What's the latest on the 5 speed cars? Anyone driving round in one yet, or have a dealer delivery date of November?

No 5 speeds are in the country yet, we are looking at early to mid December as a best case scenario i believe. I have been told i can collect on the 19th, but am hopeful of an earlier date if the crossing is quick.

What is the earliest promised 5 speed delivery date? Anyone? Bueller?

Contacted my dealer last week.

He is still telling me Jan/Feb at the earliest for my 5 speeder.

Maybe it's a spec issue again - Mines Mica red with R/B leather.

What you other 5 speeders ordered?

Well I have to come clean, I've ordered a 5 speed and I've got a delivery date to dealer of 27th Nov, I just wanted the reassurance that others were expecting theirs around this date before I got too excited. My original letter from Mazda said December.

I ordered in June but can't believe I was one of the first to order a 5 speed, but then as we've seen logic seems to play little part in the scheduling of deliveries.

Mine's a Titanium with leather.

Ricardo,

Please do not take this personally, if you receive your lo power in Nov, other customers will be unhappy having to wait till December for the hi power version that was orderd aroung March 2003.

i must say that i'm a little bemused, having ordered the same spec as you Ricardo, but in March, and getting a delivery date 3 weeks later?

How much do you trust your dealer? Who is the dealer? I have a feeling they may have confused the port landing date with the delivery date. Was told by Mazda UK they add 15 days to the port date for PDi and customs, then advise the dealer to add prep time on top. Iin total around 18 days, which would pull you back to mid/late December with the rest of us.

Goose

Ricardo ordered a Tit with leather tho, whereas your sig suggests you ordered a Red with R/B leather like me.

Maybe Tits are destined to arrive earlier, as they did with the HP, if I am correct? Was only a matter of weeks tho.

Ordered mid-August and was told 'probably March' this has since become 'maybe January'. Both dates come from the dealer, the first letter from Mazda said we will update you each month (which they have on accessories, insurance etc.) but so far no delivery month from them let alone date.

Well I have almost given up. I ordered a low power red wirh red/back leather in March and I still have not been able to get a date out of my dealer :(. I got the letter saying December delivery but I am not getting my hopes up and expecting it this year.

Mark

Guys,

Look at it another way if I now have a 'dealer screen' delivery date for end Nov, maybe that's good news for all of us 'More Torque, less top end' buyers??

My dealer is Solent Mazda, in Portsmouth. I've no reason to doubt the guys there, as up till now as they seem to have been pretty accurate about when other customers cars would be arriving.

If I get any more news this week I'lll post it here.

Like I said, I'd love to find someone else who 'think's' they'll be picking their Lo power car up in early December.

Hello everyone! (1st post)

I´m from good old germany and my dealer told me last week that my dream (5 speed, black leather, bose, ordered in february) would delivered at the end of november or in early december!
But who knows we don´t even have any hi-power´s drivin´around here in germany yet !

Glad to see there are some other 5spd orders - I thought I was the only one. Sometimes I felt embarressed to mention it with our HP high posting big brothers over looking us. I'm finally out of the closet.

After testing both cars I felt the 5 spd better suited my daily commute and together with cheaper insure (£225 p/a) and better MPG knew it was the 'thinking mans' choice.

Who needs 6 gears when 90% of normal driving you never get out of second.

Hello,

My 5 speed LP is promissed for the first half of december; I ordered in jan 03, Velocity red, learhet and sat nav.

No other cars driving round in Belgium except around Bornem (Antwerp) for test drives. I also had there my test drive. There where 2 cars : a blue LP and a black HP.

Patrick
Belgium

Originally posted by deskjet640c
Glad to see there are some other 5spd orders - I thought I was the only one.

To add to your moral support, my order is a 5sp also. I ordered in September and so haven't tried following up on delivery dates yet.

With all of the talk of first deliverys of HP models I was beginning to think that no-one else was interested in the LP and perhaps my choice had been a bad one. Anyway, my reasons for going for the LP were the lower purchase cost and running costs, the fact that even the LP will be fast enough for my enjoyment and the fact that most of my driving is pretty dull commuting where getting above a few thousand revs in any gear would be unusual.

Jim

I have to agree with you Jumpalongjim, I can go without the 0.8 sec diffrenence in acceleration and the 6mph difference in top speed. 2 Grand seemed an awful lot for such small differences. From what I've heard our experience with the car will be little different from our 'Big Brothers', except at the very top end.

