fastrunner

Just bouught a new 8 about 5 weeks ago, and I keep reading about people who have returned the 8 because of horse power overstatement. Anyway, what was the magic date for this so called "return" policy? I have no intentions of returning mine (love it so far), but just curious.

Gord96BRG

You had to have purchased or ordered your RX-8 by August 24, and made your election (return or keep with free service and $500 back) by October 1.

Regards,
Gordon

RX8Lover

too long ago - I believe the cut off date was August 26th, 2003.

Sea Ray

I was looking at my window sticker the other night and noticed it did say 247 hp. Will this be a collectors item someday??

Haze

Yes. I ordered my car in May, and printed out a window sticker from the web-site after the car had been built sometime in early August. It said that the engine had 247HP. After the "issue", I tried to print out another one, and that section of the web-site was mysteriously down. When it came back up, the sticker now said that my car was 238HP. When the car arrived the sticker said 238HP. They destroyed as many window stickers as they could so if you've got one of the 247s. Yeah, I would think that it's a nice reminder of that 9 HP you will never see.

i3man

Didn't most cars have the 247HP and most still do? I thought the problems was that some regulatory agency spot checks a small percentage of vehicles from every manufacturer...like say 3 out of a 1000, and the 8s that were checked didn't have 247HP. Or did Mazda actually confirm that all 8s never had the 247HP to begin with?

Haze

Nah, they are all 238HP. The ones that were sold at 247HP, Mazda admitted actually had 238HP. There was a letter sent and all window stickers now say 238HP. The car is a 238HP car according to Mazda. They claimed that the one's they tested in pre-production averaged to 247 but when they tried it again a little way into the production run, the best avarage they could achieve was 238HP, so that's now the number. I'm not saying that any of this is actually what happened. I'm just saying that that's what all of the communication from Mazda boiled down to.

Gord96BRG

I don't know where you guys are getting any of this 'spot check' power rating info, because it's all completely nonsense! Nobody was going around and pulling engines out of production cars and mounting them on an engine dyno to spot check power output.

The problem was that durability testing turned up the fact that the catalytic converters would not last the required 120K miles under new for 2004 US emissions regulations with the initial 247 hp ECU tuning. At the last minute, Mazda had to re-tune the ECU to run richer at high rpm to lower the catalytic converter operating temperatures to get the US-required durability. This re-tune took place for the first batch of cars in the US ports before the cars were shipped to dealers. The lost 9 hp wasn't due to some random sampling, it was due to a deliberate detune by Mazda. Mazda has confirmed this - and I certainly never say ANY communication from Mazda about random engine checks showing the power was down! This thread is the very first that I've heard that nonsense theory.

Regards,
Gordon

Sea Ray

I just thought it was odd to have the original window sticker since I bought the car mid Dec. It was an Augest build date though. It also shows a port campaign number under the hood which is probably when they did the re-flash. I figured the window sticker would have been reprinted but the car did come from a small town dealer who probably most likely wasn't aware of a lot of the stuff going on anyways.

Haze

Dear Gord -

Bite me. Nobody said anything about "spot checks". You made that up. What I said was that the communication from Mazda boiled down to recalcualtion of the horse power rating when they tested their production engines as opposed to their pre-production engines. As I pointed out in my previous post, that was their story sent out at the time, and I have no idea of the validity of it. I can beleive that what you have posted above is true, but that is not what they said in their letter to me, and I quote:

"Because we're always looking for ongoing improvement in the vehicles we produce, we have continued testing and analysis of mass-production RX-8 engines. Through this testing, we have determined that the vehicle is making approximately four-percent less horsepower than we had originally calculatd. As a result, the published horsepower rating of North American-specification vehicles will change from 247 to 238 horsepower, and from 207 to 197 horsepower for automatic vehicles."

The letter goes on, but that's what I base the statement that Mazda claimed a retest of their production engines lead to the horsepower downgrade. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Mazda North American Operations, and before you post that I have posted complete nonsense, perhaps you could ask more politely what I have based my information on.

Sincerely,

Haze

Elara

Haze, I don't think he was refering to you. i3man DID make a reference to spot checks. I think Gord just quoted the wrong post.

i3man

I claim the 5th amendment :p

i3man

If you bought an 8 in mid December and the sticker says 247HP, I can't see how you wouldn't be eligible for the buy back, assuming you wanted it, despite being past the deadline.

You have indisputable evidence of a vehicle that was marketed as having 247HP.

At least go back and try and get service for life, tires for life, and free groceries for life :p

I'm going home tonight and re-check my sales sticker to see if I can try and get me some free groceries for life too :p

klegg

Gord is a good guy and did not deserve that, "Spot checks" was in a post on this thread from someone else....I guess you are having a bad day...

Sea Ray

I suppose I could try but I might not sleep well at night...........know I didn't try

Just kidding, unless the dealers really does something to tick me off, I'll let it be.

Haze

Gord is a good guy, but not in this post. Using phrases like complete nonsense is rude, and he should apologize since it is not complete nonsense. I did not realize that he was quoting i3man when he said spot checks, and perhaps if I had I would not have had such a strong reaction, but I stand by my reaction. I was offended by the tone of his post, and I think that it was uncalled for.

vix8

Well, it was complete nonsense, but that's Mazda Marketing's job. I don 't think I'd quote anybody's marketing material and confuse it with fact.

Gord96BRG

Ah, but telling me that I "made up" the part about spot checks isn't rude, even though you acknowledge that it was in fact posted in the thread just before your post? :p

Here I was all set to apologise, but you sure don't make it easy. Your righteous indignation doesn't play well to this crowd, it seems! I have no problem acknowledging when I've made a mistake, and apologising for my errors. There you go - I responded to two posts with one reply, and you took offense to the wrong part. My apologies to you, no offense to you was intended.

Here's the deal - the part about agencies doing spot checks is complete nonsense. I'm not accusing anyone of BS, as it's obvious that they thought they heard it somewhere - it doesn't change the fact that it's entirely nonsensical - you know, it doesn't make any sense?

As for Mazda's initial "official response" - true enough, they claimed that further testing had shown the lower power. Equally true, that is complete nonsense, as it was long ago posted, and acknowledged by Mazda sources, that it was the ECU reflash for catalytic converter longevity that was the true reason for the reduced hp rating. So, to be clear, Mazda's initial response about the reduced hp was complete nonsense. It's a bit confusing to someone new to offer that old info up to someone as the explanation for the reduced hp, when it's long since been disproven, without adding any more recent knowledge to rebut it.

Is everybody happy now? :D Relax, it's sometimes difficult to convey proper meaning and intent in these forums - we discuss and debate, and it's not meant to be personal. I meant no offense, and was not attacking anyone personally.

Regards,
Gordon

Haze

To blazes with it, I accept your apology. Sorry that I flew off the handle, but your post really rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe, Klegg is right, and I'm just having a bad day. I have been hearing alot of bad news lately, and perhaps it's wearing on me more than I know.

A similar mistake to the one you made by reposting my post as "nonsense". Let's just call it square, and accept my mea culpa.

All the best - Haze

klegg

See, I am a peace maker, like gandi, carter and Jessie jackson rolled into one.....Now If only the jews and arabs could get along this well

Elara

So from now on I can let you handle all the arguments, right?

:D

klegg

No, I do not mean to sound sexist, but you have that gentle womens touch.