rAiN

i dont know..

i was telling my friends that i was going to get RX-8 on june...

they said.. mazda have bad car...

why they saying this???

and how much rx-8 gas price range would be??

cheaper then 3.5 L : Altima???

Hercules

Then let them think Mazda makes bad cars, and when you get yours they will want it too.

Or you can just direct them to read some reviews of the car from Evo, Car and Driver, etc...

As per the gas mileage, it should be similar to the 3.5 Altima, if not better... But we'll see.

Skyline Maniac

The RX-8 looks like a promising car. It offers sporty looks, sporty handling potential and sufficient rear headroom space. I won't talk more about the RX-8, since you can find plenty of info here on the forum.

Mazda as a car company though, is shady at best. They are known to be on the buttom tier when it comes to customer satisfaction, dealership service, built quality, resale value and durability base on J.D. Power survey and other market research statistics. (Look it up if you don't believe me) I don't think it is as much the car as the company itself. Mazda dealerships in general are subpar and service departments can be a PITA. Repair cost for Mazda vehicles are also unreasonably high compared to Honda, Nissan or Toyota. When it comes to exclusive technology such as the rotary engine, Mazda pretty much has monopoly and can charge whatever they want for services. The 4 years of warranty will have you covered pretty good, but the service quality is still questionable at best. I have owned 3 Mazda vehicles in the past and visited more than 5 Mazda dealerships. Each of them was a dissapointment, and I even suspect the service department messed up my cars. (Missing bolts and nuts, new problems....)

Truthfully the ownership expeience is one of the most important factors in owning a vehicle, especially a new vehicle. Look at Saturn, they make sub-par quality vehicles with lots of problems, but satisfaction index is best in business. If you never have a problem with a Mazda, then it wouldn't make a difference. However, if you need to rely on your dealership to make repairs, then Mazda may disappoint.

Just my 2 cents.

btw: If you look at Nissan's stats, it's not much better than Mazda. :p

RotaryXTypeSH

Have u ever heard of the 4 best sports cars of japan (4 STARS)? SUPRA, NSX, RX7, and Skyline......(mazda)....no EVO and Impreza does not even get into the list..... too bad i guess......so be proud to tell ur friends that it's one of the best sports cars in JAPAN

wrxdriver

Thats because the EVO and the WRX are not considered sports cars by anyone anywhere in the world. I own a WRX, bu tI love Mazda. My friend has an RX-7 and it is an amazing car. I want to buy an RX8 and a old turbo II. So I think I am pretty open minded.

I just know that according to the automotive press in the Japan the WRX and EVO are not sportscars. If you made a list of the top performance cars in Japan I'm sure you would find the WRX and EVO on that list as well as the S2000 and other cars.
Just my $.02
Drew
SQC #049

sheylen

I hope my RX-8 will be bad, because I am bad too!

lefuton

i'm banking (a little) on the notion that mazda has a lot riding on this car and they don't really wanna blow it...that being said, there isn't a whole lot they can do about their dealers and their service departments

sheylen

In the report of J.D. Powers and associates (May 2002) they assess the initial build quality of the different categories of cars. Predictably, Toyota wins most of the categories. However The Mazda Miata is the best sporty car! That might be encouraging for the RX-8. Read the story here.

RotaryXTypeSH

RX8 i wish it would be very reliable.....

Elara

The new consumer reports just came out, and aside from the Tribute and one of the trucks, Mazda was rated very highly in reliability and satisfaction.

Smoker

This is exactly the reason why I held back from actually pre-ordering my RX-8 in January. After doing some research and from talking to past Mazda owners, it seems to me that it cost aweful lot to get your car service and repair at the dealership compared to other manufacture. My concern is, if the RX-8 quality is around the same as the FD, then there is no way I can afford to keep this vechicle for the long run. (I'm looking for a keeper for the next 10yrs or so.)

Whether you are bias for Mazda or bias against Mazda, Please comment and give me some insight, thanks !

sheylen

link please? thnx.

SA22C

The 3rd Gen RX-7 is not representative of Mazda quality by any stretch of the imagination. Mazda attempted to build a supercar on a shoestring budget, and it backfired. It is worth noting that the later models available in Japan had solved all of the reliability issues and raised the power to the legal ceiling of 280 hp. Mazda's normally aspirated rotary vehicles are models of reliability. It is not uncommon for a NA rotary to go 300,000 MILES before giving up the ghost. My own 1979 RX-7 just cracked 100,000 miles and is in excellent shape. You have nothing to worry about in the RX-8. Like a poster below said, the Miata is a model of reliability, and the 8 should be no different.

nk_Rx8

One of the reasons I am hesitant about getting a RX8 is also from what I have heard about Mazda the company. I was considering a Mazda6 for the wife, but we are now going with an Accord instead partly because of talking to friends that owned Mazdas. They didn't think that the Mazda was unreliable or anything like that, but they did not have good things to say about their dealerships and customer service. And from what I have read, it it not they did not have unusual experiences. Hopefully they do a turnabout regarding customer service because their reputation doesn't seem too good.

