okay, which seems the better deal:

2004 Sunlight Silver 6speed with
-grand touring pck
-6cd changer
-rear spoiler
-appearance pck
-rotary accent pck

per dealer quote: msrp 33164; invoice 30231, offer 26231

-or-

2005 pearl white (or maybe titanium gray) 6 speed
-sport package
-mats, cargo net

msrp 28895, invoice ~26522 (my calculation), offer 25995

Is either a good deal? The heated leather seats and moonroof would be nice, but the other stuff I don't care that much about. It would be nice to have the 05, and I like the gray or white more than the silver I think.

thanks for the input...

You could probably get the '04 for 25,500. I did a similarly equiped deal 5 weeks ago that was 7,600 off msrp. I would go for the '05 if the '04 serial number is a very early model (last 6 digits below 130,000).

I would take the 2004 because it's almost fully loaded...sunroof and leather seats are nice (especially if its the red/black or brown/black leather)...you get a 6cd changer, an RX-8 that looks more dressed up, and a couple other useless additions like the Bose stereo.

On the other hand those 2005s youre looking at are basically base models w/traction control, xenons, and foglights.

But if color is more of a concern to you than the car's contents...then you've already made up your mind anyway.

the guy didn't seem willing to deal on the 04 for some reason. I called and told him that I was getting some pretty good deals on 05s and he said "thanks for calling me back, I don't have what you want in an 05" ? Go figure. Seems like at that price the '05 is better deal maybe?

The 04 will sell itself at that price and there is less incentive for the saleman to make money since the profit is mostly gone. That's why the saleman is trying to off load the 05 because of the higher profit margin allowing more incentive for him to make his commission. The late model 04 are mostly problem free and the techs are relatively aware of the TSBs fixes before you get the car. I understand that Mazda built three separate batches of RX-8 in 04.

I'd take the 05. It will have better resale in the long run.