oilman

OK, Where do we go from here?

Is JSC agreeable?

Who'll draft intro and list? I'm not trying to duck the issue but at my speed of typing you'll have it around the time of the car!

Any takers.

Cheers
OILMAN

JSC

Sorry about delay in replying as was offline yesterday. I'm OK with whatever you all agree is best as you've all got money tied up in this (I don't yet). Is the best situation therefore to send off an explanatory e-mail with the main concerns, and then take things from there?

rael

Contacting dealers has no value, it shpould be Mazda UK.

I really do not mind what we do but feel that one letter representing us all (ie this UK forum) with our names, dealers registerred with cash paid sent to Mazda should be adequate.

If that is acceptable who should compose the letter and to whom should we send our details. Also, can we 'borrow' the logo head of this site for our letter?

rael.

MarkW

OK, to get things moving heres my suggestion.

JSC Sends off an explanetory email to his contact stating something along the lines of the following:

"We represent a growing group of individuals who have made contact via the internet. We have all placed £1000 deposit with Mazda UK in good faith for a car we have not yet driven or seen in production form.

"We appreciate details are still being finalised, but we feel that Mazda dealers are lacking in information and there are a large number of questions that we would like to raise with Mazda UK."

"They key questions we want to ask are as follows:

1) What is the Allocation procedure (i.e. £1000 now guaranteed first car)
2) Detail all the trim combos available in first batch ?
3) What is the Confirmation procedure (i.e. when will we get some)
4) ETA of first batch?
5) Will there be any cars or colour swatches in the UK available for viewing in the next few months? (ie before we confirm options)
6) Can you give us an approximate timetable of events taking us up to the UK launch?"

"We are all very excited about this new car and really looking forward to it's arrival. As we have placed a good deal of faith in Mazda UK we would all very much appreciate it if we were kept in the information loop as much as possible in the coming months"

We should then list all of our names, (addresses?) , email addresses and the dealer where we ordered.

Names to include:
Oilman
Morganrogers
Rael
Titanium Grey
tinck
MarkW
any more??


Whadya think? Feel free to change/criticise but at least this will get us started.

I dont mind co-ordinating the names address etc, unless we all send our details directly to JSC

morganrogers

Gets my vote.

I particularly like letting them know about the forum. Perhaps they will start to use this place as an information distribution post.

So - shall I mail my details to you ?

rael

Looks good, just wondering if we should emphasis the forum ie we represent the UK RX8 forum but are part of a substantial larger RX8 specific forum with x number of members all seeking information and surviving on bad and good rumours.

Also, in the UK we seem to be the poor cousins with our lack of external and interior colour options and feel very badly served although money has been deposited.

Besides the questions listed which I am happy with, we should also consider;

1) Could they advise where the UK 'press' car is or organise a day out for us all to visit
2) Accurate & true colour pictures of our 4 colours to allow choice to be made
3) up to date option/ alternative list.

I am happy to provide my name, e-mail address and name of my dealer to who is good enough to compile this letter.

rael

oilman

I'd go with all of that, good work guys!

Where do I send my details?

Cheers
Oilman.


PS: Who's for a forum trip to Geneva then?

morganrogers

I am potentially up for a day trip to Geneva -
Would have to be cheap though - I am supposed to be saving for the damn car !

I have to say , I do like rael suggestion about etting mazda to let us know where the press car is. Dont expect to drive it , but I would love to have 30 mins to have a poke around it.
I believe it is blue , which is odd as we are not getting blue !

Still - I just want to have a sit and see the damn thing.

Whatever we decide for the letter (and I think we are nearly there) I think the going to visit the UK press car is a great idea.
Morgan.

Titanium Grey

I like the letter also, and agree that emphasising the forum would be good.

The Idea of going to see the UK press car is great. I would not be able to get to Geneva or anywhere else in the next few months but somewhere in the UK would be possible.

I'd started doing a letter in work today, but then MarkW's post saved me the trouble. :D Great letter Mark.

Hopefully the forum will be able to get the information we deserve for investing our money in their company.

