Got letter dated yesterday - all of you registered should be getting one too.

Brief highlights

Production on track to start on 28th July (on track eh)
Everything in order to launch the vehicle in October through November
Refining delivery dates...more precise update next month
The first wave of production due to reach UK shores during mid October.

My take - still as vague as ever - and as has been said on this forum recently in reality this likely means end oct and into november for customer delivery.

BK

 

Strange its taken this long to get to you, this sounds like the letter most us got a number of weeks ago.

 

Nah

got that too in June this is an updated one....

BK

 

Not that strange - I haven't had any reply yet.

 

Got mine this morning as well.

Two letters in a week! Communication overload!!

"launch the vehicle in October through November for the first pre-order Customers" Not too precise.

If you're reading this MAZDA (and I know you are) what do you mean by:

"first pre-order customers" and "first wave of production" ????

Is this the first 1000 cars or less???

or at least the first 365 cars which should include mine???

Believe it or not, to all of us poor patient people, end of October and end of November is a big difference.

Only my observations.

Cheers
Oilman

 

bloody hell information overload it is.

hopefully i might have something at home today but i doubt it. Even if Mazda did send it. The Post Office in Watford works out that 1st class mail should be treated as 2nd class overseas snail mail.

 

I don't like the sound of:

"launch the vehicle in October through November for the first pre-order Customers"

How many of the pre-orderers are the "first" ones? And when will the rest of the pre-order cars be arriving?

For example, the Canadians are only getting 700 cars this year and they are arriving in dribs and drabs over the next six months. The way things are going I'm expecting to finally get a letter in about September telling me my official, confirmed delivery date is "sometime in 2004".

 

I must be around car 700-800.

Will be very upset if its not delivered this year. And will probably cancel. There are other cars, and I will not wait that long.

 

Can someone post contact details for Mazda - for some reason I seem to be missing out on any contact besides the letter we got last month. Time for me to express my displeasure (again!)

 

It's been said before but "Mazda RX8 2004" is this a coincidence or a bad omen.

Cheers
Oilman

 

All we need on October is a shipping accident in the channel as recently experienced with all the BMW cars and then it really will be a 2004 car.

rael.

 

I also got the letter. The reference to 'the first pre-order customers' (Oct/Nov delivery) hopefully means the first 1000 or so. They hope to have more orders than that prior to the launch so they can't promise that ALL pre-orderers will get cars this year. I await the 'precise update' with bated breath...

 

Got my letter this morning, and its uncomfortable reading. There maybe an option of fiiting a snow plough to the front, ready for the bad winter weather.

AnilS.

 

Looking at the US posts ... only 1 in 5 cars shipped to the dealers were actually pre-ordered. So, are we all just getting paranoid about not receiving these cars b4 xmas? Maybe there's more supply than demand?

Once people see these things on the streets the demand will go through the roof, but for now my bets are that we are a cult few!

Let me know your thoughts.

 

My thoughts as I end the day are (slight negativity which I hope you'll understand, I may feel better tomorrow):

1. This letter was Mazda's attempt to cheer us up and prove that they have listened to our justifiable criticism yet by including an ambiguous statement about delivieries they have sown more confusion and angst.

2. What's with the lousy fuel consumption that is being reported in the USA?

3. The sooner someone else gets the car hooked up to a dyno and resolves the power output issue one way or the other then the happier I'll be!

4. 1 step forward, 3 steps back as usual.

 

Who cares. If the car can do 0-60 in 5.9 (247bhp) then the dyno stuff doesn't matter. It's pretty obvious it is more than the (single) dyno result reported so far.

Common sense.:D

Stu C

 

i don't mean to sow more angst here but i just want to warn you fellows not to get your hopes up that the cars will be delivered in ep number order. if you have been following the delivery of cars in the US you see some people who ordered in January who have not received their cars while some who waited until February or later have. and of course some cars have arrived at the dealers that were not preordered by anyone and have already been sold to someone who just walked in off the street. so there are some people who didn't order at all that have an rx8 and some of us who ordered in january that don't yet. also production won't run from ep #1 to ep#1000. they will pick all of the manual high power moonroof velocity reds out of those 1000 and build them. then the next colour, then the next, then low powers etc etc.

 

I am hopeful that this wont be the case, as I have been informend directly from Mazda UK that cars will be delivered as ordered. Also even though all the Vel Reds with moonroof etc may be built together, then some **** etc, they will hopefully all come over on the same boat so will arrive at the same time.

I do feel really sorry for the guys in the US who pre-ordered and are still waiting. That is just not good enough.

 

Lensman - Chill

1 - Yeah, but then we moan when we get no communication.
Next letter will be more informative is my guess.

2- US fuel consumption. US gallons are smaller - hence they do less miles to one gallon.

3 - Dyno power. Who cares ? If car performs up to the performance figures supplied that is enough for me. Leave the dynos to the max-power saxos (who will be eating your dust anyway) !

4 - No comment. I am happy enough....

PS - 15 weeks to go !

 

I'd agree with Morgan.

C'mon Lens, chin up and

Cheers
Oilman

 

Beat you to this opinion on that dyno thread.

 

Hey, don't mind me. It'd been a long and tortuous day and I was just a bit peeved. Amazing what a few hours can do (etc).

EDIT: Well just to demonstrate my good intent I now have only one car on order. Z's dead baby... Z's dead!

 

I'm sure you're right that it must have more power than reported on this one dyno test. But I'm still keen to see some other results.

Of course the power doesn't matter if the performance is right, but we still don't know much about the performance. We have some old test results from the pre-production car (who knows what power that was producing) and some official figures from Mazda which just cover the 0-60 and top speed. 0-60 depends a lot on traction and driving technique and the top speed of 146 mph is suspiciously low for 230 bhp car with decent aerodynamics (eg. BMW 330Ci's will do over 150).

Some manufacturers spec their power outputs conservatively and others don't. It would be reassuring to see some healthy dyno results.

 

ChrisW, the 330i has a higher top speed than the 8 due to taller top gear. The 8's final ratio is lower to make the deficit of lower torque.

AnilS.

 

The 8's final drive ratio is higher than the 330Ci, to compensate for the lower torque, but then the 8 revs higher so it should all cancel out.

I think if anything, the 8 may be geared too high. We know that to improve fuel economy 6th is an overdrive i.e. its is geared so high that you can't reach maximum speed in it. I seem to remember that 5th gives 17mph per 1000 revs so at 146 in 5th it is well past the power peak of 8200 rpm. Maybe a top gear ratio somewhere in between the current 5th and 6th would give a top speed of over 150?

But does that account for all of it? Just seen a test in Autocar of the Z4 2.5 with 192 bhp, same weight as the 8 and probably lousy aerodynamics (it's a convertible). Top speed 149.

I'm not complaining if Mazda have geared this car to improve motorway fuel economy rather than optimise maximum top speed (nor do I think 146 mph top speed is slow). Just want to make sure that is the explanation, and not a sneaky (unofficial) power reduction.