shelleys_man_06

I'm okay. I just like saying that. :D

Air Force RX8

I understand totally. There is no excuse for an employee to make that sort of remark to a potential customer, PERIOD! I never used to complain about little sh**s like this, but now I do not let it pass. These types of employees are doing this because not enough people complain about verbal abuse.

I had a Discount Auto employee say to me "that little pu$$y car has so little torque you can't even do a burn out". My reply was "why would you say something like that?" To which he responded, "because I have read that the RX-8 has no torque". My reply back was "I have read that disrespectful employees are often fired, where is your manager?" He was fired on the spot after I spoke with the manager. As he was walking away I added, "by the way I wouldn't know because I do not have to spin the wheels on my car to get attention, the great looks take care of that for me!" I was also given a $25 gift certificate "for my trouble".

Jeffjett

Just tell him your car is "pure *****"

PoorCollegeKid

A company named Racing Beat pulled a Renesis out of an RX8 and stuck it on an engine dyno. It pulled ~215hp, IIRC, which is 32hp less than Mazda's original claim of 247hp. This also helps explain why RX8s (~215hp, ~3000lbs, weight/power: ~13.95) and RSX-Ss (200hp, ~2800lbs, weight/power: ~14) are both trapping in the low to mid 90s during 1/4 mile runs, as trap speeds are largely dependent on the power-to-weight ratio of a car.

stanfordcole

This is the first I had heard about this HP difference. I knew about the emissions 10 HP drop. If this is in fact true, what does Mazda plan to do about it. My sticker said 238HP(As all others do except the brief time it actually said 250). If it is in fact 215HP then some action would have to be taken. Or am I missing something here?

dean2900

Mazda lists HP at the crank and not at the wheels. However, I am a little confused by this also. I thought the car was rated at 239hp (crank) as opposed to 250hp which they originally claimed. If it is less than 239hp at the crank then I would say Mazda has a big problem.

Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Dean

PoorCollegeKid

Since no two engines are exactly the same, there will be a small but appreciable amount of variance in the output levels of two "identical" engines. Because of this fact, car manufacturers are allowed a 10% variance threshold between the amount of horsepower that their engine is rated at and the actual amount of power that the engine produces without having to deal with any legal ramifications. This means that, as long as the Renesis puts out 90% of its 238hp rating, Mazda is legally in the clear. Ninety percent of 238hp is 214.2hp, which means that the 215hp specimen that Racing Beat dyno'd is still within legal limits, as are all other RX8s with at least 214.2hp at the crank.

gsdev

I'm sure he had a lot of room to talk. I bet working at AutoZone at $10, that guy could have smoked your -40 hp rx-8 with his busted-*** Pinto. What a loser.

shelleys_man_06

I wish I earned $10/hr.

DOMINION

Hey when I got my RX-8 I made $10.50...

dean2900

Dominion,

Everyone is different but 10.50 per hour comes out to under 22k a year. I personally think it is insane to pay more than a years salary for a car. However, you may have other sources of income or money saved for all I know...

Dean

irish8

This thread is getting scary!!! Here we go....

dean...anyword from Autozone?

- Irish

gsdev

OK. Didn't mean to offend anybody. I meant that the guy probably was not driving a car near as nice as the 8. Nothing wrong with making $10/hr or working for AutoZone as long as you have aspirations of something better.

ÜberJumper

Back in the early 90's when I was a gas jockey I got sent off to a customer relations course (Called SuperHost here in BC). They explained that if someone has a truely bad experience with someone in the service industry, that on average, they'll tell 12 people about it. If they have a really good experience, they'll tell maybe 3 people.

Bad Customer relations can be extremly harmful to business, especially when you've got someone posting about their Bad experience on a message board frequented by hundreds of people (or more).

dean2900

I agree 100%. In fact, there is nothing wrong with making 10 bucks per hour for someones life if that is all they desire.

My only point is that I don't think it is wise financially to purchase a 30 grand car when you make in the low 20s. That is more common sense than anything else.

I have not talked to the Autozone manager as I am out of town on business. I will post as soon as I do.

