Back from 6600 km road trip! (now with photos!!)
 

Hi gang,

Just got back this afternoon from my 2 week, 6400 km road trip from Calgary to Monterey, California (attended the Concourso Italiano and Historic Races at Laguna Seca last weekend). The RX-8 was incredible, a fabulous touring/sports car. The power was entirely adequate (I see I just got back in time to find out I'm missing 9 hp! :eek: ;) , the handling great, the gas mileage was not great. I'll calculate it sometime this weekend.

So - if I was in the US where I could pick up another RX-8 relatively easily, would it be a good idea to let Mazda buy back my 1 month old RX-8 with 7600 km total on the odometer already? ;) I don't think I'll even consider it here in Canada, where it would take me a year to get another RX-8!! Honestly, the power was great - there was a great many twisty roads where I couldn't use full power in the lower gears anyway (road too twisty), and the car is a great high speed cruiser (steady speeds over 100 mph, no wind noise and smoooooth).

Any questions about road-tripping in an RX-8, fire away!

Oh, yeah - I ran into Mazdabob (IIRC) at Laguna Seca last Sunday, and we spent a couple of hours together wandering the paddock and chatting about RX-8s and race cars. Real nice guy, even if he does have an automatic RX-8! It's the Nordic Green, which is very dark.

Regards,
Gordon

Welcome back! Glad to hear you had a great trip. Any photos you might want to post for us to see? How was the head-turning factor? Questions about long trips:

1) My wife often has a sore back - are the seats & ride comfortable enough? (If not, I guess I can always pre-dose her with a couple aspirin before the trip).

2) Can you explain what you meant by the lower gears not being appropriate for the winding roads?

3) Did your feet feel any heat from the engine compartment?

Since you put it that way ... a few shots from the hip to put your forthcoming fuel consumption report into perspective ;).

Was it just yourself in the car?
How much was the car ladden (ie packed to the gills or a couple of carry on size luggage)?
What was your average speed per tank?

I think this explains it pretty good :p

How did the leather seats hold up? How long were you able to go before having to stop and stretch?

Hi! Sounds like you had a great trip. I too enjoyed our encounter. But, what do you mean - " even if he does have an automatic RX-8"? Sorry I didn't get to say goodby, but I talked to the red RX-8 people, and departed right after them.

The seats were great - no problems even after a 10 or 12 hour day of driving.

Sorry, the gearing was fine - what I meant was that on really twisty roads, there was so much power that you couldn't use full throttle anyway!

Nope, no heat problems. In fact, the air conditioning had no trouble, even though the outside temps reached over 33C for 11 of the 14 days! 2 days we saw 37C... even then, the AC was fine - fan speed of 2 or 3 was good enough, and we didn't even have to have the temp dial at full cold after the car had cooled down.

Regards,
Gordon

No, my 15 year old son was with me. The trunk was full, probably 80 to 100 lbs of luggage. Speeds varied a lot - mileage was probably worst on the real tight twisty bits, though.

Regards,
Gordon

Sorry, Bob, I was only teasing, since that was one of the things we had chatted about! It should have read " even if he does have an automatic RX-8 ;) :D ". All in fun!:) BTW, I loved the Nordic Green - gorgeous colour.

Regards,
Gordon

I know you were teasing. I don't take things seriously, like some people on this forum. Have you posted any pix from your trip yet?

Finally calculated the mileage for the trip - overall, 6600 km, average 11.8L/100km (19.8 US MPG, 23.8 Imp. MPG). Highest was 23 US MPG, worst was 15 US MPG.

Considering what others are reporting, I'm pretty happy with that!

Regards,
Gordon

-Canada-: I can attest to the Head turning factor- This CAR causes WHIPLASH for viewers ahha. I drive it around Vancouver, and people everywhere roll down the windows and say either say "hey nice car!" or "what kinda car is that". Hehe Yesterday 3 blondes in a CRV caught up to me in a light and the following coversation occured:

"Excuse me sir, what kinda a car is that, is it 2003?"
"No it is a 2004 Mazda"
"2004! It is very cute! I like it! So it is a Mazda....?"
"Have you ever seen X-Men 2?
"Yeah"
"It is the Blue Car"
"Ooooooooh yeah it was very nice!"
"How much trunk space does it have in the back? A Lot?"
"Yeah, the back seat can fit 2 people as well? (hehe my bad attempt at seeing if they wanted a ride)
"Nice little car. Very Cute, I love it."
"Thanks" Light Turns Green, they drive off and and heads are still out the window looking at the front.:D I am the type of driver that just likes to cruise slow on roads hehe.

But with the good always comes the bad, I always attract Rice boy racers that speed beside me and they wanna race me. Most of them have been mustangs and civics. I just ignore them tho!

Hehe, see, so this car does attract girlies! Gasp. I dont wanna say it, but right now it attracts more attention then the NSX (hehe could be because it is 10 years older) but I still love my Acura!

Oh P.S, this car also attracts a lot of middle aged men, but I dont really remember any of those conversations!:D

I finally put up a few of the photos from my trip in an Imagestation album (registration is required, but it's a Sony site with no spam etc.). The album is
here - be forewarned that there are 148 images there, and some of them are big. I suggest using the index view, and then you see the thumbnails.

Hope you enjoy!

Regards,
Gordon