Elara

Wish I could, but you either have to buy the magazine (and I don't have a scanner) or have a paid subscription online (which I do). They've got them at most bookstores, however. Just look for the issue with all the new cars being rated. I believe it's the lastest.

BUT---also go look at the website...
Consumer Reports -there are a lot of freebies, including a report on reliable used cars- and there are Mazdas listed in every category.

bwayout

Elara is right, but here in the states, their also found at our public libary - where you can read them for free.



good luck!

I've also had good luck with my old 1990 (Mazda build in Detroit) Ford Probe. I had it for almost 13 years with over 228,000 miles on it and I would have kept it longer until I got into a car accident and it was totaled out by insurance (because of it's age and milleage - but they did coment to me on it's "clean" great condition) - I still miss it.

sheylen

thanks for the info.

Smoker

Thanks SA22C !

It means a lot coming from a fellow Canadian in Sask-taking into account the extreme cold weather, Snow, Ice, Salt and Sand our cars have to go through every year.

I suppose you didn't have any problems with your RX-7 in winter then ? No Cold Starting problem, engine freezing over etc ?

jonalan

I owned a 1989 Mazda 323 for 10 years and a 1995 Mazda Protege for 6 and never had a single problem with either. Both cars were extremely reliable.

We took the Protege to a local dealer for all of the scheduled maintenance. They were very courteous, knowledgable and prompt.

I have nothing but good things to say about Mazda. For this reason, I have absolutely no concerns about buying an RX-8!

My $.02.

rAiN

thanks for the reply guys...

i guess ill be choosing

either

TSX or Rx-8 or Accord...

i gatta test drive all of them... heh

Quick_lude

For what it's worth Honda dealers, at least in the Toronto area do not have the best rep either.. They are arrogant and almost surprised that a Honda car has problems.. riiight... rolleyes.. I'm glad I get to wait a year until I get the 8.. it will allow me to judge the initial quality of the car and dealer feedback.

vipeRX7

I think that with the Renesis being N/A it will have better reliability than the 13B-REW. Also, Mazda dealerships are not the only places (thankfully) where you can get rotaries repaired. And i'm not just talking about Racing Beat, Pettit Racing, and PFSupercars, but there are other rotary repair shops around. Even in a fairly "non sportscar" state like Washington, I can think of two rotary repair shops off of the top of my head. Nonetheless, you are correct about Mazda's place on JD Power and Associates, it's pretty low on the list. Hopefully the RX-8 will help fix that (the Renesis is designed to last twice as long as the 13B!!! :D). As far as other Mazda cars, hopefully repairs on the Mazda 6 will be fairly cheap. It uses a ubiquitous Ford engine, so parts should be *fairly* inexspensive. But as far as Mazda's track record of late, it has been disappointing.

A side note: N/A Renesis should NOT be expensive to repair, provided you know where to look. The 13B (according to a rotary only mechanic) usually lasts about 150k miles (excepting apex seals, which can be expensive), and even then the replacement was fairly inexpensive. You could keep the rotors, pretty much the only thing that would need replacing was the housing, which he said was about $1500-$2000. Not a bad price for a new engine. So I don't think Renesis repairs will be too troublesome, but I can't say much about other components.

Quick_lude

I would think spark plugs might need to be replaced more often than in a piston engine.. How accessible are they? I looked into the engine bay in Detroit and it didn't look that easy to do.

Donny Boy

Mazda makes bad cars, which buffoon said that? I've owned Mazda products as well as Toyota, Datsun/Nissan, Mitsubishi. Mazda was better than those in terms of reliability.

I've also owned rotary Mazda's. I got over 135,000 miles on my RX-7 before I sold it. And I sold it in good condition with no engine worries.

Don't listen to friends who don't know their facts.

At least TEST DRIVE the RX-8.

Good Luck.

Toadman

The only Mazda cars I've seen that are semi-problematic were the 3rd gen RX-7(Waaaay over-engineered. I drive one.), and the following models, not all still in production:

Tribute (Duratec Ford engine)
B Series Truck (Ranger built in Edison NJ, 'nuff said)
93-2002 626 4 cyl. Ford LA4AEL A/T from hell!
Navajo (Oil leaks, rebadged Explorer 91-94)
Latest MPV (again Duratec 3.0L Ford block)

The following are almost bullet-proof:

Miata
Protege/323/323GTX
MX-3
MX-6/626 (with 2.5L V-6)
All older IMPORTED 626/MX-6's. (GT's, Touring cars, 4WS)
Older MPV's (w/o the Ford Duratec 3.0L)
Millenia and Millenia S (Solid but expensive to repair)
929
2nd gen RX-7's

With the exception of the MPV, whose 3.0 Duratec engine is shipped to Japan for assembly-line install, all pure JAPAN-MAKE Mazdas are a sure bet. It's when Ford gets their greasy mitts on the product in Detroit and mix/matches powertrains/bodies that things go to hell. Mazda 4-cyl technology is far superior than Ford's, hence why the Mazda3/Ford Focus will be a shared platform. Just don't use Ford's transmissions!


The BP engine in the Miata/Protege is a work of wonder. Check out World Speed Challenge racing and the 12 Proteges entered this season.