MarkW

After placing orders a few weeks ago we all seem to be none the wiser and are still awaiting confirmation, welcome packs etc.

The level of feedback to us the customers is very poor. If they had 360 orders in the first week, this also means they had £360,000 of OUR money. It would be nice to have some customer feedback wouldnt it.

I think I will send a quick email to my Mazda contact with a few questions regards this.

Anyone want to add their views before I fire someting off.

Keep it short and simple.

oilman

Mark,

I'd go along with that, somewhat dissapointed is an understatement!

Spoke to my dealer today to advise that I've still not received official confirmation. He's chasing his regional Mazda sales guy.

Would really like to know if us pre-orders can see at least one of the press cars in the flesh soon?

Good luck

Cheers
OILMAN

Lensman

I agree. I submitted my order on the 5th of March and I've heard nothing from Mazda (except the Japan competition details) since. Astoundingly poor!
Also, before I entered my credit card details and submitted the order on the site I modified the colour (just hit the wrong option on the drop down) and the wretched system sent me an email saying I'd used my only 'change' opportunity. Since then I've got no links to cancel or modify the order and that means the site is just badly programmed. I've contacted Mazda about this and they stated today that there is only one person who can deal with website questions and that she is off work for two days. Not good at all.
Then there's the Formula Woman madness. Don't get me started on that...

Lensman

Actually I DO have a quick and easy question for Mazda:

Why have the dealers not been provided with paint colour samples for the RX-8 so that pre-orderers can choose with accuracy? My dealer has NO RX-8 specific samples (eg: Winning Blue) and this is ridiculous.

MarkW

Lensman,

I asked that in my previous email and was told that dealers will be getting paint chips shortly.


Call me 'George Bush' but I have taken the unilateral decision to send an email tonight without waiting for approval from the other members! :D

At least we will get a quicker response that way!

oilman

Mark,

Any chance of emailing me a copy on s.a.barnard@btinternet.com
I would be interested to see what you've said:p

Cheers
Oilman

MarkW

No probs, on its way

Titanium Grey

Put a copy on here, so we all can see.

I'm sure as we are all concerned about similar things, so I'm very happy you have done this. If you get an unsatisfacory response tell us and we can all bombard them with similar e-mails.

morganrogers

MarkW - good on ya !

Why not post it here ? I would like to see it too....

Starting to get annoyed now. All I want is my confirmation pack , a brochure would be nice too !
Have to say if they carry on like this that Evo8 is looking more temptimg all the time.....

Nah - who am I kidding ? I love this car - I just want a bit more respect for my pre-order ! !

Morgan.

PS - Oh , and dont start *me* on this formula woman business. I am actually coming round to the opinion that this could detract from the appeal of the car and image.... Dangerous statement I realize, but that is the way I am starting to feel.
M.

Simon

Don't worry about Formula Woman. The only people who will know anything about it will be the ones watching Sky at 3am on Tuesday mornings.

Just look at how much interest there has been in the Formula Palmer Audi series. F1-style cars, a high profile (and well funded) promoter and a smattering of top drivers (e.g. Justin Wilson, current Minardi F1 driver, who is a former FPA winner). Yet hardly anyone ever heard anything about it. Even the BTCC barely registers much interest among the general public, let alone the numerous established one-make race series (including Ferrari etc).

That's not to take anything away from the series itself - no doubt it will produce plenty of exciting racing, and I'm all in favour of encouraging more women into motorsport (I have also forwarded details to a friend who is trying to secure a drive).

MarkW

Morgan,

I will post up the email (hopefully with a reply as well) later on
when I get chance.

Basically Ive just said we are dissappointed with lack of communication, when will we get welcome packs, will we get opportunity to see car, how does the allocation work in relation to EP number, and can they confirm the spec of the first production batch.

I musr admit if things dont improve I'm considering putting a deposit on a 350Z as well, although the £2k figure does put me off somewhat.

Simon,
I agree with you about formula woman in that it wont mean anything to the general public. The Formula Palmer Audi is a great series (Ive driven one!) and as you say there are a number of other series that get very little coverage at all.

Motorsport in general (apart from F1, and WRC to an extent) appears to be a minority sport in this country and very few people know or give a to$$ about it.

Simon

Ah, the Motorsport Sensation days. I've done three of these. Superb fun. I was even lucky enough to have Justin Wilson as my instructor in the (comically oversteering) Caterhams last time. Was odd to see him on a windy airfield earning £100/day when he was on the verge of breaking into F1.

Thought the FPA cars were great fun but quite tricky to drive close to the limit because of the peaky turbo boost. Thankfully no such worries with the RX-8.

lurcher

My status on the pre-order page changed today (or maybe yesterday, can't rememer if I checked) from "Submitted" to "Accepted", no confirmation e-mail yet though. I received the brochure last week but I think that's just normal PR stuff, unconnected with the preorder.

Looks like something is happening anyway... gotta keep hassling.

Lensman

MarkW, I beat you to the line on the idea of a 350Z order. I always fancied a 'Z' even before I fell for the RX-8 and it seemed sensible to get in that queue too. Assuming the RX-8 is as good as we hope (July?) then I'll cancel the 350Z otherwise I have a nice safety net.

