renegade_si

I reckon we're closer to the US now in terms of output....I dont think we'll see the same thing over here either. and if we do (doubt it from the test drive) £350 + free servicing would be tops. That car is BRILLIANT.
Remeber, the Japs' 250hp figure has NOT been contested, therefore their drop is due to emissions. Well, Europe was ALREADY been dropped from 350 to 240 to 231ps and I think here it will stay.
As you may know, I've driven one today, and its DEFINITELY 1 second + quicker than my Mondeo ST24. It actually makes me feel better that we're not missing out as much!!!

See http://rotarynews.com/view.php?id=206
We at RotaryNews have been following the threads on the RX-8 forum about the fact that the RX-8 was not making advertised horsepower on the dyno. We have also been in contact with some of the folks in Mazda about the issue. They were fully aware of the issue, and researched it fully. They have released their findings today.

As of today, August 22nd, 2003, the revised US-Spec Horsepower Rating of the RX-8 is 238 HP for the Manual 6port RENESIS, and 197 HP for the 4port Automatic RENESIS. The performance numbers advertised ARE NOT CHANGING. They have done many tests, in house, with magazines, and outside third parties, and they are still observing RX-8's that will do 0-60 in 5.9-6.0 seconds and quarter mines in 14.5 (best observed 1/4 mile run at Pomona Raceway was 14.48 at 96.1 MPH)

Because of the descrepency in the HP numbers, Mazda is sending out letters to every new registered owner of the RX-8, any pre-sale customers that haven't received their RX-8 yet, telling them of the error in the advertised rating, and giving them two options:

1. Mazda will provide free scheduled servicing for the duration of the standard warranty plus a $500 debit card.

2. Mazda will make arrangements to buy back the car.

I'd like to actually thank Mazda for bringing this out so soon (in corporate time). The first dyno reports came in at the end of July, and mid way through August, we have an answer, and solution from Mazda. They didn't try to hide things. They went out to the track, dyno, and researched the issue, and found the problem, then conducted the risk analysis, financial analysis, PR analysis in very quick time for a corporate entity. It is also important to point out these things: 1. Mazda Japan has not revised their numbers down. 2. the engineers are hard at work, and has not stopped development on the RENESIS by any means.

renegade_si

Sorry realise this has been posted on the discussion forum, but not necessrily everyone in Europe-land reads it...

ChrisW

I can't say I'm particularly pleased by this.

I'm glad that Mazda have finally stopped pretending this issue does not exist. But a 9 hp reduction is not consistent with the 20-30 hp deficit that people in the US seem to be seeing. It looks more like the minimum official reduction they could get away with and argue that it was within tolerance, given that there are many unknowns such as transmission loss.

I don't see how it is possible for Mazda to be mistaken about the power their cars were producing. I can only assume they knew the power was low and hoped nobody would notice. That being the case, how can we trust the published figures for the Euro spec cars?

I was hoping that Mazda would confirm that there was something wrong with the US cars and announce a fix that restored their power. Instead, they have confirmed that all the dyno and performance results we have heard from the US in the last few weeks are genuine (215-230hp, 0-60 6.5-7.0 sec and top speed in the 130's).

I have never heard of a car manufacturer in Europe being sued for publishing incorrect hp figures. I suspect Mazda wil stick to their published figures in Europe whatever the truth, because they know they can get away with it. But who knows what power our cars will produce?

AndyPearce

It doesn't inspire much confidence in Mazda that's for sure but we are seeing decent performance figures in the states especially top speed.

It appears Mazda have come up with the new bhp figures in the US by testing 11 cars and taking the average. This would imply that performance of the RENESIS is variable to a certain degree. For me this is far more concerning as it makes me think there could be long term problems with the engine if they cannot consistantly produce it's standard output.

I don't we'll here anything about htis officially in the UK though.

eccles

I'm not sure I see the cause for concern - it's just as possible that they all made between 237 and 239hp as between 228 and 248.

AndyPearce

True - that is possible - but if the engines are performing consistantly you would have expected Mazda to get the hp figures right in the US. It's the fact that the official published figures for the US were so wrong that makes me think that they are struggling to get the RENESIS performing consistantly. I hope I'm completely wrong but you have to consider this sort of thing , especially when you are intending to drive it 25,000 miles a year (at least) like I am.

MarkW

Ive just read through most of the US thread and there are two ways of looking at this:

1. Mazda have made a mistake, but reacted quickly, and the offer of buyback, or free servicing plus $500 is more than fair. If people were happy with the car before this, there is no reason they shouldnt be happy now, plus they have some freebies.

