door flex when shut
 

I have noticed on my test drives that when shutting the front doors, both the front and rear doors seem to flex on impact. Clearly it's not the metal beams bending, but I was wondering if anyone has spoken with a Mazda tech person about it and has a clear answer as to the cause.

I searched the forum for this issue and found only one thread that mentioned it, and no one is too sure what causes it - possibly the stryrofoam inserts?.

I may be going in tomorrow to make the purchase, and if all goes well in the bargaining process, I'll have my car this week. So this issue is not a deal-breaker for me, but nonetheless is a refinement issue which kind of bugs me.

Yep they do flex. It seems to be due to a freestyle door design... It doesn't bother me at all although I have noticed it. Good luck on your purchase! Good choice!

The weather stripping is very thick and you have to close the front doors pretty hard to secure them. I think that you're just seeing the weather stripping absorbing the impact of the closing door before the door settles into its latched position.

Both the front and rear doors have pointed locater pins at the top and bottom of the doors to help integrate the doors into the body structure and resist crash impacts.

I have seen the doors taken apart and I am sure that it is not the styrofoam blocks. The door has 2 hard plastic molded pieces one mounted to the steel door frame and the other mouned to the cover. The styrofoam blocks are sandwiched inbetween these to molded sections. It would also keep the doors from moving much on the inside. Sorry I am not of more help I was just trying to narrow down the reasons a bit.

Hrm. What door flex is this? I don't notice anything on mine..but perhaps I'm just not very observant.

ByeByeSaturn:

Be careful with the way you post.

You seem to be inferring that there's a lack of structural integrity or security in the door mechanism.

What you're probably seeing is the weatherstripping insulation compressing as the door closes. BUT, I can't tell what you really mean cuz your description is vague. What, exactly, is flexing? The door frame, the unibody structure forming the door opening, the surface of the door?

I seriously doubt there's an issue with the RX-8 doors you've shut, or the basic door design of the car. Mazda, and every other car maker, are going to make sure their doors shut properly and are safe.

As you may or may not know, Mazda has designed a "virtual B-pillar" into the meshing door design on the RX-8. In other words, the front and rear doors latch and lock together to form a stucturally reinforced unit that is as strong, according to Mazda, as a fixed B-pillar in a conventionally designed car.

The "flex" you speak of may be weatherstripping compressing or it may the latching mechanism going thru its range of motion as the door(s) shut.

One problem I have with the Web is that one uninformed person can spread a ton of disinformation about a subject. (I'm not necessarily saying you are one of those persons, BTW.) They make a post, people read and believe it, and broadcast the info to others, and disinformation makes its way all over the world.

I'm think you're seeing something you don't understand or recognize, but I don't think there's anything wrong with the door.

Basenjiguy:

To see exactly what I'm talking about, read this thread:
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...=shutting+door

I've seen it on every RX-8 I've shut the door of (maybe 4 or 5)

I only started this thread because the one above offered no definite answer to my question, and I was hoping to continue the discussion. You are absolutely right that I am seeing something I don't understand, which is why I am posting this, hoping to take advantage of the wealth of good information on this forum.

I understand and appreciate why you're advocating caution in word choice with these postings. You are 100% correct about the risk of rumor spreading, though I think this forum is a few heads above the average internet community. However, I think I was pretty careful in what I was saying. I cited this as a refinement issue, not a safety issue, using whatever common sense I have to state that I knew it couldn't be the frame bending.

That said, it would not necessarily be a bad thing to discuss the rigidity and crash integrity of the virtual B-pillar design. Problem with that is, we'd probably be at a loss to contribute anything of value to the discussion. I'm not going to claim to be an engineering and materials science expert, and there are few here that would. Also, there is no non-Mazda crash test of this vehicle, so we have no solid data to state a position on this issue one way or another. I personally have faith that there are hard-working engineers at Mazda who take satisfaction out of doing things right, and engineer it as if they were building a car for themselves and their family - you only have to look at how thoughtfully this car is put together to believe that.

Hope this assuaged your concerns.

I think I'm going in tomorrow for the hard-bargaining, and hopefully I'll have my own car to brag about soon!

That's weird. My doors definitely do not bounce when I close them- makes a nice solid thunk. It even likes to reclose by itself after I've pushed the door open. I think the car just doesn't want me to get out half the time so she can be driven more.

Yeah and I don't want to get out of mine so I guess my car, T-Rex and I see things the same way. T-Rex is short for Tim's RX incase anyone was wondering.

I noticed the "flexing" in my friends RX8 as well.

I would geuss that its just the weather striping. But who knows.

Now I'm wondering if it's not just on the passenger side. I'm not sure if I saw it on the driver's side. Given that you saw it on your friend's car, that would suggest that you saw it on the passenger side (correct me if I'm wrong).