JKonquer

i love it, that's all i have to say.....
the car seems like it wants to go faster and faster. and next thing i knew, i was going 135 on freeway, and it felt like i was going speed limit. very quiet and smooth ride.
love the smooth shifting and the power-bend from 4? or 5? k rpm. there is no blind spot at all. the turning radius on the 8 is awesome.
a definitly a race car.....
although i think there are too much button on the center console, but that can be something to get use to
there is one sport package, silver, with aero is selling for 29,000 sticker price<---love this color with the aero kit..
how much do you think i can get it down to after tax and lic..

c2k4-8

Where are you from?

HeelnToe

Use a couple of the various auto sites like carsdirect.com and msnautos to calculate the invoice price for the package you want. Most people seem to be getting them for anywhere just below invoice to a couple hundred above (more likely).

But stay away from doing 135, OK? I know it's tempting, but people who see you coming assume you're doing 55, and will pull out, change lanes, etc. Gets ugly real fast for everyone.

Glad to hear you're in love

timisw

I wonder how an 8 would handle on hard breaking & evasive turning at the 100 plus mark.

Anyone lose control of it at high speeds? Or has no one posted on that cause they didnt live to tell about it?

No matter how fast I take onramps... with traction control on or off, I always feel in control and it feels like the car is telling me "Hey Tim, if you have the ***** to do it, go ahead and press the gas more!"

I had to drive mine on snow/ice a couple of times this winter and though scary, it always corrected itself. Though that was at 30 to 35mph tops. I hated that I had to drive it, but the Rat Car (88 Integra) was getting fixed.

RX8Bliss

so you're finally biting the bullet huh?
talk em down to invoice + extras. you should negotiate the price before tax and license though. dont talk about monthly payments. set an outthedoor price on the car and calculate the interest and junk later.

Redlinin 8

I went on another test drive not too long ago and the salesman insisted i go as fast as i need to"feel" the car...hey..i didnt complain....hit about 110 and slowed....felt stable,safe and ready for more.......i love this car!

CJ799705

Car switching lanes in front of you while doing 135? No sweat. That's what brakes are for! Anticipate, identify the car, and slow down a bit to pass. Then maybe you're at 110 when he decides to jump out. Brakes. What a great idea!! It's also a great idea to leave an extra lane between you and the traffic you pass when going that fast.

Personally, I'd never do 135 in traffic. But on an empty road? I'd let it hang out a bit. Once in a while.

I was out in Alberta last year, and we hit about 120 (app.=200KPH) on a two lane. It's so clear out there that you can see a good 2-3 miles in front of you, so it was easy to see any possible obstruction. Not every highway is like those you find in cities.

I might have gone a little long. I just wanted show the lack of knee jerk reation to speed. You do have to be perfect when driving that fast and I've found that modern cars tend to handle waaaaay better under high velocity.

HeelnToe

I thought your were trying to be sarcastic and funny when I first read that...

Now I'm just plan scared.

CJ799705

Maybe a little bit. But it tends work in Germany and I refuse to believe that there's some intelligence gap between the drivers in Germany and here. I think we've been conditioned through horrible pictures and scary stories to think that every time someone goes fast, somebody dies. Such pictures and stories do two things. They ignore any other factors (distractions, alcohol, faulty equipment) and they assume the driver who crashed is every bit as capable and experienced as anyone else. I'm not saying I'm some enlightened person. I just think that a skilled driver is capable of more than someone else.

Read some of Brock Yates' stuff. I'm with him on high speeds on the freeway.

HeelnToe

Thing is, on the Autobahn, people expect vehicles in the the passing lane to be doing 135+mph, and will/should consider that when changing lanes with a vehicle approaching from behind.

But Mary Smith, on her way to work here in the US, sees an RX-8 coming up behind her waaaaay in the distance, assumes it's doing 60-70 (not 135!), and casually moves over to pass a car.

Bam.

It's not that speed itself kills, it's the relative differences in speeds and the false expectations of the surrounding drivers that make a mess.

AQA101

The 8 tends to railroad heavily (if it finds a "track", it wants to follow it). This effect obviously increases when braking. Mine once railroaded while braking at high speed (130-150 mph), feels pretty strange if you're not used to it.

No chance to test evasive turning on the autobahn though. Maybe I'll get a shot at it during the driver's training I've planned to absolve in two months.

AQA101

True. Another point is that driving beyond 180 km/h (approx. 110 mph) has its own rules. Slight tunnel vision starts at that point and unexperienced drivers have not much concentration left for other things than keeping the car on the road. Which isn't enough in traffic situations with many vehicles, some very slow, others faster than you and many of them unpredictable in their actions. The trick with driving fast is to be relaxed at high speed in order to concentrate fully on the traffic situation. Besides that, distance is your best friend at high speeds.

gusmahler

You may not have noticed, because it is hidden. But there is a sub-board devoted to dealership/ordering/financing of the RX8.

Bottom line, $200 over invoice should be easy to get. You should actually be able to get less than that, because those were the first offers I got. I haven't even begun to negotiate.

Here are the invoice prices according to Edmunds.

CJ799705

My thing is, when someone is getting over, I can see that and adjust accordingly. It's all about reading the traffic. You see two vehicles in the same lane kinda close to each other and right away, you should be ready for something. I do know all about the closing speed thing. 135 and 50 leave an 85 mph gap and it takes most non-porsches 300 feet or more to stop from 80 and I have no idea how long a 135 to 45 stop would take. I will say that turns signals are great and it's always a good idea to look twice to get a better sense of another car's speed.

