shazy

Since this site is somewhat retarded it had logged me out when I typed up what I had wanted to say (and it was wordy) I now have to restart lol

Sold the car on June 9th for 5k
2004 rx-8 GT w/nav 6 speed manual and the best color of course, Velocity Red.

Absolutely loved this car, until the very end it had started to feel old. Things inside the cabin started creaking and ricketing and the suspension itself had began degrading and wanted to make some money out of it until it was too late.

Just 2 weeks ago, around May 19th, my transmission blew... again. Found a used one with 40 000km on it from an 05 and the garage charged me 1000$ installed with a 1 year guarantee, which is a very good price if you ask me. Anyway first and foremost, I want to thank this community, rx8club for helping me with all my questions about the car, the problems, and the amount of information on this car there is on this forum I swear you can build a whole new rx-8 without any of the faults that had plagued this engine and car from the world.

I never had any sort of engine problems, and it was on the ORIGINAL engine as well! Ran synthetic later on during its life and had brought nothing but better results for this car. for all the bullshit people throw at rotaries, if you maintain them they WILL LAST. Never blew smoke on operating temperature and tried my best to stay on top of maintenance. I did beat the living **** out of the rx-8 though, redlining it like no tomorrow, powershifting (why did I have to replace the tranny again?) doing all kinds of nonsense and it always started back up with no hesitation. But I never once, since owning it from 2009, went full throttle when it was cold and never passed 4000 rpm until the engine was at operating temperature. I even waited a few minutes after the needle stayed in the middle to really get on it. Too bad, I'll probably never own a car that handled as well as this on the street, being so forgiving and so fun to drift around at the sametime!
I've honestly had 80+ races in this thing and had beaten cars I never thought I would, because this car was considered "slow". The term 'fast' is all subjective, this car was plenty fast for me to get into trouble with the law and I consider this a QUICK car. Things I had beaten includes: ap1 and ap2 s2000, g35 sedan, 2011 Subaru WRX, 2006 manual TL, etc.

My gripes with the rx-8:
-Rust. Since I live with all the frenchies, Quebec, our government likes to spew down alot of salt over here in Montreal during the winter time. Mazda's over here are considered rust buckets after 5-6 years as the metal on these cars rust very, very quickly... especially the rear fenders. The bottom of the car started rusting, the rear wheel wells, even the trunk where the 3rd taillight was started rusting! Since I'm not the original owner I couldn't stop it from happening, but I did rustproof the car and had driven very few times in winter whilst it mostly stayed in the garage, only driving it I can keep the car alive.

-Heatsoak. After some hard driving, I would notice a loss in power up top, I would go from beating 2014 GLI's, to losing to them... Changed the coolant a couple times, made sure the oil was filled etc. Guess it's just all cars after beating on it for 20-30 minutes. then again this is nitpicking lol

-Rattles. Oh man, I loved the interior, but the build quality not so much lol, the amount of rattles in this car after hitting cracks on the street drove me nuts. Especially that damn rear view mirror where I would hold it for a few minutes so it would stop rattling hahaha.
Aux. I know it's a 2004, but come on no AUX connection?! Even a 2002 Sentra had one.
-4th gear. Mazda made this gear waayyyy too long, 150-210km/h?! that is nuts. Always noticed the drop in acceleration in this gear when shifting at high rpm from 3rd to 4th.and it bogs down the car somewhat leaving it far too low in it's powerband.

-Taillight condensation. And this finally, what the hell, no matter what I did, re-sealing them or not water would always somehow seep into them after a fresh wash.

But all in all, it was a pleasure to own and a joy to drive and to this day, after waxing it, popping the sunroof open and driving down a blvd, I would still have people staring at the car as I drive by them and complemented on how nice it looked!

It really did perform well, I would easily get sub 6 second 0-100km/h, topped it out at 240km/h and still had some juice left but I had ran out of road. (and not enough ***** to go any further for that matter lol)
had done 14.5 @97mph before the tune. After the tune I had done the exact samething, except the track wasn't prepped properly and had a 2.28 60ft time. If it was a bit colder and not as slippery, I'm pretty sure I could squeeze out 14.1-14.3. Biggest downfall with the rx-8 at the 1/4 strip is that right before the line you have to shift into 4th (shitty, long *** gear) which bogs the engine or bang into the rev limiter in 3rd. With the tune I could've stayed in 3rd, but didn't know if I was too far away from the powerband or just shift into 4th and have more power.

Don't know what I'm planning to get next as I'm saving up for next summer, but if I decide to get another performance car it would probably be a 335i or a 2013 Mustang 5.0, but we'll see :P

1.3L

I traded in my absolutely stock 2004 RX-8 on a new 2014 BMW M235i last month after 10 years of mostly fun ownership. My 8 had only 30,000 miles on the clock and ran well. 2nd gear had a slight notchy click to it, but otherwise, the drive train was good. I experienced one absolute flood job some years ago plus a number of "close call floods" just barely starting up. Good battery, too, plus new coils, new spark plugs and new leads.

There was a very significant squeak/rattle where the instrument cluster attached to the dash board. Very annoying. I stuffed some hard rubber shims in the cracks and this did help, but did not totally eliminate the noise.

On the road, the car was noisy - terrible road noise when the those low profile tires had more than 5k miles. Forget the sound system; just couldn't hear it well enough to enjoy.

Stock front seats sucked on any trip longer than 100 miles, and mine weren't broken down or damaged.

Visibility over the high door sills and to the rear was pretty limited. Always felt like I was going to drive over curbs in tight parking lots, so probably looked like an idiot swinging wide.

So yes, it was time to move on after 10 years. No regrets, really. Love my new ride!

Jedi54

iTrader: (7)

sad to see you go Shazy, let us know what you get next.