I got to take a black Sport Package for a decent test drive this evening, courtesy of Budaman and the team at Mazda South. It certainly helped tide me over until my Winning Blue arrives in the next few days. So, to the obligatory review and impressions:

As many folks have already stated, this car is a blast! The low torque figure is only noticeable if you let the revs drop below about 3000rpm; above that, it just pulls and pulls and pulls. Glorious. And keeping it above that magic three grand is a piece of cake - it spins so effortlessly that you never feel the need to grab another gear just to shut up the row under the hood, as you would in, say, a VTEC 4-banger.

The gearbox is a delight. Not quite as rifle-bolt short and sharp as the Miata, but damned close. Smooth and silky, with just a nice little bit of notchiness. The rotor-shaped shifter felt a little weird at first, but that went away quickly. I did find that I had to adopt a somewhat different shifting technique from that which I use in the Miata: while the Miata allows me to drop my hand from the wheel to the shifter without moving my upper arm, the extra side bolstering on the RX-8 seat tended to restrict my elbow movement rearwards when I was selecting 2nd, 4th or 6th unless I lifted my elbow so my forearm was parallel with the transmission tunnel. It felt a little weird at first, but again, it didn't take long to get used to.

Speaking of the seat bolsters, the cloth seats are great. Very cool and comfortable, very supportive, and with a good range of adjustment. The height can be adjusted by a lever on the side, though at first I thought that the range of adjustment was ridiculously small. Eventually, however, we realised that the lever acts rather like a pump, allowing you to adjust it through a good range but a little at a time. Hard to describe, but it works fine once you understand it. I'm 6'0", and I had plenty of headroom available even with the seat at maximum height. I found that about half-way was a nice height, and it's nice to know that I can gain still more headroom by cranking it to full low if I need it when I'm wearing my helmet in autocross or track events. After a reasonable spell in the rear seat, my wife declared them to be very comfortable and supportive too!

The steering is teriffic. Razor sharp, and very nicely weighted. The number of turns lock-to-lock and the overall steering ratio never entered my head - I never found myself getting crossed up at all. Brilliant. Not much more to say.

I was intersted to try the base stereo, since I'm going to be listening to one of these for the next three years, and I'm happy to report it's just fine. Not audiophile quality, but better than most OEM systems that I've heard. Distortion is noticeable at extreme volume settings, but unless you're keen on premature deafness you'd never have it cranked that loud anyway. I did find the bass and lower midrange to be a tad muddy at higher volumes, but I trimmed the mid and bass to -1 each and it improved greatly, still with plenty of thump available. The Automatic Level Control adjusts the volume in relation to vehicle speed - it's not as sophisticated as the Bose AudioPilot, but it works very well and is almost unnoticeable in operation. It has three settings (four if you include "off"), which determine how much it boosts the volume at each speed increment. I found that level 1 was perfect for windows-up driving, while level 2 was just right for windows-down driving. I could only see you needing level 3 if you were driving windows-down alongside a pack of Harleys!

The HID lights are wonderful. I had forgotten what a pleasure it is to drive with really good headlights. The beam cutoff is razor sharp, and range and coverage are excellent. High beam coverage is great down the road, but could use a little help off to the sides when belting through the twisties. The xenon lows stay on at all times; the halogen highs switch on and off with the dipper. The fog lights don't appear to make much difference; they're rather lost in the excellent light from the xenons. Didn't get a chance to try them in fog!

The DSC works very well. Under some reasonably spirited driving conditions, I only felt the "hand of God" pull the car back in line a couple of times. A simple press of the disable switch, and I could play to my heart's content. Interestingly, if you completely disable it by holding the switch in for a few seconds, you cannot turn it back on by pressing the switch again; the only way to re-engage it is to turn the ignition off and back on.

The A/C was fine. Ambient temperature was still in the 90's, and we had to turn the A/C down to avoid getting chilly in the car. Don't forsee any problems there.

