Needed to get away for a quick break, so my wife and I decided to take the new toy for a drive. We left Sydney on Tuesday and in the past few days managed to put another 3200kms on the clock by catching the ferry across to Tassie from Melbourne and doing a quick lap of the island. The car is an absolute buzz on the tight roads there. We did also see another two RX8s in Melbourne, both red. One with a spoiler driven by a blonde around Port Melbourne and the other by a couple across the Westgate bridge with Vic plates RX 0008 or RX 008. If either is a forum member, a belated Hello, and the red looked great.
The oil light did come on as I was driving out of Albury on the way down so I stopped in at the Mazda dealer on William st (yes I did check the oil straight away and saw that it was safe to go on). The service guy looked at the car straight away checked the oil level and topped it up with about 500mls. He said that he will be reporting back the usage to Mazda Australia. At the time I had only 2400kms on the clock and the first oil change was done at exactly 1000kms. On the way home after Tassie the light came o again about 200kms out of Melbourne with about 3800 kms on the clock. Check the level and again it was about half way between the two marks. Pulled into a few servos to try and get a non synthetic 5w- 30 oil to no avail and as it was late decided to continue on to Wagga Wagga, stay the night and see the dealer there this morning. To his credit the Mazda service man came down tho the dealership as soon as I called the after hours number ( they dont open on Sunday in Wagga), confirmed the level being low and topped up with about another litre.
I'm wishing the roadside assist info came with the car and not the welcome pack, as it still isnt here.
Because of work I have to drive to Canberra for the week tomorrow morning so I wont be able to get the car back to the dealer for a proper inspection, however the lesson is to definately keep a close eye on the oil level and the service guys sure are more than happy to help out an RX 8.

Sounds like fun mate :) Thinking of doing a similar trip 'cept for 2 weeks at the end of the year. What sort of fuel economy did you get?

economy improved and for the last leg it worked out that I would get about 500 kms to the tank.With harder driving and the mountain runs it was about 4-5 kms/litre though

By the way Pepe, love your tag. My 8 is the Black leather manual aswell and when I arrived in Tassie and went for a McDonalds breakfast I noticed the happy meal toy was a batmobile. Came back to my wife at the table grinning with batmobile in hand.

The Oil light.... yes I've had this problem.

Mazda tell me it is a known problem with the first batch of 8's that came to Australia. There is a new oil sump with a different location for the oil sensor that they will fit to all the first 8's.

This problem was fixed with later cars, and is a problem that when the oil is a bit low, if it moves away from the sensor, it can show the light.

Mine was coming on for 10 -15 seconds every once in a while.

The part is supposed to be arriving in the next few days, so I will let you know what happens.

Thanks for the info mysydd. Good to know before I call my dealer. Still seems like the oil usage was excessive though, considering Mazda quotes usage to be around 200mls per 1000kms. Have you any comment on the usage being high ( from Mazda or own experience)?

My service manager is also concerned about the Oil usage, and has reported back to Mazda...

Thanks. I will be following up on the phone with my service manager this week and booking in for a service on Saturday. I will have clocked up over 5000kms by then so will be giving it an oil change. I will let you know if I am told anything further.

Will look forward to hearing... if they want to talk to my guy...my service manager is Patrick at Eurocars Artarmon.

Good luck!

Completed the oil change at 5000kms. Mazda still has no oil that we can purchase however my service manager said that he would fill a container for me if I was planning another long drive. Asked about the baffle however he said that there was still no formal service bulletin on the fix, however he had heard this on the grapevine and would let me know. I am now having problems with my remotes, they both need to be used right next to the drivers door where previously they worked from at least 50m away. Also the centre console lid has fallen apart. Service is looking into it however they have no parts diagrams to see what the problem is.

wierd, haven't seen any other RX-8's other than mine, the demo (which was actually ordered for us) and a yellow one (not a big fan of the yellow). Good to see some other people getting to enjoy Tassies roads. You should've told me and we could have gone for a cruise!!!!