Same here... ever since I had my Miata (which also stopped faster than most things on the road) I've always looked for an escape route on the shoulder or another lane when braking hard in heavy traffic- especially when the idiot in my rear view is chatting away on a cell phone.

Amen to that, Dennis! I can't stand when I see stickers covering tail lights.

And don't even get me started on tuner geeks that "white" all of their brake lights and turn signals! :eek:

Anyway, folks, look on the bright side -- those rear ends are crumpling correctly -- look how pristine the passenger cage is. :D And no evidence of flames. :)

that's a lot of silver in the rear-ended pics

maybe there is a curse... ;)

Bingo!

everytime i need to brake hard i am looking in the rear view to see whats coming. several times recently i have slid over becuase of the speed of the vehicle aproaching fromthe rear. you must be very aware of this in this car!

Ditto that. A few years back I was braking rather hard coming up on stopped traffic. I looked in my rear view and saw a car barrelling down on me with no driver. I shot to the shoulder just in time for him to fly past me and slam the car in front of me. The car had been rear ended further back and his seat back broke, laying him down flat in the car. In all 5 cars were damaged in the pile up (2 totals) and the only reason I escaped was being aware enough to watch the traffic behind as well as in front.

back on topic... i made an appointment with forum sponsor Rosenthal Arlington to get the recall done on my 8 tomorrow morning... will report back on how it turns out...

If I see it is going to be a rapid stop I really get on the brakes NOW - which forces the person behind me to really get on the binders to keep from hitting me. Then if they do not I can release some pressure to give them more "room" and still stop my car in time. It does me no good to stop right behind the person in front and then get whammed from behind - so I get slowed down NOW - then ease up or get over if I have to.

I use Kisan "TailBlazer" tail light modulators on the bikes and just last weekend wired a three more into the 8, the S, and my wife's car. Then when I hit the brake, the SUV driving, cell phone talking, no-attention-paying driver behind me might notice I am stopping...

http://www.kisantech.com/index.php?cat_id=3

I will post a movie of it working on the 8 when I get a chance.

Dennis

Uh, what does this have to do with the recall? How about we take this to a new thread?

Let us know how you feel about performance after "R". since some feel the car to be lagging after "R".

gomez started the thread. gomez posted the pics of rear ended RX-8s. cant hijack your own thread?

someone else or you said that in a posts yesterday. links please? i can show you 3 or 4 people who say different.

Hey, not me who took it off track.......I didn't start rabbiting on about RX=8 brakes :)

A good habit to get in is tapping on your brake a few times before you brake hard it gives the smuck behind you time to react , and hopefully brake earlier . :D

Knowing the braking abilities of your car compared to others is a good thing .

Tecknically being rear ended is always the others cars fault however bad driving irresponsible braking can catch the guys behind you off guard causing your car to be rear ended and out of action whilst its being repaired . :mad:

Try tapping on your brake light before you brake hard give the guy behind you earlier warning of your intention to brake :cool:

Learn to read both the traffic in front and behind you . :D

B...free
michael

thats what im saying

On topic question. I just called Galpin Mazda in Van Nuys (where I take my car for service) and Sam the service writer said they will not perform the recall work on customer cars until Mazda sends out the letters. He said they were told by Mazda that they were not allowed to do the recall work until the letters went out and they were authorized to start on customer cars. He did say they have completed all of the non-sold cars on their lot.

How are others getting the work done now?

they arent dealing with galpin. the recall is in the system they have parts and lots of dealers have already done customer cars and turned in the claim. galpin is just galpin- hard to deal with

Took my '04 in for tires and oil today and they told me they wanted it for 3~5 days to do the recall work :(

Aparently it involvs removing the gas tank and applying heat shielding up there (as has been stated already here) but the dealership is not allowed to keep parts on hand for this. So they have to take it all apart and check the numbers to see if it NEEDS the work, then order the parts, wait for delivery, install, and reassemble. *sigh*

I have no issues with any of that (except maybe not being allowed to keep the parts on hand.... what's up with that?!), what bugs me is going to get a little work done on my 8 and comming home in a Dodge Neon. How does THAT work?! I love this 'comparable loaner vehicle' plan. :)

Anyway, just wanted to leave an update for those still looking for info.

you should have issues with it. it takes less than an hour to do! they also were shipped a number of blankets based onthe number of cars sold in their area. everything they said is bullshit. the only reason to not do it on a saturday would be that teh actual mazda tech wasnt there. only the oil/tire monkeys. they have no numbers to check other than your vin. there is no need to drop the tank all the way just loosen it and slip the blanket over. total BS!

ok, so i went in and had the recall done at rosenthal arlington today. also had them do the yearly VA state safety inspection while at it. They kindly waived the $15 state inspection fee, so that was a pleasant surprise :p

brought the car in at 8:20, drove out of dealership by 10:30. They had pretty brisk business for a saturday morning!

on the invoice sheet they only listed the heat shield/pad as part installed, when i asked about the R flash as part of the recall, the service advisor went back to the garage, and came back and told me it has been done, and all the information has been uploaded to their eMDC portal, and should be available for review sometime next week.

hey zoom44, you don't happen to have access to the eMDC site so I can check all the records myself would ya? :p

oh, and i also washed the car after dinner today, it was filthy!!!! :D

Got my recall work done on the 19th. No problems so far, I even got a sticker. From what I can tell all they had to do was the flash.

Ok so I called around a bit and y'all were right (as many people here tend to be). All theother dealerships in the area are performing this work in two hours or less in most cases.

So I called my dealership up ready to kick some major @$$ and was greeted by the actual RX-8 tech (aparently they have but one tech certified to work on the major systems in the 8) and he said the parts were there and they shoul dhave it ready by mid-day. Kinda sucks in a way, I was looking foreword to a good yelling match on the phone.

Anyway, thank you for the info. I spoke to the manager about the load I was shoveled Saturday and she waived my oil change and mounting/balancing fees as reparation for the incident. If there is one thing I can not stand it is being lied to bold faced..... :( and aparently she picked up on my displeasure. Either that or she beleived me when I told her they would never touch my vehicle again. Why is it the dealership treats people like they are nothing? Two ours for an oil change on Saturday when that is all they are doing? And there were only 2 other people in the waiting room! Yeesh.

Had the recall done today, but the service writer said it didn't need a reflash :confused: Paperwork says nothing nothing about it being done, only about removing the gas tank and installing the pad. :confused:

So has anyone actually received a letter yet?

Until the letters are out and the dealers get enough experience to know what they're doing, there's no way I'm letting them touch my car. If ain't broke, don't fix it.

I still do not have a letter yet, so you are ahead of me at least :)