Does anyone find it strange that there haven't been any 'production' reviews with performance data? Many pre-production reviews gave 0-60, 1/4 mile, and even MPG information. Since the car went into production, all I've seen are a few newspaper reviews where they don't give any numbers(outside of advertised ones).

Is Mazda asking mags to hold back until they know exactly whats going on, or is this just a coincidence.

By the way, the government was behind the JFK assassination and we never landed on the moon.



Totally unrelated but,

For those of you that have the car, what is the horse power listed in the owners manual? I read on another forum where a guy said the manual said 238. I assume he was either incorrect or bought a car with the revised manual. I can't imagine this not being posted earlier if it is truly the case. If it is true it would show that the car is the same way it was when it left Japan and they just had faulty advertising material. Pretty thin, I know.

 

It isn't.

 

I find it strange that there was SO much hype, news, reviews and advertizing before the car was close to being released. I have never seen that much hype before.

The conspiracy theorist part of me says Mazda deliberately overstated the fuel efficiency by about 16% (25 vs. 21) and horsepower by about 12% (250 vs. 220) during the bulk of the pre-order period. In addition, they provided numerous pre-production (presumably not California emissions compliant or in the class they really wanted) that they knew would out perform the final, US production version.

Again, I'm not saying this is so, but part of me does wonder this.

 

Nope. Magazine lead times are at least 2 or 3 months from the time of gathering data to the time of being on the newsstand. First - production cars only began delivery in July, so no magazine (except perhaps a weekly like Autoweek) could have anything on the stands yet. Second - magazines have a lot of products to cover - if they did a huge story on the RX-8 in spring, they won't do another just because it's in production. You may see additional tests as part of comparison tests, etc., but the likes of R&T, Car and Driver, etc. won't be doing solo RX-8 tests for a while since they've already done them. They may test with respect to the HP rating issue, but see the first point - it would be a November issue at the earliest before you'd see that even mentioned in a big monthly auto magazine.

Online auto web sites are getting hold of the HP rating issue - it's on autoweek, the car connection, etc.

Regards,
Gordon

 

No, I don't think it is strange. The first production cars (post emission fiasco) started showing up mid July. If magazines got ahold of some production vehicles at mid July, at the earliest, I don't think you see a printed review till months later. It probably takes at least 2-3 months for it to go to press. So you may see production car's tests and reviews in October issues.

P.S. I'm starting to get tired of threads starting out with one focus, and degrades to a point where Mazda is either deceiving everyone with false HP or MPG claims or gripes with the car because of either legimate or perceived problems. Totally unrelated to the thread. Look, I don't mind people wanting to talk about their conspiracy thoughts, car problems, the weather, or their cat or dog, etc. But keep that particular thread focused with the subject at hand. If you don't then it starts turning into fiery debates and then into pissin matches. Sometimes no insightful information is gained from that. Usually the results - the thread ends up being closed.

 

Holy cow, this is probably the first thing I read on this forum that seems to make sense. Refreshing seeing somebody stating this instead of making excuses for Mazda or saying they don't care about the power loss and gas mileage. Nice post

 

Gord96BRG

You beat me to post while I was in the reply mode. :D I said sort of the same thing, however you gave a couple more points that was noteworthy. Thanks for the additional info.

You may be right on a November issue. I was overly optimistic of press times.

 

This just proved my point:

And your post relates to "Where are the mags?" how?

 

Well not sure if this helps but I seen an MT RX8 at the track with 2200 miles on it a few weeks ago and he was running 15.4-15.6@94-95Mph in about 6 runs. And somebody on this site claims an RX8 was seen running a 14.95 in the 1/4 and another said they were getting around 7 seconds from 0-60 with a gtec but I usually don't believe 1/4 claims unless I see it with my own eyes or see a time slip..

 

Agree totally. The RX8 has had plenty of press in the Winter and Spring months publications and will not likely see anything new until it is tested against the competition. At that point, at least in the performance categories, we might want to skip over those articles.

