EBS

Hi rockstar

Mine is titanium grey. Now shopping for parts and accessories.

I-RX8-M

Kin sum1 TranzLATE this post 4Me?

j/k - I'm getting old, I think...

rockstar

sgrenesis,

Just to share my limited knowledge, when u get your car, u get the normal keys wif immobiliser. The pic shown above is wat I think they called the JDM key, which u haf to buy yourself. According to BlackAero, Cartronic in Kaki Bukit sells it. Alternatively, think JT-imports or Japanparts also sell them online. U need to get it cut and coded. Tech garage (DIY) has a post that tells u how to do it step by step. The retractable key FOB are available in the US market in the 2005 model, which MM say we wont get it.. Dunno y..

Hope it helps.. Cheers

cuscorex

sgrenesis,
to add on to rockstar's quote:the 2 black 1s r the master keys(wich u'l nd 4 codin) & the grey valet key onli starts the engine.it wt b allowed to unlock ur boot & glove compartment.(there's a switch in the glove comp tat lock-out the boot switch inside the car).anti-theft measures tat prevent unauthorised access if u r handin the car to valets...sweet

Manwe

But he said car not even in sg. I also dunno how to pressure if he say until like that...

Vamp

Either MM is giving u the 2004 model or they cut cost and not include the key....

Or they will give u the key when u collect the car as a surprise....

sqflyer

Today was delivery day... but unfortunately I'm not in SG to take delivery
Think it's the standard key like what cuscorex mentioned previously.

Anyone can advice how much Cartronic is selling the rotary emblem key (including cost of cutting and coding)?

watoke

Manwe, tink there's a shipment due to arrive in Sep 22. What colour u book? According to the SE, this shipment is manufactured in Aug, so might have the chance of getting the retractable keys.
I book mine early sept, getting oni mid / late Oct 04.

Manwe

watoke,

Thanks for the info. Where did you get it? I booked a red. I changed the leather seats to 2 tone red/black and that costs me extra waiting time. If not I should be getting it earlier as I booked before sgflyer.

Retractable keys? Hmmm sounds cool...hopefully but I just wish the car could be here sooner. Nevermind the key. By the way, you can pressure your SE for more stuff. I pressured him to giving me 50% cash back on accessories. I am getting the exhaust finisher, strakes(they call it air outlet garnish), the rotary accents(they call it rotary crests). He's also throwing in an additional coat for my car.

I know that some guys got some freebies or discount. So I pressured the SE telling him that others paid less or get free stuff etc. So he relented after much calling and bugging. He probably get quite a bit of commission just by the loan referral. Anyway, I got OCBC from what he referred...a pathetic 2.45% and my friends are getting 2.3 from OCBC from other distributors. Why should we pay high interest and he gets the commission. Right?

watoke

Manwe,

My SE sucks man, I ask him for so many things, oni willing to give me FULL year RoadTax. Have ask for the Rotary Crest (front and back = cost ard $200+), but when think of it, if you upgrade the bodykits, it will be a waste .. so, I ask for V-Kool, he's getting back to me on this/
Hmm.... tot the exhuast portion is already the "Chrome" extention? Tink me going to ask from him.
Did you pay additional for the "RED / Black" leather? Coz I have ask him, but he says "NO" leh ... all factory fitted ... damn!
Who r the distributors? I might as well go and get from the distributors.
I just ask him regarding "retractable" keys and he say he will get back to me.

Manwe

Hi watoke,

My SE isn't fantastic also. Called and called before i pay booking fee. After booking always MIA. I must call and bug him before getting anything.

Red/black no extra charges but have to pay higher booking fees. I paid 21k. Hmm V-Kool is worth 1k. That would be a good bargain. I didn't like the mazdaspeed front and rear so I am not intending to get it so the rotary crests would be useful to me. I got the factory bodykit only. I might change the side skirts to mazdaspeed though. Looking for lobang for V-Kool actually. Hoping to get it cheaper. Am thinking of mystic. Tell me if you know anything.