I forgot a worrying anecdote:

Yesterday I called my dealer about paint samples and the woman who answered the phone asked what I wanted: "I've got an RX-8 on order and I was hoping you've got paint samples."
"A WHAT?" she replied.
"A Mazda RX-8!" I answered.
She then had to consult a colleague as to what exactly that might be and still sounded confused afterwards. I like to think she was new at the job but it doesn't bode well for the future!

morganrogers

Odd - 350Z does *nothing* for me.
Specs sound great , but car is (IMHO) ugly and has none of the 'presence' of other performance nissans (understated 200sx coupe or aggresive skyline for instance).

All down to taste and all that....

Me , if the RX8 falls through or Mazda push me to breaking poiint or whatever would be looking seriously at the EVO8 I think....
(Unless Honda finally give in to common sense and bring over the new integra typeR - Face it lads , the civicR is no substitute...)

Still - would be boring if we were all the same though wouldn;t it ?

Morgan.

rael

I like the 350 too, however its the 2 seats that are my problem. Although I normally drive on my own every now and then I may have to carry the family (wife & 2 kids) or at least the kids only.

But it looks and does sound like a powerfuls machime although interior is weak.

rael

Lensman

The continuing saga of my attempts to reactivate my rightful website options:

I phoned the helpline twice today to no avail. I might want to change my colour (to titanium) but mainly I just want to know WHY my order page on the website has no options to change or cancel the order. Even if I'd used my one change option (which I have not) then there should still be a 'cancel' button! I was told on Monday that the one person who can deal with this would be back today. The response from the helpline was:

1. Our computers went down yesterday and we're behind schedule.
(Not relevant as the person I need was back TODAY)

2. The person you need is in head-office and we've emailed them but don't expect a reply from us until tomorrow.

So I've ordered a £25K car using a website that is malfunctioning and the ONLY person who can answer my questions and resolve my problems is either unavailable or in a different place and difficult to contact! I am really getting pissed off with this to say the least. It's like dealing with some third rate utilities company not a supposedly quality car company. It really is hard to believe.

Titanium Grey

Got a call from Mazda UK today.

I have been trying to change my info for a few days (not my options though) without any success.

The lady who phoned me said they had a few people who had reported problems with the site, and they were phoning round correcting the information manually. The errors have been reported to the website developer (third party) who should correct the problems soon.

She told me she was the marketing manager for this release in the UK so I asked if Mazda will be taking an RX-8 to the track day down south in May, she said she wasn't sure but would check.

I mentioned I was a forum member and she was very helpful explaining that she looks in regurlarly and is very impressed with the level of interest there is in the car.

She also said that company policy prevents them from taking part directly in the forum.

I'm starting to think there are only three or four cars in the UK currently, and these are all doing the rounds of the motoring magazines, newspapers and TV shows.

There are no motor shows planned in the UK between now and the launch date so we may not get to see the cars until they start to arrive at the dealers.

lurcher

There's that free thing at Canary Wharf in June. Who knows whether Mazda will be turn up though, if they don't even know what they're doing in May. :/

Lensman

Having spent all week trying to get Mazda to explain why I can't change my options (or cancel) using the website I was finally told that that's normal. Once the order is accepted then you have to ask a Mazda personage to do it for you. Now if they'd told me that four days ago...

lurcher

I initially went for the sunroof but changed my mind within a day or two. I got the warning about only being able to make one change, but it went through okay.

I guess either you were part through Mazda's system by the time you tried to make the change, or the web site was even more broken by then.

Do you know whether the change is going to affect your place in the "queue"? Talking to my Mazda dealer today, all 1000 RX-8s allocated for the UK this year have already been pre-ordered, and that dealership alone (which has a number of branches around here) has taken orders for more than 60.

Lensman

Tonight's update:
No change on my website details so I phoned the helpline again (how they must love me!) and the very helpful person that I spoke to said that there IS a fault with the website and that they have sent my changed details to the company responsible who will manually update the database. Mazda will call me before 12pm tomorrow to confirm that this has happened. I asked about the allocation and as expected I'm now at the back of the queue but Mazda couldn't comment on the availability of cars this year. It's not a major problem because I didn't expect to see a car until November/December anyway (as I initially ordered blue) so there's (at worst) little difference. I just fell for the titanium and lost faith in the blue. It's still a great colour but it won't suit me as well as the grey. I should have trusted me instincts because titanium was my first choice and at the last moment I switched to blue. Doh!

Titanium Grey

Welcome to the Titanium Club.

I don't se why this means you have to go to the back of the queue though, just because you change your mind about colour!

You still have a high EP number, does that mean they have no bearing on when you get your car either!

zoom44

it's not like they have started building uk cars. and they have to expect some changing going on since you can't even get a look at the colors first hand.

Lensman

To be fair to them it does state quite explicitly on the website that if you change your order then you will be sent to the back of the queue. What that means in practice remains to be seen. If nothing else, a later delivery means that you guys can iron out all the bugs in v1.0 before I get v1.1