2. Mazda screwed up and 'knew' there was a problem and have had to come clean. The loss of power is actually more than the 9bhp they are admitting, and doesnt reflect the recent dyno results. Some people are not happy because they feel they have been misled. It is made all the worse because it happend before with the Miata.

Personally, I tend to go for option 1, but still beleive it is an error on a massive scale which may hurt Mazda and the RX-8 in the US.

What will it do to the reputation of the car, plus the residuals if lots of returned RX8s are sitting on forecourts?

They now have 238bhp (strangely the original Euro spec), but is performing much more like 231bhp which we have. My concern is obviously the effect, if any, on our Euro spec cars. As we have already been told ours are 231bhp, I expect performance and dyno results to reflect this. Speculation I know, but if our cars suffer the same losses as the US, I for one would not be happy.

Well at least In driving one next week, so I can see for myself how the car feels.

Maybe MazdaUK were on top of the situation and decided to get the 9bhp drop out of the way before we had the cars. Sure, they will have lost some orders, but it is much better for them than what has happened in the US.

Would anyone rather have not been told until we got the cars, and then been offered the same deal as the US though I wonder? Free servicing and some credits would be very nice

renegade_si

Mark, you may have some legit concerns now - wait until you test drive it. Its FINE. The guy who went out on the drive with me honestly compared the car to the R32 (similar 0-60 times) and said this was as fast. Not faster mind, but very comparable to the "feel" of the time. Sorry, just trying to put your mind @ rest. Besides, so what? Buy your car immediately and then if it turns out that its lower, then as I said £300/£350 back plus free servicing would be tops if Mazda have stuffed up.
I also agree that its option 1) as you note but its because of emissions. I also think that this would have come out anyway, although the forum etc have been great at bringing this out in the open immediately.
So well done to the guys for bringing it out, and well done to Mazda for putting their hands up to the PUBLIC and not just us lot in such a speedy manner.

ChrisW

No you won't. You will drive a pre-production prototype which does not have to pass emissions regulations. We have to trust Mazda that this will be representative of the final production cars. I don't feel inclined to trust them on this.

It cannot be true that they only realised the cars were down on power when customers complained. When they do all the tweaks to the ECU for emissions requirements for the various markets they must test the power output. What they are trying to do is maximize the power and fuel economy while meeting emissions requirements. How can they have just not measured one of those variables? Or somehow measured it wrong? For their largest market?

They weren't able to meet their previously published figures and they tried to cover it up. Is there any other explanation?

jimbobjoe

One of the conspiracy theories on this (at least in my interpretation), is that the cars were intercepted at the port and couldn't go through without a bit of tweaking to get under the emmisions limits.

If that is so, then we should be ok as all the issues with european emmissions targets have already been addressed leading to our earlier announcement of losing some bhp.

So it may well be 'only' a US problem. But I think that Mazda have been very good at what they have offered the US customers.

It still doesn't seem to address all the dyno issues and whether there is an automatic ECU switchover after enough miles.

But in itself I can't see why this should be a deal breaker for anyone.

MarkW

True, but we have to take it on trust that these cars are Euro prodution spec as we have no choice otherwise.

These are the same cars the press have been driving for the last few weeks, so if they are not Euro Spec all the road tests are invalid and we would have a scandal on our hands as big as the US.

When I drive the car I need to subjectively decide if the peformance is adequate for me. This is irrelavent of stated power outputs. If Im happy then I will proceed with my order and expect my car to feel the same. If my car subsequently feels significantly less powerful then I will have to address that at the time.

If however, I am not happy with the performance of the test car, it is unlikely that the production cars will be more powerful, so I would then have to decide what I want to do.

However, I do not really believe we will have a problem as we have already been told that our cars have been reduced from 237 to 228bhp in advance.

I feel sorry for the US guys, but from our point of view in Europe it is more reassuring to know that their cars are 238bhp. The performance reported in the US didnt seem that good, and with ours being 20bhp less (than the original 247bhp), I was concerned how our cars would perform. Knowing now that the difference is only 9 or 10bhp, the performance of the Euro car should not be much off what is reported in the US at all.

Evil Weevil

Anyone know for sure whether ANY of the UK magazine tests have been with UK-spec, 231ps, cars?

Are there any independently verified 0-60 times (and/or in-gear times) from any magazines/reviews out there? As far as I can recall, most mags show the 'claimed' figures... and who knows which version the claimed figures are from?