Not to worry. I don't make it a point to go above 95 very often. In fact, it's very rare that I do that at all.

Sorry to take this thread off topic. . .

It's awesome that this car inspires so much confidence that someone could get that fast and not even realize it.

sferrett

I'd say an 80-0 stop would be a *heck* of a lot shorter distance than the distance to slow from 135-45 - probably much less than half the distance.

As for the stability cornering/braking at high speeed:

I was doing something over 100 the other week up a long straight stretch of road here in the desert and was heading towards a left hand turn ahead. I got distracted by the sun shining right in my eye and subsequently I was late on the brake and had to brake a bit harder than I was expecting to slow for the turn (which was probably a hang-on-60-mph type of corner). It's the only time when I felt I wasn't quite sure what the car was going to do - it yawed to the right under braking (which was a worry since the corner was to the left), presumably following the grade of the road a little, but it got back on track again when I started to ease up on the brakes and gave it some steering to the left. It was a bit of a pucker-moment though since the corner was coming up in quite a hurry indeed.

So I'd say provided you're not exceeding the traction limits of the tires (or the ability of the driver) it's a very stable car at speeds, but speed can be deceptive and it doesn't take much (like just the sun hitting your eye when you didn't expect it) to throw all your anticipation of traffic etc. etc. completely out the window. That's the big danger of going fast - things happen a lot quicker so if something doesn't go to plan you have less time to come up with an alternate reaction than the one you were originally going to do.

EatMyBanana

I to have noticed the railroad problem . its great to read this site and see what you feel put into words. thanks AQA101 for the help in the terms. in fact this problem is what i have noticed the most after owning my 8 for two weeks. live in an old city with old roads in the downtown district and the car will pull hard at stop lights sometime , i almost feel as if i might go into the next lane.

AQA101

You're welcome - but to be honest I too found the term (in some review of the 8) some time after noticing that "stoplight effect" myself.

I think it happens if the road declines to one side, the car then simply follows the decline. And the car likes to follow lane groves.

I imagine while braking from high speed it can be pretty dangerous in case you react to strong. Seems to help if you lower the brakes for a moment.

Astor

Aren't you the same person who started the thread rx-8 = slow??
Talking about your Celica, since reading this you come across as dishonest and I find it hard to believe anything you say.
I would say your age is questionable as well, perhaps 14-15, watched too much Fast & the Furious.

JKonquer

maybe you haven't read any of my post in detail
first of all, this thread was posted after i posted the"rx8 = slow??" -don't you see the question mark??- thread. and during that time, i never said celica is better than rx-8. in a fact i even mention that i love rx-8s, and iam planning on getting them. The thing about celica was that nobody believe me on what celica can do, so i was explaining to them how celica does good in quarter mile. And again, i never said rx-8 are crappy. and i never compared these two cars, i just said, stock 2000 gt-s can do 14.8 in quarter proven by SCC. And what does fast and fruious got to do anything with this subject.
now i'm wondering how old you are...

NickG

I know you guys Stateside won't like this but the other significant point of difference is that German roads aren't cluttered up with ill-handling, grossly overweight, top heavy, poor braking SUV's/4WD's and "car trucks" like the F100 driven by people who don't understand the dynamic differences between a 2000kg+ crudely suspended, high centre of gravity truck and a normal 1400kg sedan.

We have exactly the same problem here in Australia, which I think I am correct in saying has the highest per capita market penetration of 4WD's in the World.

The latest scary data coming out of our local crashlabs is that you are 8 times as likley to die if hit side on by a 4WD than by a normal sedan. Something to bear in mind when we are all out there enjoying our wonderful, agile and compact RX8's....

Japan8

Your reasoning is... bad.

1st... no one is dong 55mph. Most drivers will be doing 60-65mph. A few will be doing in the neighborhood of 55 (50-55mph) and a few will be doing 65-70mph.

2nd... You can't assume ther other drivers are doing anything. If you are... YOU are the cause of accidents. You can assume nothing on the road. Be defensive. Be aware and alert. Let's see you anticipate the truck in front of you blowing a tire and you now have tire tread flying at you...

3rd... if you can't tell that a car is approaching at a high velocity, then you must need glasses. Even when there are no other cars on the road, it's not difficult to tell that this car is exceeding your speed. Assume it's just 60 or 65 to your 55? Come on... if he is gaining on your rather quickly then it is OBVIOUS (very simple math here people!!) this car is traveling at a rather high velocity. The ease with which you can ascertain this only increases when there is other traffic to compare it to.

Moral of the story. Saying speed kills is an over simplification. Don't do your makeup and drive. Don't eat lunch and drive (we're all guilty of this one). Don't talk on the cell phone (even handsfree) and drive. Pay full attention to the road. Stay alert at all times. NEVER panic. Use reasonable judgement at all times. If we all did this... there would be less problems.

HeelnToe

That's still a closing speed of *65mph*. Ouch.

I don't assume. But most drivers do. It's been my experience that people will assume you're driving at "normal" speeds, and will act accordingly - especially when deciding whether or not to pull out in front of you, change lanes, etc. People in general are lemmings; they don't think and evaluate, they just act out of habit, repetition, and imitation - and expect everyone else to be doing the same. Driving for them is a rote act, their car is an appliance, they give it no more thought than eating lunch.

Japan8

No... I think you're wrong on most drivers assuming. They don't assume. They don't think either. It is as you said at the end... the car is appliance to them... like the microwave. They give its use no thought. They don't assume other drivers are or are not doing something... they just do want the need/please and let the others work it out.

Yes though... the average person is a sheep. That's a good percentage of what's wrong with the world.