Like most of you, my car's center compartment's cover doesn't stay in pace when pulled back. And I've been the victim of crushed soda cans and bottles fluids getting everywhere my car. After trying several things, I think I finally got a permanent fix.

I always thought that the cover stayed put through some sort of mechanical contraption. But I realized, as I'm sure a lot of people have already, that the reason the cover stays back is because of friction, not mechanics.

Those little black slotted tabs that fall/break off all the time are made like that so they can put pressure against the plastic when you pull back the cover. So my simple mind came up with a simple, and ghetto, fix.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/Targatheory/DSCF2490-1.jpg
These are the little tabs I'm talking about. After a while, they start to wear and thin out, making them useless in terms of applying pressure and friction.

So get yourself some duct tape, I used electrical tape myself, and do this...
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y126/Targatheory/DSCF2492-1.jpg

Then slide that sucker back on in your car and curse Mazda for making us poor folks do this.

Note: Depending on what kind of tape you use, you may need two layers of tape per tab. Just make sure the tape you use is kind of rubbery, you know, like electrical tape, cuz ya need friction. And if it turns out that its too hard (or impossible) to move/slide, just take your fingernail and start scraping away at the tape. And keep doing that until you are comfortable with the degree of slidyness. As long as it stays put when its pulled back, you're all good right. No one is gonna know you used duct tape to fix your RX8.

My 14 day old RX8 is already doing this. The slider doesn't even lock into place, it just flops around. It's under warranty I suppose but I don't know that a new one will be any better. I think I'm going to do this. Thanks for the advice! The best fixes most often involve tape and/or a ghetto quotient.

Yeah, it won't stop the cover from jiggling when its locked (fully closed). But when you pull it back, it will create friction after about half an inch of sliding and stay still wherever you leave it.

The place to put the tape is on the tab shown in post #19 of thread:

http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?t=100714.html

Mine was sunken and broken just like in the pictures. I put about 6 layers of thin plastic electrical tape on it, going from the front edge and covering the hump. Feels right pushing it around; we'll see how it works on the road.

A slightly uptown variation on this would be to open the part up and stuff a piece of foam or some kind of spring under the tab.

FWIW - when I started looking poking around to see what could be done, I found one of those little sliders laying loose in the back part of the console. That was the only one that was off, and I popped it back on.

Ken

Not bad. I just put a water bottle there and it holds it back for me and thats my ghetto fix lol :)