KKMmaniac

Ahhh, finally, last Thursday afternoon, my Winning Blue, 6-speed RX-8 was ready to be picked up at Morrie's Mazda, Minnetonka. Ok, so why was (nearly) everybody else raving about the car? I found out after my brief test drive. I don't really have anything to add, except to say, the car seems to suit me very well. The balance of good attributes; steering crispness, smooth clutch action, and general "feeling rightness" I felt the WRX was lacking, was all present.

I felt the salespeople I dealt with, Jim Holmes, and Pat Kyes (I dealt mostly with Jim) did a fine job of selling me a car by giving me the straight story from beginning to end, and not embellishing it with rumors and misinformation. The sale went smoothly as it should, and I think all parties involved felt good about it. Purchase was at straight MSRP, and although I wish I could have gotten a better trade-in value on the Subaru, I was fully aware that I probably could have done better, had I decided to sell it outright myself. But I just didn't want the headaches associated with that.

So far at least, I think the RX-8 is the car I have really wanted. I haven't felt that way so quickly after the purchase of any other car I've owned. I just hope I feel as strongly about it when the snow and salt hit the roads here!

musicola

Sweet! KKManiac, were you in the first allocation group, or the second?

Also, did they mount the front plate correctly? (Just on the grill with the bracket, no drilling of holes?)

Who is Pat? Sales manager or something?

KKMmaniac

- I was in the first allocation group. Money down in September, I ordered the car mid-January.

- The license plate panel mounts to the grill via two steel threaded inserts in the grill, and it looks like a small hole was drilled below these two.

- I'm not sure what Pat's title is, he may be sales manager.

jonalan

The steel threaded inserts are on the bracket. Is the bracket attached to the grill with only 2 screws (bottom only) or 4 (top and bottom)? I MAY need to attach mine myself. thanks

KKMmaniac

Maybe they put a different mounting plate on mine? (It's a molded plastic thing) It mounts on the grill as I described. (two machine screws on top, one sheet metal type screw toward the bottom)

jonalan

Do you happen to have a digital camera so I can see a pic? It sounds like we have the same mounting plate, but I can't see how I would attach it other than drilling holes in the grill and using sheet metal screws all around.

KKMmaniac

Oops - correction to my earlier comment: There are actually two lower molded-in mounting points/stand-offs for sheet metal type screws to go through, (in addition to the two upper) but the dealer only drilled through and fastened through one of the lower locations.

The way mine is set up, it looks like some kind of clip-on nut is fastened to the rear surface of the grill somehow. (for the two upper monting points) I don't know if these were dealer installed or not.

I will probably install a front plate anyway, I agree it looks awful, but I don't want to raise any eyebrows among the law enforcement officers. At least not more often than
I will with the car itself. I'll probably get a smoked acrylic plate shield for the front.

Sorry, I don't have a digital camera at my disposal.

carnut

KKMmaniac:

Your picture reminds me of my '74 RX-3 which sold me on rotaries forever. Mine was olive green -- can't tell if that's your color or not. My RX-8 is red. I agree with your feelings about the RX-8. Just what I've always wanted to have. Enjoy!

KKMmaniac

It was a wagon, and I can't remember if it was a '73 or '74. The paint that was left on it was a copper color, the rest of the metal was rust, with holes and rust flakes all over.

I think it had 120,000 miles or so on it when I bought it, and had obviously been abused and neglected later in its life at least, but it was cheap, and I had to try a Mazda rotary.

After it proved to be a poor winter beater, (low compression) I donated it to a local vo-tech. The compression was so low, I had to keep my foot part way down on the throttle the whole drive to the vo-tech, and left a huge blue smoke cloud behind me all the way.

I guess it was the sound and smoothness that got me addicted to the rotary?