do specifically say, that it ONLY plays DVD from region 2 (UK and Japan). So I'm still left wondering if this is just a software/firmware issue.

OK, probably too long already. Thanks for listening

 

Given you do a fair amount of highway driving I say that's about right. I wish it was higher too, but o'well.. I do mostly city driving and the mpg freighting.

 

OK, one more thing I forgot. A few months ago I bought the Auto x-ray EZ scan 6000, spcifically to read my wifes Mazda 6 (CAN protocol) and my NEXT car.

It hard troubles reading the 6 until a got an update online, and now I keep getting a "loss of communications" error on the RX8. We are corresponding via email to correct this, I hope.

 

GT-Kid,
Welcome to the forum. I commute 80 r/t to Huntsville AL every workday, and average 21-22 mpg.

Which direction are you from Birmingham?

 

Sorry, been a busy week. I am north of Birmingham, in Cullman.

Also, from the previous issue about the EZ Scan 600. I got a repley telling me about their latest s/w update 2.4. Eveything works great now. Even a few extras I hadn't seen before. Like a percentage readout of fuel level, number of cold starts and number of miles since the last clearing of codes.

I read a story not to long ago about about some kid who was being procesuted for vehicular manslaughter because his ECU/car said he was doing something like 110 1 second before the air bags deployed, when he claimed he was going much slower. The cars have a lot of what could be "tatle tale" information stored. Although I'm thinking more of warranty repairs than causing wrecks. Something to keep in mind.

 

We are neighbors, as I live in Guntersville.

Have to get together sometime for a ride, and check out each other's rides.