P.S. What's the intrest youd get on 1000 pounds over six months?

tinck

Empahasising the forum is a great idea. I can never understand why forums like this don't have some sort of representative from Mazda or any ther car company looking in on them. After all we, the general public are commenting on their cars, service etc, the good points and the bad points

They pay millions on advertising and consumer research and this is all free.

Anyway, down from the soap box and say that post here where we need to send the details and as for Geneva, if the flights are reasonable, I'll be more than interested.

I need to see the car and and realise in the 'flesh' where may hard earned cash will end up.

In trms of the press car, whats it doing, surely they must be taking it to dealers around the country.??

On another note, how many 'press cars' and pre release cars do you think there are? Each magazine has different ones with different colours in differing specs. the US must have loads of em.

Sputnik

We know for a fact that Mazda reps actually do "lurk" around this forum. On occasion, at least (I don't personally know of any Mazda UK reps who lurk here, but I probably wouldn't if they were anyway). It's just that they will rarely sign up, and even more rarely announce themselves as such.

---jps

zoom44

i belive in the past we have been informed ( from rotarynews.com when he interviewed charlie hughes) that mazda (at least mazda usa) does in fact look in on this board from time to time to get our reaction to things. in fact many of us here and folks from the mazda6 boards complained to mazdausa and directed them to posts on this board when the mazda6 packaging for the U.S. first came. the packaging was horrible but they listened and read our posts on this board and changed them to something more reasonable. i believe that the fairly decent and succinct trim level packaging for the rx8 is a direct result of our actions those months ago. now, why the canadiens apparently have to buy the moonroof if they want the nav system, well i have no idea. perhaps their packaging is not yet written in stone...

zoom44

hehe sputnick and i said the same thing. though his was less chatty than mine:D

morganrogers

Signed up for a UK only RX forum (mazdarotaryclub) just to see if there was any more news.

Interestingly they claim to have links with Mazda and even hint theat they may be able to get some sort of preferential treatment with regards to RX8 allocation...

The volume of discussion is not as great as here , but then it is 'Rotary' not 'RX8'.
Still - worth a look , and I will certainly be joining the club anyway.

I used to be in the RX owners club but not sure if this is the same or not.... (used to get mag called RXpressions as I recall...)

Anyway - point is if Mazda do read these forums why dont they TELL US SOME NEWS !

M.

morganrogers

**IMPORTANT**

This is an extract from my reply on the other forum.
Is this chap the same as JSC has for a contact or do we now potentially have 2 ?

Quote -

"l hear what you say and will admit that we have been frusterated by the lack of fresh info coming from them, and they know we are actively trying to help them sell this car as l said to them a long time if their involvement with us only sold ten more cars thats 1/4 of a million in the bank for Mazda!

As for your list of questions if you pass them to me l will send them down to the person in Mazda HQ that has been assigned to our club who happens to be the main person in charge of selling the RX-8 in the U/K !

As a club though we are now very honored that we are on their press release list and our full members will from now on receive the new quaterly magazine and RX-8 info through their doors, we beleive we are only the second club on the planit to receive such assistance with the other being SoCal in the U/S. "

Thoughts ?

Morgan.

oilman

Thoughts?

The more ways in the better, I suppose we need to know JSC's
contact.

I think Mazda UK should be aware of this forum as it's gathering momentum and it could provide vital feedback for them.

There are many viewing and I'm sure we'll see more and more members over the coming weeks and months.

Cheers
Oilman

rael

His response would suggest that they have a little more influence/ recognition with Mazda than we do although its not clear if they arer getting any response. I would be happy to share our questionnaire (as we 'orders' are still limited in number in total) if we think that they could get some answers as long as our forum benefits.

I have also been on that site although not yet joined and found it does not contain quite the RX8 content and colour this one does.

rael.

oilman

I've been on the site many times and this one has far more info and fanatical people on it.

I browse that site once a week but this one twice a day.