Windows-down driving is great. There's absolutely no buffetting, and wind noise is not intrusive. I can see myself driving like that a lot around here.

The trunk gets hot. If you're carrying frozen goods home from the grocery store, drive fast or put 'em in the back seat. The passenger's side of the center console also gets warm. Not uncomfortably, but noticeably.

The hump in the passenger's footwell is quite pronounced, but not really an issue. There's still plenty of legroom there.

Let's see, what else...

I guess I should mention a couple of things that I was puzzled by, though they would probably have been explained in the owners' handbook (which I didn't remove from it's sealed package):

• A green symbol on the dash comes on whenever you have any lights on. Can't see the point, really.
• There's a yellow "steering wheel with an exclamation point" warning light that I couldn't understand. I thought it may have been the DSC indicator, but I don't recall seeing it come on at any point except when starting the engine. I did see the yellow "slippery when wet" traction control indicator come on a few times.
• I thought there were supposed to be some lights under the side mirrors to illuminate the ground beside the car whrn you hit the remote to unlock it. If they're there, they either weren't working or I misunderstood how to get them to come on.

 

Good review! Really good.

 

The RX-8 gift mug from Mazda is a perfect fit in the front cupholders. :D

And now to bed!

 

Speaking of buffetting, did you pass a transport (18 wheeler) while cruising on the highway? Did you sense any buffetting?

 

Great comments -- thanks for the review.

 

Thanks eccles! Very insightful! Some good observations on things I hadn't heard about yet, like headlights. (although I won't be getting the HID's)

 

I guess I don't understand why the trunk would get so hot.

The rear trunk of a Porsche Boxster is like a pizza oven, but there's a good excuse, the engine is 1" away.

But what would cause the RX-8's trunk to heat? Is the exhaust particularly hot right underneath the trunk liner?

 

Is the yellow steering wheel light the low tire pressure indicator?

Good review - thanks.

 

Nope, there's a yellow "flat tire with an exclamation point" light for that.

 

Eccles - Great review.

It's nice to hear from someone who's seen the rotary throughout it's development over the years.

Thanks

 

Great review eccles, with some interesting new observations!

I have a couple of questions while I'm "patiently" waiting for some word about my delivery...

1. How did the driving position feel? A few people have expressed concern about the height of the driver's sitting position, in other words, does it feel like you're riding too high off the ground? I've wondered about that since I sit fairly low to the ground in my current car, and I like that feeling for a sporty car.

2. DisneyDestroyer mentioned blind spots due to the thickness of the C pillars -- did you find rear and/or side visibility a problem too when making lane changes, etc?

Thanks for the info!

 

I would guess that the green light is ther for the knuckleheads that leave their lights or turn signals on when they're not needed.

The General

 

Great review.

I think he heat in the trunk is from the Muffler. I think since it is below and runs the width of the car

 

Thanks for the great and detail review eccles..
Good to know that the base stereo sounds great too, and I don't even know it comes with standard Automatic Level Control.

 

No, sorry. There weren't semis on the roads I was on.

 

The seat felt high at first, but I eventually discovered that was because it was adjusted to maximum height! I suspect that folks who have complained about a lack of adjustment have not yet discovered the fact that the adjuster can be "pumped" several times to increase the range of adjustment. With it cranked all the way down I actually felt too low, and I wound up cranking it back up a little.

Yes, over-the-shoulder visibility was a little disconcerting, but after driving an Explorer and a topless Miata, I'm used to pretty much unrestricted 360-degree vision. As has been noted, the C pillars are quite thick, and the virtual B pillar at the front of the rear door is quite chunky too. Glances over the left shoulder, in particular, are not very productive. Hopefully this can be minimised with judicious mirror adjustment; I didn't have time to experiment.

 

How did it compare to the Miata with the top up?

---jps

 

Over the right shoulder, it was pretty comparable. Over the left, it was a little worse than the Miata.