You only book a couple of weeks ago and getting your ride soon? Aww man... make me more envious only. They bidded for my COE months ago...now it is just sitting there rotting....

sqflyer

There are other bodykits besides the mazdaspeed ones, so don't limit yourself. V-Kool is also rather overrated. There are many other good brands with equal or better quality and cost less. More important is the installation workmanship.

EBS

I got my car 2 days back. My colleague got his yesterday. No retractable keys!
But no regret getting the car. The engine sounds great and my big fat friend (not girlfriend ok) sit comfortably behind. Shifting is quite stiff at first (need to run in?) and gear shift already quite short. Suspension a bit on the soft side so suspect if u track, may need harder ones. Turning radius a bit wide, handling seems a little bit not as sharp as a Type R (don't flame me) and as I am still running in the engine, didn't push the car at all so cannot comment on acceleration.
Overall shiok shiok!! Think my next improvement is to look at improving the handling of the car.

Cheers

Vamp

MM (including the SE) makes more than $24K for the RX-8 (compared to Toyota and Honda which has about $10K margin a car). Add to that, the SE should be getting more than 10% of ur insurance premium and some more from ur car loan as commission. U do the maths for how much u can bargain.

If u bargain right, u should be able to get minimum $4 to 5K off the list price....

Add to that, u should be able to get the DBS loan which offers 20% cashback on the interest which result in about 1.9% interest rate for 7 years.

Hope u folks could get a good deal on the car.

tkk

My PI told me to add $1k if I want my 8 with immobiliser. Can i get the immobiliser fitted in the after market?

Manwe

Hi sgflyer,

I got the factory bodykit from mazda. Thought it look nicer than mazdaspeed front and rear(more important than performance). I probably will only get the mazdaspeed rear spoiler and side skirt.

About tint, I know V-Kool is expensive but it offers a lot of protection. 200+ SPF. Huper Optik is about 200 SPF and cost only a teeny bit less...$900 compared to $1k. Rayshield only rejects about 95% UV which works out to be only SPF20+ and it is not cheap either. Most other cheaper brands offer lesser than 95% UV protection(SPF15 or less). 90+% may sound rather impressive in number but if you convert it to the familiar SPF, it may look rather pathetic. IMO, UV rejection is very important if you want your interior to look nice after a while. I wouldn't put a mere SPF 15 and be out in the sun for hours day after day, neither should be my car. We should use high SPF(cars will not get skin cancer from the toxic UV absorbing material) if possible.

That said, if you can recommend me some brands that has impressive UV rejection and cheap price, I am more than willing to switch camp.

I do hope watoke is right and my car would be in next week.... had been a very very very long wait.

sqflyer

tkk, for a thousand bucks, I would rather get a state-of-the-art 2-way remote such as the Viper with remote starter, trunk opener, voice alerts AND built in engine immobilizer. http://www.viper.com/security/viper/...nder.asp#791XV


Manwe, what if I told you I can get Huper Optik at around $700? UV protection is very important to ME. The car's interior is secondary to my well-being and more importantly, my eyesight. You wanna get it done together? Maybe can try to get a better price together. PM me if you or anyone else is interested.

watoke

Manwe,

V-Kool protection for the Rx8 is up to UV Protect 70, due to the factory tinted glass. Tho we cud darken the rear, but not the side and front.
Me too, hoping that we get the car next month (Mid or late)
In fact, there are plenty of nice bodykits for RX-8, for the side and front, I like R-Magic and the VeilSide GT WIng ...think it will match nicely? :P

Manwe

sgflyer,

Are you talking about the ceramic tint? If it is for $700 then count me in. But you have to wait till I get my ride. Hopefully soon. Will pm you as soon as I confirm the delivery date. Personally I don't think there is a significant difference between Huper Optik and V-Kool because there is only so many hours of sun available in a day. But the difference between them and Rayshield or other inferior tint is great.

watoke,

wanna try for a bundled deal with us or not? Maybe we can all go down together and negotiate a good price. And imo, GT wings are very beng and unless my life is dependent on the track timing, I am not going to do it. But one man's beauty could be another's ugly duckling. It's your car. Do it up to make YOU happy. I am not going to mod my car to make others happy. It's gonna make ME happy... haha... egocentric

sqflyer

Yep, I just confirmed that it's with the ceramic tint. Actually, I don't know if there is THAT much difference between V-Kool/Huper and other tinting films. If it's not for the fact that I can get the Huper for $700 (group discount), I would probably just get some cheap brand.

