Hi ya'll, I found a way to enjoy the car even more than before and it didn't cost me a cent. Here it is: Stop worrying about the freakin' mileage!

I admit I've been one of the worst, trying every gimmick on this forum to try improve my mpg. Once the turn-in deadline passed and I kept the car, time to think "What the hey, just enjoy it!" So I am.

So put away your calculators, stop resetting the odometer at every fillup, and get out there and drive the way the '8 is meant to be driven. Lose all those bad habits about shifting early and often. Damn if it ain't more fun!

Maybe someday Mazda will find a way to improve mileage but until then I'm stuck around 16.5 mpg and aint nuthin' gonna change it so watch out for a red blur passing u by! :cool:

you ain't passing me! congratulations and welcome to the dark side;)

I am not worried about the MPG. I am just curious.

Originally posted by Rick
I am not worried about the MPG. I am just curious. Curious what? YOu have a blue car. ;)

zoom44, you just made me think of a great license plate, which i see amazingly is still available in California: REDSHFT. Anyone get it? Is it good? I got dibs.

nice. get it b4 someone else does!

Originally posted by zoom44
nice. get it b4 someone else does!

thnx. Do you really get it or is it too subtle? Sometimes I can't tell.

Originally posted by 8_wannabe
Curious what? YOu have a blue car. ;)
OK... you have a red car.

Redshift is what happens as you approach the speed of light. Stars ahead turn more blue, stars behind more red. The 8 isn't quite that fast but it's a cool plate non the less. Good luck getting it, it's most likely taken.

I'm sure someone already has that plate

Originally posted by Rick
OK... you have a red car.

See, sometimes i'm too subtle. I wondered if you were curious yellow or just curious, but about what I'm not sure.

So, do you get my license plate?

Originally posted by mikeb
I'm sure someone already has that plate

ka-ching -- one more blah post from mikie, goin' for the record. :o

But besides that, no one in Cali has it; I checked. Zoom2x got it right but I would slightly change his definition: Something moving away from you at speeds approaching the speed of light shift towards the red end of the spectrum. Since I have a Velocity Red 6MT it seems like a fitting plate.

Originally posted by 8_wannabe
See, sometimes i'm too subtle. I wondered if you were curious yellow or just curious, but about what I'm not sure.
I see you are an english 101 nut. Be prepared to get irritated every time you read one of my posts.:D

great post. same advice goes for the tires and brakes :)

james

Originally posted by Rick
I see you are an english 101 nut. Be prepared to get irritated every time you read one of my posts.:D

I sure have trouble following what is meant by your posts. Maybe i'm just slow...:(

Originally posted by 8_wannabe
I sure have trouble following what is meant by your posts. Maybe i'm just slow...:(
You know what I was talking about in my first post. However, you found a puncuation mistake and decided poke fun.I did not think you would make a personal attack like that so I made the second post. After your second reply, it was clear to me that punctuation & grammar errors bother you a little to much. Make sense now?

Originally posted by Rick
You know what I was talking about in my first post. However, you found a puncuation mistake and decided poke fun.I did not think you would make a personal attack like that so I made the second post. After your second reply, it was clear to me that punctuation & grammar errors bother you a little to much. Make sense now?

Thank you for explaining, but no I wasn't making fun and I'm not even sure what the punctuation mistake is. Believe me, I'm no english professor. You simply said you were curious, and there is expression about "Curious Yellow" so since you didn't say what you were curious about i mentioned the color yellow. No personal attack was intended and believe me, if I was attacking you, you would know it.

Originally posted by 8_wannabe
there is expression about "Curious Yellow"
sorry,I misread you. I do not remember hearing the "Curious Yellow"expression.

8_wannabe must be about my age. No doubt...:D

Anyway, about the mpg thing, there aren't many times that I've concerned myself with mpg (except after the fact "oh geez, that musta used 1/4 tank, right there :( "). Ive just been driving my regular ways. I'm usually the one doing the passing & only get passed by "those crazy idiots!". From a stoplight, I'm semi-agressive about getting her up to speed, but, again, "those crazy idiots" can have the lead if they must.

The mpg has been on a steady increase and it's up over 20 now. I'm in a habit of entering my data into excel ever since I bought a used Infiniti in 2000, so I'm glad to do it this time from the start with a brand new car. I'm doing it more for the long-term trends. Again, it's a habit of mine...:)

>only get passed by "those crazy idiots!".

sorry about that, m8. :D

-one crazy idiot

One way to get more enjoyment out of the RX-8 would be to use the rear seats, but the damn console runs all the way back.;)

Originally posted by Ophitoxaemia
>only get passed by "those crazy idiots!".

sorry about that, m8. :D

-one crazy idiot

LOL, now we know who to blame.

Doh!

OK hotshot! :D

I've been known to use 1/4 tankfuls in a heartbeat though...

And, I'm sure that I've been called a "crazy idiot" myself on a fairly regular basis.

It's just a matter of two factors here...

1) What degree of craziness are you?
2) What degree of idiocy are you?

It's just those pickups & SUV's that have me a bit intimidated some times. When a kid thinks he's Dale Earnhardt incarnate, driving some Chevy pickup, & you get him a bit pissed-off, he can get to quite a degree of crazy idiocy pretty darned quickly!

Originally posted by goodyrx8
One way to get more enjoyment out of the RX-8 would be to use the rear seats, but the damn console runs all the way back.;)

There is a whole thread about this, back from when none of us had our cars. I could tell you what to search for but just use your imagination. Basically, it was a "Is it possible" kinda thread. :p

Edit: Found it. (http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6968) You just had to search for "freak nasty" so I'm sure you would have stumbled across it pretty quick. ;)

Originally posted by Rick
sorry,I misread you. I do not remember hearing the "Curious Yellow"expression.

There was a Swedish art film made in the 1960's called "I Am Curious Yellow" and there was a lesser-known one called "I Am Curious Blue" -- the colours refer to the colours of the Swedish flag. No, I never saw either one.

Good God, I must be getting old! I caught both references (I have seen the movie a long time ago). Of course, along with the Doppler color shift (red approaching, blue departing), there are other factors:

The Lorentz contraction - causing the object to appear shorter
The Doppler red/blue shift - altering the hues of color observed
The headlight effect - brightening or darkening the object
Optical aberration - deforming the object in bizarre ways

I'm not so sure you want to also imply the shortening/deformation as well as the color shift, so best to go with REDSHFT BLUSHFT or DOPPLER as your plate over LGHTSPD.
:0

oops - back to topic

8_wannabe - sage advice! While I will likely always monitor my mpg, I see no reason to get too wrapped up in it. With all this beauty and power, I can accept it for what it is.

Originally posted by mikeb
I'm sure someone already has that plate

You can check yourself online

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/online/elp/elp.htm

Thanks. I checked before I made the post.

cool better grap that plate