Has anyone else noticed the poor paint matching on RX8 bumpers? Particularly Titanium ones....

Gomez

 

Mine's perfect - velocity red. Certain it hasn't been "fixed"?

 

No Kev, I've seen three new Titanium cars at dealers with obvious (to me!) mismatch of the bumpers...

In my past life as a Ford enthusiast, I learned of the difficulties the factory had at matching painted plastic to the rest of the car...

Mazda have yet to overcome the problem too???

Gomez

 

No such problems for me, nor with my wife's silver 6.

 

I Never noticed it but when my first titanium went to the body shop to fix a dent they pointed out to me how it didn;t match in sunlight.- Just picked up my new 8 yesterday and I'll look to see if it's any better- it was built 6 months later than the first and seems better in some ways- still on first tank of gas but it too seems like a huge guzzler- and I am keeping the revs below 4500.

 

Hymee, I don't believe it - your wife's 6 is silver too?!?

So who else has a red 8 + a silver 6 out there???

 

Kev,

Yeah - I thought we had already established that we are brothers in Mazdas.

Hymette's is a "Silver Contrail" Classic sedan, manual. That is the slightly upgraded model. Me - I just got the poverty pack RX-8. Hehehe.

Cheers,
Hymee.

 

Sorry to challenge the theory but the paint matching on my TI is fine

Rob

 

Jane's has a sunroof, works very well and eats very little headroom - would have been nice in the 8. Plus it has black leather seats covered in white suntan lotion (GRRRR!!! she never could look after a car).

New we were brothers, didn't realise we were almost identical twins

 

Paint match is okay on mine.
Can only really spot it if you're looking really carefully at the joins in direct sunlight.
I've seen alot worse on some cars and wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

My Dec 03 build Vel Red is perfectly matched. However I do notice on every 8 I've seen including mine that there's more orange peel than I would hope for. It's most obvious under artifical light and on cloudy days. When it's sunny the mica takes over and it looks terrific.
Just ordered some Zaino from the local distributor - hopefully this might improve things somewhat.....

 

I'd never heard of Zaino prior to joining this forum, its like there's been a polish outbreak! Its everwhere....

Gonna hit google and see what the fuss is about...

Gomez

 

Mines fine.

 

I hadn't heard of it B4 either - but it sure gets rave reviews on this site and a few others ( Honda nsx site for example). Seems to me one of the unique selling propositions is that with Zaino you can BUILD multiple layers. Most waxes are formulated to remove the residue of the existing wax layer whilst they apply the new layer. Some Zaino-philes are apparently adding 10 layers of the stuff! Sounds like too much hard work to me, but I'll happily report my experience with a layer or two ( ie one or two layers after applying the mandatory Zaino primer stuff!) in due course. ....

 

Or you could try out Swissol. A Hymee Endorsed Product , unofficially!

http://www.swissol.com/E/AUS/Produkte_Entry.htm

I got the "Samauri" wax, specially for "Japanese" paints - whatever that means

Give Keith Tapsall a call. A helluva nice bloke. Spent lots of time and patience with me. You are recommended to layer this stuff as well. I have 3 coats on mine now. Really beads the water off well, and I always get plenty of comments on how great the paint looks.

I was put onto this stuff by a guy who sells HSV's by day, and is a car nut otherwise. He has a national concourse winning Shelby Cobra, and absolutley loves the RX-8.

(I wouldn't order on the on-line form - it doesn't look like a secure site)

Cheers,
Hymee.

 

I have been told that the paint on the bumpers is layered on thinner than on the metal. So therefore it is more difficult to get the colour depth to match. Though i can think why it would need to be so. It just looks like there isn't enough primer on the black plastic. I have seen a hugely mismatched yellow car, it was so obvious but i think it was an early version. Can't tell any difference on darker cars or metallic colours.
I don't know what everyone else thinks of the paint quality but i am not especially impressed for the money. The orange peel is quite bad and the coat is not especially thick on edges and on the inner door areas. It is what you would expect from a 323 not rx model.
It is not all bad though as the cars still look awesome!!! They just need extra babying from owners!

fatmarco

 

Unfortunalely, Orange-Peel is a mandatory option on pretty much all new cars these days.

I had to get over it long ago, when I went from having a lovingly restored "older car" to my first new car.

Cheers,
Hymee.

 

Mazda now only has to release a Orange colour and call it "special effect" paint.

Maybe a limited edition range of "Citrus" pack RX8's in line with the "Shades" pack 323 from years ago.