The Evo test (v R32) seemed like the most 'balanced' review I've read... but that car wore foreign plates.

The Ace

Erm, it is kinda irrelevant to the whole "did they screw up or did they know in advance" issue, but do you guys know how much the 13B or the 13REW were making in NA form ?

160-170HP

Actually the 13REW was never released as a NA engine (only with sequentials), but that was the figure.

So, for a rotary engine with the same displacement (1300cc), to go from 160HP to 240HP, is a pretty AMAZING feat, not matter how you look at it.....The issue whether its 231, 238, 240 or 250 is purely cosmetic, IMHO....

I would be just glad to get a car such as this

morganrogers

I know it does not really matter - but the 13B was run as a NA engine in the mk1 and mk2 cars....

UK only got 12A in the mk1, but US got it in '84.

Goddam , I am an anorak !

Will try and find out what HP the 'stock' 13B made - pretty sure it was around the 145bhp mark....

Renesis is an INCREDIBLE leap forward - and I for one cannot wait !

rx-8@mazda

In Europe, the rules and regulations for homologation (vehicle type approval) of cars are different from the US. The EU DIN Horsepower(PS) spec was revised earlier this year to 231PS. This was done after testing for homologation. Actually, the measured metric power output is 170kW. This equals some 231,5 DIN PS.

Now, how do I know this..:D

No 2 cars produced are identical. This means that there can be very small differences that are due to engineering tollerances.

The Ace

FC S4/S5 in NA form had 160HP at flywheel. S4 TII had 180HP, and S5 TII had 200HP (all with 13B/13BT engine)
FD came with 240HP (13REW), which later went on to 255HP and 280HP (SpiritR )

ChrisW

Who measured these horsepower numbers? Are these tests that are carried out independently by the approving body, or do Mazda do the tests themselves and submit the results?

What margin is allowed in these results? In the US for example, it seems that +/- 5% is allowed, so US power could be as low as 226 hp.

The problem I have is that the revised US figure of 238 hp, is still significantly higher than the independently measured power figures. Either the US cars have a problem, which Mazda are not yet aware of, or Mazda are just revising the US horsepower spec by as little as they think they can get away with.

If the Euro spec cars really produce 231 PS then they are at least as powerful as the US cars appear to be, maybe more so. How can this be when Euro 4 emissions regulations are stricter than US regulations?

TybeeRX-8

Just what makes you want to trust Mazda at this point? To me, it simply is not credible that Mazda did not run compliance tests for US emission standards before the car was shipped to the US. As pointed out in this thread, the US is their largest market. I've owned a number of Japanese cars (Mazda, Honda) and European marques over the years, but mostly German...Benz, BMW, and have never experienced this kind of failure. To assume that cars reaching the UK are producing the advertised HP is yet to be confirmed. You should have your own dyno tests run. In truth, the 9HP doesn't concern me as much as the apparent loss of power at high rpms. One of the features touted for the rotary engine is that is easily runs to 8500-9000 rpm. What good is that if the power (HP and torque) drops off at 6250 rpm?
That said, I'll enjoy my car and the day-to-day driving experience, but wish they would take the $$$$$$$ that this will cost in the US and simply fix the problem.

rx-8@mazda

There is a standard procedure for testing power output. However, there are many variables still flexible enough to allow for a 5% difference between different measurements on the same car. It is quite a complicated procedure and is not so closely related to the actual driving performance of the car i.e. Acelleration, speed, cornering velocity (the only thing a driver can really feel...)

PS is not the only factor influencing vehicle performance. There is gearing ratios, CPU calibration etc. EU4 emission standard is severe but not that much different from the Californian emission laws. For the European market, a drop in PS was communicated when it was decided that the car should comply with Euro4 emissions. Power output was then measured as 170kW.

I do not see why this number needs to be questioned. 231PS would be an odd number to communicate if it weren't true?!
Many people are involved in the development of the car. They are located in Germany (EU market specs), California (US market spec) and Hiroshima (Japan and Global). My guess is that someone in the development team made a mistake for US power output.

RobDickinson

Mazda said US was 250bhp. Then 250ps(247bhp), now its missing 9bhp down to 238bhp.

Dyno'd as low as 163bhp at the wheels, as high as 180bhp.

Thats 75bhp - 58bhp loss somewhere. I'd expect at most 45bhp Drivetrain loss.

So we still have 13 to 30 bhp missing somewhere.