Any more 5 speeders want to come out of the closet :) ?

Originally posted by deskjet640c
Goose

Ricardo ordered a Tit with leather tho, whereas your sig suggests you ordered a Red with R/B leather like me.

Maybe Tits are destined to arrive earlier, as they did with the HP, if I am correct? Was only a matter of weeks tho.

Actually blacks and silvers arrived first and titaniums and reds starting to arrive now.

I ordered my hi-power titanium with leather in early April and have a date to dealer of the 16th of Nov so I'm surprised that a low power version same colour and options is arriving only 11 days later.

Originally posted by Ricardo
I have to agree with you Jumpalongjim, I can go without the 0.8 sec diffrenence in acceleration and the 6mph difference in top speed. 2 Grand seemed an awful lot for such small differences. From what I've heard our experience with the car will be little different from our 'Big Brothers', except at the very top end.

Any more 5 speeders want to come out of the closet :) ?

Just to reassure you all - I've driven both specs and with hindsight would have ordered the (so called) lo-power version. The performance difference is very difficult to tell and of the other extras you get with the 231ps version, only the Xenon's are really of interest to me.

I'm sure if you upgraded the lights and added the metal pedals then no-one would be able to tell the difference without inspecting the engine.

I'm sure you are all going to enjoy the car as much as us hi-power owners.:)

Andy,

Thanks for that, I bet I'm not the only LP buyer, who has had sleepless nights about whether or not we've bought the right model. You're right about the Xenons, they are nice and do perform better than normal halogens, but I'll be replacing the standard bulbs with blue halogen to get to an acceptable half way house.

(I've also bought the aluminimum pedals at the extortionate price of £160, like you said)

Do you think it's worth asking Mazda for the latest position on 'Lo Power' deliveries?

Subject to the usual test drives I am struggling as to whether to get the hi or lo power. The difference essentially pays for all the kit I would like - leahter, possibly roof, paint and parking sensors.

However I am not clear whether the xenons can be bought separately.

Made this mistake when I bought a 1.6 and not a 1.8 Mx5 so I guess I had better go out test driving

sam

Originally posted by hellsbuddha
However I am not clear whether the xenons can be bought separately.


The Xenons cant be bought separatly. They require a serious update to headlight power delivery, and the autoleveling feature, along with the headlight washers, not just a simple bulb change.


IMO the hi-power is value for the money.

I have not ordered yet as I would like to give the Hi-Torque version a try before commiting.

I have driven the Hi-BHP version and I loved it. However, in terms of cost and the number of times I'll take the car to the limit the Hi-Torque version makes more sense for me. I, too, will mainly miss the Xenon lights - I've been keen on getting a car with these for a while.

I'm further moving into a minority group by prefering either Winning Blue or Nordic Green. I saw the Winning Blue in the pre-prod car that was doing the rounds in July (I saw it a Goodwood Festival of Speed). It looked superb, but much darker than in the photos I've seen posted so far on other places in the forum. In fact, it was so much darker that I wonder if the pre prod version was Winning Blue?

Brooker,

Dare to be different...I saw the blue at the Festival too, took a while to find it mind you.

The more I see Winning blue the more I like it...the colour just zings. I haven't seen pics of the green yet that give me the same wow.

I've just called the dealer and got a date: 15-Jan + PDI.

i was told yesterday 13th dec for my 5sp winning blue. although i can smell bull at 1000yds.i don't think anyone has a hp blue yet or can someone tell me differently.

Hi I'm an S2000 owner thinking of getting an RX8 due to needing some rear seats.
I want something that looks like a sports car, has a similar performance level to the S, but can take the kids in the back for those occasions when I have to....
I shall miss the top down motoring though and 28.5mpg average.

I haven't driven the RX8 yet. Perfectly willing to consider both models. Not worried about the headlights although the S2000 has Xenons and they are very good.
My need for speed isn't as great as it was. 4 years of S2000 ownership and countless track days have got that out of my system so the "low" power spec may be just the thing.

I do want a reliable car. The S2000 has been 100%. No complaints although they aren't all perfect.

