I can't believe it happened! Some ***hole in a Dodge Ram pulled out in front of me and hit me head on. It damaged the front driver's side panel (the one that includes the wheel well), and tore up my front bumper. Both need to be replaced. I feel like throwing up. The other guys insurance will pay for it, but I am just curious as to if anyone knows how much those parts run. I'll go cry now.

 

silver... damn... When you take some pics for insurance purposes, let us have a look at the damage. I hope you get that all straightening out as soon as possible.

 

the Front bumper will run 1124.00 as i recnetly found out when some retard hit my car in a parking lot...... at least he waited for me to come back so i could get his insurance.

 

Rx8Freehk,
Did you run into any trouble findind someone to install bumber. The reason I ask is that none of the body shops in my town have ever dealt with a RX8. Is the bumper attached in the same basic manner as any other car?

 

Hey Arkansas!!! Thats where i bought my Rx8 from!! In little Rock theres a Mazda Dealership:

PARKWAY MAZDA-INFINITI
12211 W MARKHAM ST
LITTLE ROCK AR 72211
501 217 9500

Anyway the price $1124.00 (910 Euro's) was at a dealer here in germany, and includes paint. Hope this helps

 

That's the dealership I bought my car from. Will NEVER do business with them again. Poor businessmen. Gave me the runaround, but finally got things done MY way.

 

Really? well i guess i had such a good experience because i went pre approved and let them know up front not to give me and crap or i was walkin.... I suggest this meathod to anyone... was the best car buying experience i've ever had. (compliments of 20/20 show i saw on car buyin)

In any case sorry to say usually the best place to get a factory bumper installed is still gonna be OEM Dealer.. IE Parkway

 

Sorry about the car, and I know what you mean about wanting to throw up. I got rear ended three weeks after buyiing my car. Having it reapired for about a month now, I can tell you that it really is good as new, and you'll get over it. All the best, and feel better.

 

Rx8Freehk - Can you give us the highlights of what the 20/20 show explained? My dad used to negotiate contracts for a living so going to get a car with him is always a wild ride.

Last time I bought a car with him, we left the first dealership after about 10 minutes of the usual games. We told the sales guy we were going across the street and will buy a car there within 10 minutes. He chuckled and gave us a smarmy, "OK, good luck then."

We crossed the street, looked at the sticker to estimate their cost (sites like Edmunds weren't around then) and offered the sales guy $300 over dealer invoice and we'd be out of his face in 5 minutes but the clock was ticking. He did the sales mgr visit thing and came back to shake our hands. The sales guy then asked me if my dad was a "pro" ie. a former car industry person.

I've learned many people get sucked into the whole ceremonial BS that goes along with the whole transaction. None of that happens when you buy a candy bar so why should it be different for a car. If you don't get up to leave at least once they assume you're in love with the car and will keep reeling you in.

 

Nothing hurts as bad as that first scratch or ding....except jumping on a bicycle with the seat off...This sucks, hope you get it fixed up soon..

 

This article has been posted in the past but I think it's worthwhile reading it if you haven't already. It's kind of long but there's a lot of good info.

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying...2/article.html

 

whatever you do, do not allow the body show to use aftermarket parts on your car. they never fit like factory parts. the seams will not line up like before. also while they will probably be able to match your paint make extra sure in both sun and artificial light, as silvers are the hardest colors to match. in addition to this make sure they use high quality paint and clear coat you. if you do not you will notice the now paint/clear will chip in a drastically different way than the factory paint from all those normal road debris then you will really notice the differences. Finally make damn sure they do a forst rate job of alignment and keep an eye on it to see if there are any changes.

Good luck and sorry to hear the bad luck.

 

WOW, awsome article BVD! thats got way more infor than the show I saw

 

If you search the forum, you'll find two or three threads on r + r of the front bumper. It looks pretty easy. :D

 

So sorry to hear about your accident, but remember, Car-boys Don't Cry!

 

Well, I've got some pictures of my wrecked rx8. The problem is that I don't know how to post them. Help please.

