Wanted to report a very pleasant dealer experience... My brother-in-law and I just bought two RX-8s at Caliber Mazda in Norco (off the 15 just above the 91). Mine is silver/black 6-spd GT; his is blacl/black 6sp GT w/wing, spoiler, 6-disc, nav and rotary trim pack.

Got both cars for close to invoice. Excellent and very professional car-guy salesman named Mike Haizlip. His test drive route covers some chgallenging corners and lasts about 20 minutes -- really shows you what the RX-8 can do!

Bottom line, my most enjoyable car purchase experience to date.

 

I'm really happy for you. I have a similar story. Took a super long test drive through foothills and winding roads at an OC dealership to take my mind away from the 350Z. I've never looked back since then, although I did not buy my 8 at that dealership.

 

Picked up my Red 8 from the same salesman, pretty much the same experience, close to invoice for a loaded car, now if I can get used to the NavSys.....

 

Hey, I bought mine from Michael Haizlip as well. Did he take you to a residential area where he drove around in circles showing you how well the turning radius and handling is on the RX8?

 

I was at Browing Mazda on Sunday... and the guy there was very good to me. spent over an hour test driving the automatic, then the manual then was even taken to see the inventory... I just hope they find a nice titanium grey MT with the sport package... also Tustin Mazda was very good to me the last time I was there. neither were too pushy at all. FYI

 

I had a painful experience with Riverside and Norco Mazda. Riverside gave me the runaround for weeks before I decided to take my business to Norco. Norco flat out lied to me about having the RX that I wanted in their inventory. Heritage in Huntington Beach also gave me some bogus info about the car's features. I finally went to Irvine Mazda, which is close to the Mazda headquarters, and a sales guy named Phong sold my my silver 6-sp fully loaded RX. He was great! He was knowledgeable about the car and gave me a great deal.

 

I'm glad you finally got some respect and answers

 

We bought three cars at Norco from Mike Haizlip -- great experience. Had the cars we wanted (silver RX-8 6m GT, black RX-8 6m GT+bodykit and nav, and black MPV ES)... Worked with him for two weeks over the phone to identify the cars and spec -- knowledgeable car guy, most pleasant purchase experience ever.

Mike also gave us all three cars at S-Plan...

Re: Irvine, I know Phong, he's a great guy -- responsive, professional, etc... However, the GM would not give us the 8s for S-Plan, although he did offer minor discounts if we were willing to take red or yellow. Also looked at Mazdaspeed Protege -- despite having a huge inventory (who's going to buy a 2003 MS Protege at this point?) the GM refused to give me S-Plan on that car also...

BTW, the MS Protege was a hoot -- loved that low-end turbo torque!

 

We should start calling this thread So Cal Dealers.

Bought mine at Cush Mazda in Escondido. Mazda website showed the car I wanted there (yellow 6MT TP). Got there and car was sold 3 days earlier. Should have called first...DOHH!

Anyway, salesman (Ron) and my wife talked me into a Ti 6MT after driving one around a nice 20 minute country road loop. They of course, did not have the exact car I wanted, so they had to find it. They did, we signed papers, and they told me to come back the next day to pick it up.

The next morning I get a call that the car was damaged in freight, but they had found another one with slightly different options.

The car they found did not have a spoiler which I really wanted. Ron's boss told me he'd get me the spoiler at Cush's cost. I should have asked, but I figured it had to be right around $300 ($297 from factory). Was I wrong. He wanted to charge me $750!! I told him I can get one for less than $400 and to stick his up his ****.

After that, they wanted us to pay the difference in price ($200) for the 6-disc. My wife told them to go to hell and got up (she's tough) and all of the sudden the $200 went away. 2 hours later I drove home in my new 8!

Wait, there's more bad news... The car was pulling to the right driving and pulling to the left under braking from day one. I called the next Thursday and Friday trying to talk to someone about the procedure for getting it fixed. No one bothered to call me back, so Saturday moring I showed up at 8am. The service manager promptly told me there was no way he could help me (only got two techs you know?) and maybe he could get me in in two weeks! Two weeks to fix a $30k car with 200 miles on it?

To sum up CUSH SUCKS!

Anyway, I ended up having Tustin Mazda fix it the next Monday. No waiting, very helpful, friendly, and sympathetic to my torture at Cush. I even had them replace the dealer plate with one of thiers.