pelucidor

I am not sure how much luxury Mazda will put into this car. I have heard comments that it may have power seats. Remember this is a family-oriented sport car so it may well have two regular drivers.

Personally I think that manual seats are fine in a sports car to keep the weight down. But if Mazda MUST have power seats (hopefully as an option) then PLEASE add 2 or 3 position memory to it.

The reason is that most power seats move very slowly. My wife and I are 9" apart in height so a lot of fiddling takes place every time we switch (every day almost). With manual seats (old Prelude, Integra, 4Runner etc) I can make the changes in a few seconds. My IS300 has power seats and it takes me about 2.5 days to readjust travel, height, incline etc (I exaggerate but that's how it feels - 1mm at a time).

Our old RX300 and the new MDX have memory seats, which whilst slow, have the benefit of moving you to precisely the position you want - a tradeoff I can live with (especially in the Acura which does all this when I use the remote unlocking before I get in). If Mazda adds power seats they definitely need to spend the extra few dollars to add a memory feature.

Grimace

I agree. I don't imagine it would add too much $ to the list price. If I HAVE to have power seats, a memory feature would be nice. Having them adjust automatically when you unlock the door sounds pretty trick too! But I doubt we'd see that feature on a $30k car. Well, you never know.
All-in-all though, even with a large difference between me and my girlfriend (8 or 9 inches, I believe) I prefer manual seats, simply because they are much lighter.
I guess it depends on what options are packaged where whether or not I'll be forced into electric seats or not.
I'm assuming there will be a luxury or "leather" package and a sport package, like on the Miata, and selection of one may preclude selection of the other. This is just speculation on my part though.

Quick_lude

Either you guys are very tall or you have very short girlfriends.. 8-9" difference wow.. :p

I do agree though, the memory feature is nice.
Also living in Canada I vote for heated seats and mirrors. I've never had these before my current car and now wouldn't want to be without.

pelucidor

Don't say anything derogotory about my wife, but I am 5'9 tall. She is tall too - for a Singaporean. And if I lived in Canada I would want a heated steering wheel as well (I remember a trip to Montreal at -56C - even colder in Fahrenheit).

Actually even my '97 Jeep Grand Cherokee had memory seats activated by the remote unlocking - the keyfobs were numbered 1 and 2 and sent slightly different signals that activated seat memories 1 and 2. Simple and effective.

zoom44

i dont need the memory seats, after the test driving is done my wife ain't driving my car!:D

and if you don't tell my wife i said that i would be very grateful.

Toadman

Power driver's seat is most welcome, if only that adjusting a manual requires weight on the seat to slide it(grind it?) back over the detents. It's a real pain to squeeze your butt down sideways between the wheel and seatback when adjusting back to a "normal" person's size. It's payback for leaving the toilet seat up I suppose.

Me ducks the rolling pin :D

wakeech

man, i must be old school, or too used to driving crappy cars... (i'm only 19, so i think it's the latter reason...)
i really don't think power seats are necessary, as long as the mechanical ones are 4 way adujustable... ya ya, i know 8 way, or 12 way, or 8000 way are the norm now, but i don't care. i just don't think i'd need 'em...

Sputnik

If you're sharing a car with someone that much shorter than you, then it is actually makes a difference. Heck, when I was 19, I about broke myself in half a couple of times trying to get into the family car's driver's seat after my mom had been driving. I then realized why my dad would out of habit bend down and make sure that the seat was all the way back when he got into the car, even when he was the one that had last driven it.

Besides, being a sports sedan, as opposed to a pure lightweight sports car, I don't think anything is wrong with a couple of techy gadgets like seats that move when you arm/disarm the alarm.

Oh, and nowadays, since different keyfabs have different... "addresses" for lack of a better word, all you have to do is set your memory settings to your keyfab, and your SOs to the other one.

---jps

wakeech

eh, all i'm saying is i'd rather save the money... i'm about 5'' taller than my parents, and nearly a foot taller than my ex gf (who i drive with sometimes)... i just adust the seat to all-the-way-back before i get in, then screw with it... doesn't bother me, so i don't need that kinda stuff, that's all...
but in reality, yes, the car would certainly meet a higher demand (more sales) if it had programmable power seats.

fuz

I want a lightweight package for the RX-8 that deletes power seats. :p