 

SilverTrigger,

Instead of going to the "Post Reply" message box at the bottom of the thread there will be a box just under the last post that says "POST REPLY" in lighter blue with gold and blue flags. Click this box and it will open up more options to the "Post Reply" message box. You will see a section that says "Attach File" and next to that a box that says "Browse". Click the "Browse" box and it will open up windows explorer so that you can find your picture. Just go to the file and click on the picture and then click on the open button. That will send it to your "Post Reply" message box. Keep in mind that if you want text above the pics then you should type it in before you find the pics to make it easier.

Sorry to hear about your baby. I would be hard pressed not to smack the crap out of someone for doing something so stupid.

 

SilverTrigger, it's not as bad as it seems. I had to replace my front bumper, and it was $345 for that part. The tricky part is, they had some trouble matching the paint (velocity red), but a Mazda rep came and helped them out. Bottom line is, it turned out perfectly and you can't even tell. In a few weeks, you won't even remember the horrible sight of your smashed 8 and the world will be perfect again.

 

Replacing the bumpers on a RX-8 is very easy compared to some other sports cars. If I remember correctly you have two screws on each side holding the side light and edge of the bumper on. 8 or 6 plastic clips holding the splash shields on.
4 bolts on the top under the plastic cover and a row of bolts on the bottom. I've worked of a few now and find them to be very easy to work on for the most part.

 

You know, there must be an @$$hole attractant on the silver cars. I took my 8 in for its 10k checkup, and the service manager told me they've been getting a ton of silver 8s banged up - three in the previous week. There were two in the lot, rear end smashed in.

 

sorry to hear about your loss.... thankfully it is fixable. I also have a silver one...

 

SilverTrigger,

As painful as that cruncher may have been, you might somehow be able to turn it into a positive. Stretching my imagination a bit, there might be an 8 owner out there who actually wishes they were in your shoes so that insurance would help buy them a new aftermarket bumper. There are some nice designs out there that you might be interested in (here's just one - http://www.rotaryextreme.com/reamemiyarx8/rx_8_3.jpg). And even if you wanted to stay with the standard bumper, you now have an opportunity to debadge.

I probably wouldn't be thinking this way if a couple of days ago my boss didn't share with me the attitude that all problems are opportunities.

(My boss is an astronaut, fwiw.)

 

Hypothetical insurance scams aside, sorry to hear that you got slammed, 'specially by a guy in a hillbillie-limo.... Good luck with the repairs. I would imagine you'd be back "good as new" if you insist upon Mazda parts.

That 20/20 thing wasn't so special...it tracked the adventures of a 21 yr old girl with almost no credit, buying on the $/month plan and getting the KobeBryant at the loan-desk. If you shop cost and have your loan pre-done, then 20/20 has nothing of great value for you.....

 

HIX8:

Congratulations on having a good boss since most others either cover their eyes to problems or simply find someone else to take the blame.

I once had a boss that refused to let anyone come to him and tell him about a "problem". He insisted you think about it for a minute and present him with an opportunity. Very hard to learn to control the impulse to push the panic button but after you do it a few times it really works out well.

Example: Marketing made some last minute change that messed up the software product we were testing and it resulted in a lot of extra hours the weekend before we planned to ship. The opportunity I presented was to offer the Marketing manager to give up my weekend to get it done in exchange for spending some of her time after it shipped to lessen my work load on something else. The key is my manager backed me up since it was a bonehead move to make a change so late in the game.

As you can guess, the Marketing manager felt the proverbial gun to her head and agreed. It works even better if you get what you want first so that they don't conveniently forget later on.

 

I did some poking around the web and it appears that this problems-opportunities philosophy is a popular management principle. I even found this quote from Mazda's president:

"...each employee will tackle real-world problems and opportunities and will come up with solutions at his or her job site."

(http://www.mazda.com/investors/annua...s02/s2_03.html)


I hope that SilverTrigger can find something useful in this attitude to help with the current mess ...um, I mean, opportunity.