Took these pics of a blue RX8 at Goodwood FOS....
Couldn't climb in though.

http://www.brookesonline.com/RX8/rx8_2sm.jpg
http://www.brookesonline.com/rx8/rx8_3sm.jpg
http://www.brookesonline.com/rx8/rx8_4sm.jpg

Ordered Mar 03, 5 speed, velocity Red, red / black leather.

Mazda letter said delivery December,

Then informed to port Dec 2nd, delivery to me 18th Dec approx.

Then delivery to port was put back to 5th December.

Ordered 5 speed due to prefering the leather seats to faster overall speed and accleration. The 5 speed is a lot faster than my previous Lexus IS200 sport anyway.

Went to my dealer yesterday for a delivery update - it has been brought forward from March 03 to 7th Jan 03. (red 5spd R/B leather)

Still hoping Father Xmas will bring it though:D

On the subject of Xenon headlights, I noticed that Halfords do replacement Xenon bulbs. Anyone know if these just replace standard headlight bulbs and if so , if they're any good?

Originally posted by AndyPearce
Actually blacks and silvers arrived first and titaniums and reds starting to arrive now.


Saw a black in County Mazda Cheltenham yesterday. Does look very good, the leather is very black, unlike the silver which really has grey leather. It looks like a car you might expect the devil himself to step out of.

Cheers
---Dave

Ricardo

If a car, such as the 5 speed RX8, has halogen bulbs as standard, it is only possible (without massive costs) to replace these these other halogen bulbs.

Some bulb manufacturers sell 'Zenon' replacements. These are halogen bulbs with a blue tint. Issue 773 of Auto Express (AE) had a review of halogen replacements and said that tinted lenses actually had less power than non-tinted equivalents.

Osram Silver and Philips Premium won the AE test. I bought some Osram Silver and went to repace them on my car - only to find out that they were exactly what was already fitted!!

Hope this helps.

Thanks for that Brooker. You've just saved me some future cash. I wasn't convinced, hence the question here to guys like you that have considerably more knowledge than I do.

I see you're from Chi, not too far away from me. I guess you've ordered from Nietimeber Mazda (If you've ordered that is, mine's coming from Solent Mazda in two l-o-n-g w-e-e-k-s from now)

Have you seen any non-demo 8s around the South coast yet, because I've not.

Ricardo

I've not ordered yet - am waiting to test a 5 speeder first. Not seen any RX8 in the area yet.

I did test drive a 6 speeder at Nyetimber Mazda in Bognor. Not too impressed with the dealership. The staff were nice enough, it just seems too small to cope with Mazda's current brand success. And with the Mazda 3 on it way, things will only get worse. May give the dealer near Horsham a try.

That said, the car itself was excellent!

Looking forward to your review when you get yours.

Hi Jacab81

I have some news for you from Belgium. The cars for Germany were some time ago unloaded at Antwerp from where they will be shipped (smaler ships) to Germany, amongst other countries from Western Europe.

Eric from the Netherlands quoted that trailers with RX8 have been seen around Sint-Niklaas in Belgium, making their way to France.

So I think that the cars are underway, perhaps even IN Germany. Try to check on Leverküsen.

My 5-speed will be at the dealer on 05.12.03, as I ordered one of the first cars a long time ago (27.01.2003).
Velocity red,red/black leather, sat. nav.,...


Patrick Belgium

i didnt know they made a 5-speed rx-8?? any other differences between 5-speed and 6speed?

In Euro spec, the 5 speed has:

Less BHP (approx 228 to 189)
Slightly more torque
Red lines at 7500 rpm instead of 9000rmp
Loses drilled alloy depals
Loses Xenon headlights
And of course has 5 speed gearbox instead of 6.

In UK it costs £2000 less at £20000.

Xenon

Originally posted by itsallaboutgary
i didnt know they made a 5-speed rx-8?? any other differences between 5-speed and 6speed?

Engine wise its similar to your Auto RX-8, just with a 5 speen manual gearbox.

Looses some toys as stated above.

Looks like the RX-8 in 2005ish will get a 5 speed asuto/manual box like BMW's SMg or Audi's new TT box thingey - i.e. electric clutch rather than torque convertor.

Originally posted by deskjet640c
Who needs 6 gears when 90% of normal driving you never get out of second.
Reminds me of something I read from a newspaper motoring journalist who described the 6-speed gearbox as "the motoring world's version of the amplifier that goes all the way up to eleven".

Mind you, the Xenon lights are really good.