If we 'loose' 75bhp at the wheeles in the Euro car it'll be 153bhp at the wheels - athat for the Hi-power, dont even want to think about the lo-power unless thats not affected (!?).

Now I'm not into the car for all out speed, BHP or whatever, but even I'd find that totaly unacceptable

I can spend roughly £1k on my current 1.8 focus LX and get that.

Mazda better come clean about the real Hp of this machine.

I know in US there saying the performance numbers are still valid, but I'm not so sure, cant loose Hp and still go as quick, and its losing more than mazda are admiting too.

So far we've had 2 Hp drops already in Europe, were already down 19ps, another drop would be kinda tough to accept. Especialy with any firther delays.

The Ace

And for all these fluctuations you have the emissions laws to blame, you know that right ? :D

RobDickinson

No we dont. We have mazda to blame.

Until Euro stage 4 comes into play we should still be able to have 240ps.

oh and 1 small point...

Euro Stage 4 isnt new! Mazda have known about it for a long time, it isnt new, not a suprise, they knew all about it when they launched the Euro/UK RX-8 earlier this year.

They launched it , I assume, ready for Stage 3. Sold a whole load of them (alomst a thousand) before they got the brainwave to try make it meet stage 4 early.

Now this was either planeed, in which case they knew it'd have to be 'tweaked' to pass, or it was a sudden change of mind.

I know car manufacturers work years ahead. They dont do last minute things unless something goes wrong, its all planed out well in advance.

So, (assuming this was planed?) they assumed 240ps would pass stage 4? and assumed 250ps would pass US emmisions?

What I want to know is , is there going to be another power drop in Euro cars or does the Euro car actualy meet stage 4 with 231ps?

The Ace

Not quite sure about that, mate......
I mean, I can almost guarantee that the RX8 will produce 250-260HP easily, once you "free up" the exhaust a bit RXs in general are notorious for having VERY restricted intake and exhaust paths (due to the rotary of course). So, if there are such sudden changes in the horsepower figures of the car, I can only assume that they have to do with "bigger" restrictions in intake/exhaust, in order to meet emissions specs.

Now, if Mazda knew or didnt know in advance, thats a whole different issue, but as you say, car manufacturers plan years ahead, and the emissions laws are also known to them years ahead, so they *should* have been able to have specific figures for the RX8 for a while now........

ChrisW

The worst thing about this is the deception involved. I work in engineering in a multinational company, and I can tell you all, this idea that Mazda only discovered that the US cars were down on horsepower after they had shipped production vehicles is just too absurd for words.

If the horsepower shortfall is anything like as large as the independent dyno results indicate then Mazda will have known about this looming problem for months before US production. One of the company's most important products in their largest market was in danger of being nowhere near the specification they had promissed their customers. The marketting department would have been tearing their hair out, and the issue would have had huge visibility within the company all the way up to senior management level.

There will have been immense pressure on Engineering to find a way of meeting the promissed power spec and they will have had dyno plots coming out of their ears.

In the end it seems that the sales implications of admitting such a huge miss on the power figures were judged to be so expensive that even the risk of being sued was preferrable, so they decided to lie about the horsepower, figuring that journalists and the general public would buy their line about it being an honest mistake. I'm afraid I don't buy that line - it's simply not possible.

The problems we have now are:

1) We don't know the actual power outputs of the US cars (although we can make a reasonable guess from the published dyno results).

2) We don't know the performance of the US cars (road tests were done with pre-production cars that didn't have to pass emissions tests and are not comparable).

3) We don't know whether Euro cars now have the same power as US cars, 10 hp less or 19 hp less. And Mazda are no help on this because we can no longer believe their numbers.

4) We don't know what the performance of the Euro spec production cars will be. All magazine tests are on pre-production cars - if the production cars really produce only 200 hp do we really think, based on their behaviour in the US, that Mazda would supply journalists with pre-production cars that mirror that performance (what lawwould they be breaking if the pre-production cars made 230 hp?)

I just don't now feel I have enough information on the performance of this car to go ahead and buy it. How can I know what I am getting?

morganrogers

You are getting a 231PS Mazda RX8.
What is the problem ?

I understand the post - but my point is that I dont see where your risk is. If the power is less than the 231PS , then Mazda will probably compensate you like in the US.

For me , I want the car - the HP really is not the be-all-and-end-all here.

Having said that , given your current feelings , it may well be best that you cancel. If you go ahead you will always be wondering and maybe looking for faults that are not there.
Cancel , see how it goes , order next year....

The decision.........is yours !