Shamblerock

beachdog, great suggestion. I'm happy with my 8 but if Mazda would make arrangements to get me more power and get better gas mileage for free, I certainly would take them up on that offer!

Anyone here interested and/or capable of setting up a petition and bringing it to the attention of Mazda H.O. and/or media (car mags, etc...)? Afterall, the forum has members globally and it would take effect in many countries.

Deslock

That remark really wasn't directed at preorders (who Mazda offered to buy cars back from anyway), but rather at those that bought the car without test driving when they had the opportunity to.
Kudos to Ford for handling that situation so well... though Mazda is Ford now, right?

Anyway, Mazda did attempt to make good with those who bought before the power-rating downgrade and, like your Cobras example, some people who bought RX8s that hadn't complained ended up being impressed that Mazda hooked them up anyway. It's not as good as how Ford handled the Cobras, but to me it doesn't seem like Mazda screwed it up as badly as some make it out.

I understand your point, though there are a few key differences. A comparable percentage downgrade would be $50k -> $49.4k -> $47.6k *and* they offered other benefits in an attempt to compensate for the drop. However, the comparison is only so meaningful even using those numbers since taking a salary-job is usually more of a life-change than getting a car (and thus a downgrade in pay could be more traumatic).

Urchin

I was being facetious. I got $500 and free service for keeping a car I wanted. It is just funny how owners can really like driving the car and still be upset over rated horsepower.

r0tor

iTrader: (1)

Anyone want to join me then in starting a lawsuit against this petition for potentially damaging our car's resale value?

GotBass

Did anyone consider that suing Mazda and continuing to bitch about HP may result in one of two things.

1) Mazda doesn’t make a turbo/supercharged MS model because they would need to put a new HP figure on that. That would be just another chance to get sued.

2) Mazda determines that those stupid Americans obviously just cant be happy with a rotary. The RX-8 lives as long as in the US as the FD RX-7.

Just some food for thought.

Shamblerock

I don't think we need to start a law suit per se, but get enough names together to be able to attract attention, for starters. Mazda would not want to have disgruntled owners globally sharing their anger with the media. They already had some heat on this car before. If we don't get the attention and the necessary repairs/parts exchange/compensation, then we look seriously at a law suit.

klegg

Count me in!!!!! :D

Feras

iTrader: (1)

no offense to your coworker but that statement on its face can not be credible.

zoom44

you missed his point- a lawsuit AGAINST the petition becaue it would hurt the resale value of his car.

quack_p

Speaking of things that have been discussed to death, try searching "horsepower."

klegg

All you really need to do is spend the cash on a KLEGGSPEED mod Use the search button....

r0tor

iTrader: (1)

exactly... thankyou

flip

Hmm.. how bout giving all us current owners of 8's the new MSP8 when it comes out? :p
... how bout a touch up paint kit? leather care kit? j/k.. :D

klegg

Really sometimes you can not be too subtle..

rx-8_or_?

We should band together to ban petitions like this! (pun intended)

We owe them our allegiance. Mazda is the only company putting out rotary-powered cars. I'm glad they read these posts. They'll know that the average 8 owner doesn't car a hoot about the horsepower while they beep the car. I'm glad they're not sitting on their butts worrying about petitions, and are working on further developing the rotary.

RX8-TX

I do care about power.....indirectly. They have to focus on making the engine (and engine management) more efficient. It is too late for this reincarnation of the rotary (maybe), but if we don't complain about the right things now, it will only make it worse in the future.

In other words, we can't afford to send the wrong message.

Shamblerock

Oops :o I always have it in my mind that I will keep this car for several years (if it lasts!) and therefore never gave resale value any thought actually. Since several posts here talking about compensation from Mazda, I didnt carefully read Probers message. But he has a very interesting point though. I don't know much about the law, but I don't know how you can sue a petition ? Oh well, I guess in North America you can sue anybody for anything!

MarthaStewart

TRUE

zoom44

i found this quote about trap speeds and using them to calculate HP:

In the old days, before the technology to produce affordable electronic horsepower guesstimators existed, we determined horsepower with a pencil, a piece of paper, the weight of the car and the quarter mile trap speed. The trap speed formula was used because it allowed less room for driver error. Now, some may say ?this doesn?t take wind resistance, barometric pressure, or temperature into the equation?. That?s true, but neither does a GTech.