Cheers
Oilman

clive

Hi Morgan and co ,

Thanks for the support, BTW we are nothing to do with the old RX-7 club as is their right they seem to prefer their Gen 1 RX-7'S , we on the other hand prefer not only to look to the future but embrace past mazdarotary's with the veiw that without these older vehicles, exciteing vehicles like the RX-8 would not be being built as we speak ! infact one of our proposals to Mazda has been that if they put one of our flyers in the customer documents they will if they wish be able to find out first hand about the heritige of their wonderfull new vehicle !

We were very lucky to have been involved in the first launch of the RX-8 in Detroit last January 2002 when we helped Mazda with comments from Rotary owners to form part of the stage
back-drop ( see last Jan's Rotarynews )

Back then the main thing they wanted to know from me was would l dump my Gen 3 ( Yellow BTW!) for an RX-8 , l gave them the anwser they were looking for with l would have an RX-8 in addition to my car but not actualy sell mine to own one , this was important to them as no way is the RX-8 suppost to be a replacement for the RX-7 , with the main aim being to get TT drivers out of there cars and into rx-8's as the TT has been hugely successfull here in the U/K , it is interesrting that when we were asked to keep a list of members wishing to buy the RX-8 by Mazda one has turned out to be a currant TT owner !

l will print off some of the questions that are in this briliant forum
and send them to go with the questions l have already.

With out wishing to interfear with this forum too much if any of you ( in the U/K ) would like to send me an email with your details and wether you have either placed monies with a dealer and which one or will be doing so l will add your names to our list as although they have not promiced they did say there is the possabilaty that these people may receive something to commerate the fact they were one of the first owners of the
RX-8 in the U/K , and yes l know there's no promices in what l have said ! but l will try.

( one of the Moderators in here has been on this list for a while now )

Are Mazda watching, well l know they watch Mazdarotaryclubs forum from things they have told me at show's etc but the U/K
employees seem unaware of this one by the fact that they have been supprised at some things l picked up myself from in here .
but bear in mind they would not post here anyway so you would never know.

O/K sorry to have waffled on ( it's a bit of a passion you know), thanks for your time.

All the Best clive@mazdarotaryclub.com

BTW the first customers will deff receive their cars in July as they did not put the drive away date back after all.

morganrogers

Wow Clive - what a reply !

Some great news in there all in all.
That is a great offer concerning the names and addresses and making contact.
JSC - what do you feel ? You were kind enough to offer first and I do not want to offend ... (I just want information).
Chaps - what do you all feel ?

Funnily enough it was a 1st Gen I had when I was in the RX owners club...

Interesting that July is the date you quote . Can I be so bold as to ask where that info came from and is it for the UK ?

Thanks from everyone for becoming involved - as you will have gathered we are getting increasingly frustrated. We just want to be loyal customers !

Morgan.

PS - You dont happen to know where the press car is in the UK at the moment do you ? A group of us really really want to just see one of these things for real and are even thinking of flying to Geneva motor show just to do so..... A UK sighting would be great !

M.

rael

Just like to point out that I am a Audi TT Coupe 225 owner and proud of it (hopefully the RX8 will be made of similar superior material).

rael.

zoom44

clive is a good man! i don't think anyone from this forum would mind sharing between the rx8forum and the mazdarotaryclub! the more of us that are in it together the louder our voice!
and if you get a chance to see clives rx-7 you will see why he wouldn't trade. a wonderful car!

cheers all!

Titanium Grey

First of all my thanks to Clive, for visiting and passing on his info.
I for one will be passing my name on for him to add to his list.

Titanium Grey

Damn! Pressed the return key while on the wrong field!
(Not a ruse to get my posts up )

I was going to add that I think we should still proceed with our letter, I agree it would be good to get things through Clive's list, but it would be better if Mazda UK delt with us as well.

After all this is a site purely intrested in the RX-8 and all of us here who participate are confirmed or soon to be confirmed buyers.:D

Does everyone else feel the same way?

oilman

I'd agree with Titanium Grey and have passed my details to Clive however, it can't harm to send our own list and make MAZDA aware of this forum as well.

Where do we go from here? Can JSC submit on our behalf and what does he need from us? We can email him through the Forum.

Cheers
OILMAN