04 purchased July 03

2 water pumps, 1 under warranty, 1 Mazda paid for part I paid for labor
1 Intake manifold, ($1350), Got it all back after Mazda extended warranty.
just recently spark plugs and coils had to be replaced. Car shut off while driving. $700
2 rear tailights with condensation replaced under warranty.
a few others I can't think of.
I don't trust any Mazda service centers. They lie too much.

Overall, I love driving the car but hate the high maintenance involved. Even the head of service at one local dealer conceded that the 8 requires a lot more maintenance than the normal car.

Would I buy another 8... No, but that's mostly because I just had a baby. I still want performance but I need space. I'm real interested in the G8.

 

FYI

2005 GT 6MT purchased March 2005

11k miles

All applicable recalls performed. No problems detected.

Never flooded, although I'm fully aware of the issue and never turn off the engine before it warms up.

Finally, I don't consider these to be reliability problems, but they might annoy some people. When cold, you might hear a small rattle or two (not too bad though) and the brakes squeal some (depending on applied pressure) until they warm up with use. The paint and the windshield seem to be susceptible to chipping.

There you go. Not 100% perfect, but still a very nice, very fun car.

Cheers

 

2006 GT, 6,500 Miles , No Problems.

 

I've got a 2004 GT 6MT with 20k miles that I bought used 1 1/2 yrs ago. The car has been back to the dealer a couple times for recall work but the only "issue" I had was a CEL related to a bad gas cap. That was of course covered under the warranty. I think the "unreliability" of this vehicle is total over-hyped. I do, however, never turn the car off without letting it warm up.

 

Got mine in March of 04, I have low miles (less than 13k miles) but no problems (added: with the low miles in mind the only time a drive it, I drive it hard, but I always do warm-ups and cool-downs). I wouldn't recommend this car as a daily driver though to anyone, college or not. This car is only good as a DD if you respect it enough to always warm it up and cool it down, ect, ect. Most average drivers don't do that and they are used to the piston way of things. (Just wanted to clarify why I wouldn't recommend it as a DD.)

 

Not a single problem here!

 

General consensus is that it is very reliable and nice but its expensive to own. Kill some other car through college then get one unless you can easily afford this car.

 

I use mine as DD plus some track use, 51k miles since november '04, but i respect it and care for it like it should be, and it drives perfect and have never left me stranded anywhere

well unless you count that one time when i was being stupid and tried to see 'how low can i go' and actually ran out of gas while on the highway lol

 

In that case you can use it as a DD, that's why I wanted to clarify why I wouldn't recommend it to your average "lay-man" used to piston-engines type driver. This car isn't for soccer moms.

 

Just so you know a college kid is able to afford it. I'm a senior in High School and I just recently (3 weeks ago) bought an 04' RX8 with 14400 miles on it. I'm paying for the whole car insurance and gas ect plus college in August. And if you're careful nobody with **** with you as you ppl said. Just be careful where you park and ****. Never any problems just make sure you have the time to do maintenance on the car, like oil changes/checks warm up b4 you go and stuff like that. Also the gas mileage isn't great but for a college kid you won't be driving alot but quite a bit. I say GREAT CAR if you can afford it and you're positive you can buy it and enjoy it.

 

The car is perfect as long as you know how to operate it (i.e. not shutting it down when it's cold)