The interesting question might be, which cars do you compare it to? The 350Z/G35C/S2000/WRX sports car group or should it be the Acura TSX/Maxima/325Ci sports sedan group?

Yes, I know, this has been debated in an earlier thread.

 

What are you talking about "never landed on the moon", there have been 17 Apollo missions from 1963-1972. They haven't just been going to space and coming back you know.

And what the hell is NASA for. Of course we've landed on the moon. If you said it as a joke, then I take it all back.

 

All I'm saying is (its a theory not a factual statement) that maybe Mazda intentionally provided more powerful pre-production cars instead of providing final production models that were less powerful/fuel efficient.

Again this is a cynical theory, but Mazda's current and past actions are allowing this to be contemplated.

This just proved my point:



And your post relates to "Where are the mags?" how? [/B][/QUOTE]

 

ok, maybe this wasn't the greatest thread. I didn't mean to pull Z dude back into this. I'm glad you decided to share with us for the 83rd time that you saw some guy run a 15 second 1/4. I don't care.

Thanks to the others for answering my review question.

Feel free to close the thread now.

 

Yes the JFK and Moon comment was an attempt at humor. My conspiracy theory was a little far fetched, just like the JFK and Moon ones.

I guess a poor attempt at sarcasm.

 

Dude, I'm quite sure that was conspiracy-theory tongue-in-cheek humor.

And there was Gemini in 1963. Apollo did not begin I believe until 1968 with only 8,10,11,12,14-17 making moon ventures.

I know, I know.......off topic!

 

I didn't intend for my original comment of "keeping the thread on topic" directed just to you. I just wanted to keep this thread focused before it gets out of hand, like most threads have done lately.

Obviously it didn't work since "Blue 350Z" must still post for the umpteenth time, how he "witnessed" slow RX-8 performance times, which is totally unrelated to the thread or discussion at hand. I also don't care.

Anyways....

I understand what you are saying, and I agree with you to a point. I think Mazda fudged a little on the HP. I believe it was all marketing.

So lets say that the car originally put out 238 HP all along (at the crank people) and before they had to modify for emissions. So marketing says, let's up the advertised number to the greatest margin possible legally, which was 5%. That took it 250 HP. A figure that looks good to compare against S2000 and other cars people may be cross-shopping.

Now production happens. It goes to US. ports and now the emissions fiasco happens. Because of emissions, the car is now putting out a "real" 226 at the crank (only 12hp loss from 238 because of emissions). Because of this same margin of legality 5%, marketing takes that same optimistic approach and now restates the HP at 238 (226 * 1.05%). Is it within their legal 5%? Yes.

So now we get this dyno results of anwhere from 160 to high as 188 depending on make and whoever runs the test. Let's see, Mazda originally said you should expect about 17% drive train loss. Let's do the math. Take that "real" 226 at the crank, not the optimistic 5% margin, and take 17 % of that. 38.4 HP loss. Subtract that from the 226 and what do you get - 187.6. Bingo! I seem to recall a figure, extremely close on a dyno.

Conspiracy? No. Deception? Not legally. Marketing strategy? Yes.

A lot of companies fudge figures (within legal boundaries) to gain a sales advantage. I see what they were trying to do.

To keep this on topic. I know you'll see reviews and tests, probably November at the earliest. The interesting thing will be how much has the performance times suffered by this emissions garbage. Probably a few tenths to .5 sec at most. The optimistic part of this is that we probably can recover all that with mods. :D

 

I think you'll see a split response from the auto mags in a couple of months when this issue has had time to percolate through the printing process.

The major automotive mags will likely treat it with kid gloves. They usually do when it comes to their paychecks. While Mazda is not huge, it is part of Ford and that matters. There will likely be a few questions raised, but no overt accusations or major headlines.