A neutral party, Road and Track, says the Rx-8 they tested was doing 96 MPH when it finished the quarter. Someone here previously said an Rx-8 weighed 3344 pounds. If I follow the formula we used in the seventies, ((.00426 times 96 MPH) to the third power) times a weight of 3344, I see 228 horses.

so lets see a stock trap speed please and the weight of the car. if everyone agrees that this is the formula used for this purpose (IKE?) then we can do some calculations.

zoom44

here's the rn.com article with the mazda timeslips from teh testing

http://rotarynews.com/node/view/208

zoom44

and the full original RN.com report when the ratings were changed:

We at RotaryNews have been following the threads on the RX-8 forum about the fact that the RX-8 was not making advertised horsepower on the dyno. We have also been in contact with some of the folks in Mazda about the issue. They were fully aware of the issue, and researched it fully. They have released their findings today.

As of today, August 22nd, 2003, the revised US-Spec Horsepower Rating of the RX-8 is 238 HP for the Manual 6port RENESIS, and 197 HP for the 4port Automatic RENESIS. The performance numbers advertised ARE NOT CHANGING. They have done many tests, in house, with magazines, and outside third parties, and they are still observing RX-8's that will do 0-60 in 5.9-6.0 seconds and quarter mines in 14.5 (best observed 1/4 mile run at Pomona Raceway was 14.48 at 96.1 MPH)

Because of the descrepency in the HP numbers, Mazda is sending out letters to every new registered owner of the RX-8, any pre-sale customers that haven't received their RX-8 yet, telling them of the error in the advertised rating, and giving them two options:

1. Mazda will provide free scheduled servicing for the duration of the standard warranty plus a $500 debit card.

2. Mazda will make arrangements to buy back the car.

I'd like to actually thank Mazda for bringing this out so soon (in corporate time). The first dyno reports came in at the end of July, and mid way through August, we have an answer, and solution from Mazda. They didn't try to hide things. They went out to the track, dyno, and researched the issue, and found the problem, then conducted the risk analysis, financial analysis, PR analysis in very quick time for a corporate entity. It is also important to point out these things: 1. Mazda Japan has not revised their numbers down. 2. the engineers are hard at work, and have not stopped development on the RENESIS by any means.

zoom44

i didnt mention but 228 by the calculation above is within 5% of 238......

clyde

In the thread at rotarynews that I found with the 3344 lb reference that this was quoted from, it also said that the 3344 lb figure was determined by weighing the car with two specific people in it and a full tank of gas. For argument's sake, I'll accept that the scales were accurate.

Presumably, the trap speed of 96 MPH produced by the R&T car was generated with just one person in the car. Maybe with something far less than a full tank of gas?

In the other rotarynews thread linked above, most of the time slips from the production cars showed trap speeds of mid-94s to mid-95s. Without knowing how much those cars weighed, they're kind of meaningless in the context of trying to figure out how much HP they were making. For fun, let's go with R&T's 96 MPH figure...

We've got one car that trapped at 96 MPH, but we don't know how much it weighed. We have another car that weighed 3344 in its "as tested" condition, but don't know what it would have trapped. What I'd like to do is substitute the 3344 lb car for my car which weighs 3088 lbs with 6 gallons of gas and me inside. I'd like to do this because it makes just as much sense as using the 3344 lb car.

According to that formula, I see 211 HP.

If I were to go by the time slips produced by the full production cars in the thread referenced a couple posts up, I see 204 HP.

I don't know that the formula is right or wrong. I don't know that 96 MPH is the kind of trap speed I should expect in my car. I do know that my car (6MT/Sport/Nav) weighs 2888 lbs with 6 gallons of gas and I do know that most trap speeds people have reported have been well less than the 98.5 MPH I would need to see 228 HP (or 100 MPH to see the rated 238 HP) if I were to go by that formula.

Somewhere, something is not right. I'm not really bothered by any of it, but I would like to know what's going on.

klegg

let me take a stab...some people do not know how to get a good trap speed, which requires a clutch drop that most are unwilling to subject the car too...

zoom44

good clyde. now we are using real measured numbers. but you are right we have a weight from one car and a trap speed from a diferent one. thats why i asked for a time slip of a car that has also been weighed.

interestingly enough i have seen several dyno charts with 188-192 whp. the avg there being 190( i know this is the high side of the numbers we see but with different dyno's yadda yadda yadda...) i have said in other threads that i believe the whp to be around 190. the interesting part is that 190/228 is .8333333 or a 17% loss- back to IKE's figure for "normal", "acceptable" drivetrain losses.