As for wings, my "other vehicle" has them liao. :D Don't think I'll need another set of wings on this vehicle coz I don't think I'll have much need for so much rear down force during normal day to day driving and a wing will only serve to add more to my fuel bill. It's amazing how much drag you'll add (and consequently how much more fuel you'll burn) with a huge wing sitting behind. You're absolutely right, one man's meat is another man's poison, so to each his own.

Manwe

sgflyer,

YES. The difference is GREAT. Rayshield is 95% and though it may seem impressive but it is actually about SPF 20+. Compare that to SPF 200+. That means you can put the car out in the sun for 10 times the duration for the same effect. Those inferior tints are offering something like 90% rejection. That is worse than SPF 10. Nobody even use them except to get a deliberate tan for an hour's sun. Don't be fooled by the percentage. Convert it to SPF and you will have a rough idea how it will actually affect the car's interior and of cos your precious skin and eyes. For those who are still unaware, UV can cause cataracts and skin cancer. The heat generated can also cause the car's plastic to emit toxic cancer-causing gas(according to taiwanese researcher)

sqflyer

Sorry, but how did you find out that V-Kool and Huper films are giving SPF 200+ level of protection? If it's really true then I'm gonna get Huper for sure. Just have to get a few people together and ask for the group discounted price. So far, it's just you and me.

Manwe

sgflyer,

It is a simple mathematic formula based on %UV rejection. It is a summation over time of the weighting factor multiplied by spectral irradiance and exposure time. It can be used to determine the SPF value. This is the actual defination of SPF.

However, putting aside complicated medical terms and mathematics, we can estimate the SPF(my personal method). This method is simple....imagine...if you have no UV rejection, the SPF is 0. If you can reject 50% of the UV, that means you can stay in the sun twice as long. SPF is 2. If you reject 75%, you can stay 4 times as long, SPF 4. So 90% rejection is approximately SPF 10. Note that the difference between SPF 0 and 1 is great....SPF 2 to 4 is little, from 4 to 10 is even lesser in terms of % UV rejection. The higher the SPF, the less the difference in UV rejection between incremental SPF value. So 90% is approximately SPF 10 only, SPF 100 is about 99% UV rejection. So since V-Kool blocks above 99%(something like 99.7%), it is SPF 200+. Though the rejection is only approximately 5 percent more than Rayshield, you can stay in the sun much longer.

Take a simple figure. Assuming that 5 min of sun would cause some damage and 10min would have noticeable damage, SPF 20(Rayshield) would would have 20 multiplied by 5 and 10min respectively giving about 3 hours plus for minor damage and 6 hours for noticeable damage. If you are parking your car in the sun long or you are out in the sun for hours in a car(i.e. driving up to m'sia etc), then your protection is minimal. But using Huper Optik or V-Kool with 200 or more SPF, for minor damage would be 16 hours and noticeable damage would be 32 hours! That is never going to happen because we do not have 16 hours of sun(unless you wanna move nearer to north or south poles). In fact, base on this, SPF above 150 should be fine to keep your car happy as it would offer approximately 12 hours protection.

Now you more or less know how SPF and UV rejection works, you can go and calculate how many hours of protection the tint is going to give you and your car's leather. Once you do the math, you will appreciate the superior brands more.

Manwe

hi watoke,

Where did you hear about the 22th Sep delivery? I checked with my S.E and he knows nothing about it. He just told me if the car is in then he will be informed and currently it is not in singapore yet.

I asked him to give Japan a call to check. He told me it is not advisable. His colleague called to check on an delivery scheduled in Oct and was told that it will be delayed by a month due to typhoon. He say don't check better. Just in case they use the opportunity to delay delivery. Dunno whether he is bullshitting me or not.

sqflyer

Manwe,

Sounds compricated man... ha ha. Actually, it's not lah, but I didn't know SPF is calculated this way. You must be in the healthcare profession, either that or a sun tan lotion seller... lolz. Who else wants to join us for our group tinting?