OTOH, the little guys, especially the leader in the import magazine community, Sport Compact Car, will likely put the car on the dyno, do interval testing, run the physics and draw some pretty substantial conclusions. In fact, I'll bet SCC is lining up a car right now (probably from an owner, not Mazda) to run tests on.

Hope that stayed on topic

SC

 

Well, you are still alittle on the high end of the dynos. Still, any deception erodes trust. If they want to play those games, I don't want to business with them. Frankly, I don't see many other car companies doing that.

I still can't beleive they would have not known about US emissions standards. Were they somehow altered overnight when the cars were on the boat? This car was in being developed over like 5 years plus and I thought they were being slow to get all the bugs out? Under your view they are being deceptive and incompetant, but not legally liable. From my viewpoint as a customer, I doubt I could purchase ANY product from them.

IMHO, Mazda's board of directors needs to hire an independent investigator to look into the whole company and see why these problems occur over and over. I think the advertizing team should get the first and closest look.

 

Well I was being optimistic. One of the first dynos reported on this board was 187. That's what I took. Let's say we take a dyno of 180, that 20% loss from my "real" 226 HP. 22% is 176 HP. Totally feasable losses, if you say that rwhp losses should be, on average on most cars, 17-22%.

It's hard to know the full story. A story did came out that it was indeed emissions. Whether it was a last minute thing to meet a stricter emissions standard before it became future law, I don't know. Or maybe they decided at the last minute to place the Euro ECU3 in there? Maybe that was an economic thing. Cheaper to have them all that way. Maybe it's a temporary ECU until they replace ours. We may never fully know, but I imagine some "inside" leak will reveal more detail on this.

I never said I felt Mazda was incompetent. I don't know how you drew that conclusion, but that's your opinion. And although they might have been deceptive up to a point, IMO, it was not blantant, it guess I accept it as their right. To me it didn't matter. Why? You see, I think initially the performance times were matched to the 238hp. The marketing used the +4.6% factor, and advertised it as 247hp. Why did they do that? Because American buyers like their numbers. It sells. Simple as that. What sounds better to power people, the higher number HP number. It was transparent to them that those performance numbers were probably achieve @ 238 HP. I bet Mazda is not the only company that slightly fudges HP numbers for advertising.

Now the emissions, I totally absolve Mazda on this. Here they had no deception at all, IMO. Emissions hit them hard, and they admitted it and revised the number. And they give owners 2 choices. If they felt "cheated" they could get a buyback or get some compensation. Their choice.

You see I'm not angry because I initially bought a car rated at 247 at $33,100. Now I got a car rated at 238hp for around $31100 (MSRP - ($500 + schedule maintenance value)). So my feelings is that the $500 was adequate compensation for the missing 9hp. I can buy back those 9 HP and more with that money. With that said, they in effect, threw in free scheduled maintenance for my "pain and suffering" for being false advertised to. Before my car in effect got more HP and cost about $8000 less than a BMW 330ci (which I was cross-shopping). Now it is rated about equal in HP and is costing me $10,000 less. No brainer for me. The BMW 330ci is definately not worth 8-10k more than my present car. Not with the RX-8's handling and performance and other anemities.

I'm sorry you feel that way about Mazda. And you have a right too. You have your right as an American to feel anyway you want without persecution. Likewise for me. This is my fourth car with them, and I've been happy with each one.


I think you are overexagerating but that's your right of opinion. I don't know the full story on the Miata, and how it got misrated, so I can't speak on authority on that.

The RX-8 was emissions and they restated the HP. I have no problem with that.

But in each case, the Miata and RX-8, Mazda made good faith options of buybacks and compensation for their mistakes and those mistakes out of their control. To me, that speaks well for this company. They have my continued support, until they start putting out POS vehicles. They haven't done that. Their cars to me have been both reliable and fun.

I respect your opinions.

Man, you are making me break my own rules - staying on topic. :D

On topic - it can't be soon enough for new mag reviews for me. I just love hearing about this car. Especially the fun to drive ones. :D