Dean

stanfordcole

To me there would have to be more to it than that. Lets say a 400 HP corvette for instance. Legally they could post it at 444HP and legally get away with it 400/.9 = 444.44

That's cutting it close but your telling me they could produce 90% of there engines at 400 HP and have no reprocusions. There has to be other factors in that equation. Also if they are allowed 10% why would the 11HP difference caused by the emissions stuff even make a difference if they are allowed 25 hP difference anyway. I guees they could be producing so many at 215 that it would be illegal and hence the drop in stated horsepower. I would love to read up on the laws regarding that if anyone hads a link. Pretty interesting stuff.

stanfordcole

Sorry, I'll use spell check next time :-)

Air Force RX8

Where are the cops? This thread has been hi-jacked!

PoorCollegeKid

Your example brings up a very good point (besides the fact that GM has a history of underrating their cars, rather than overrating them, but that is completely irrelevant to the point that you were making). The 10% limit figure I have seen thrown around many, many times on several forums, this one in particular. It would make sense to have a hard limit of, say, 25hp in addition to this 10% limit (i.e. an engine may produce 25hp or 10% less than its rating, whichever is the lesser figure in each specific case) to ensure that the makers of high powered cars didn't take advantage of this 10% limit and rate a 450hp car at 500hp just to gain an edge on the more honest competition, but I am unsure of the content of the law. Someone else here may have a link to that law, which I would also be interested in reading.

It is in the best interest of a car company to rate their engines as accurately as possible. Overrate the engine in a sports car, and you could alienate the enthusiasts who bought the car expecting a certain level of performance that is not delivered. Underrate the engine in the same car, and the enthusiasts will embrace it, but the general public who only look at stated power figures will think that the car is much slower than it is and may therefore scratch it off their short list. This is especially true for a car producing horsepower in the low to mid 200s range. The market is flooded with cars producing 200hp to 270hp right now; everything from family sedans to sport compacts to true sports cars are represented. If Mazda had originally announced that the RX8 had a 230hp engine they would lose a number of potential customers who would look at the '8 and say "Hey, my neighbor's Altima has more power than that!" and immediately lose interest. The fact that the RX8 was really equipped with a 247hp engine would be lost on many, many potential customers. Overrate the car at 260hp when it only had 247hp and the enthusiasts who purchased the car expecting it to at least hang with a 350Z would be severely disappointed and would create bad publicity for the car, the effects of which we've already seen to some degree. All of this brings us to the present situation.

At one point, Mazda truly believed that the Renesis in the USDM RX8s was going to produce the full 247hp that it was designed to, so that's what they rated the RX8s at when it came time to release product and ordering information to the various dealerships across the country. However, the engine had to be detuned at the last minute because of complications due to emissions. Note: the following, as well as the preceding, is all a product of my rather active imagination. I have no idea what was really going through the heads of Mazda's engineers when they were developing and marketing the '8, so this is just a theoretical projection of said thoughts. At that time, the engineers probably felt confident that they could find a way to restore a good portion of the now missing horsepower with subsequent flashes released before word of the RX8's lackluster power numbers became widespread, so they left the 247hp rating alone and made no mention of the downgrade to dealers or customers. After all, there's no reason to get the customers all riled up over a situation that could be handled discreetly. In an attempt to buy themselves more time to bring these flashes to market without overly rushing their development, they told early dyno'ers of the RX8 that the car was very difficult to dyno correctly because of its complex traction control systems, so don't be surprised that the rwhp numbers came out low. For a time, all seemed well in RX8 world, as the new owners mostly loved their cars and still do to this day.

After a few months of work the engineers realized that the horsepower situation was not going to be as easy to resolve as they had first projected, so the time came to admit their mistake and rectify it. They offered buybacks, rebates, and other incentives to keep current RX8 owners happy and revised the power rating so as to not mislead prospective customers. This quantity, 238hp, was probably chosen for a number of reasons. The most important reason from a marketing standpoint was that it was still high enough to make the RX8 an attractive buy, especially in comparison to other sporty cars in its price range (RSX-S, Celica GT-S, Eclipse GT(S), and, of course, the 350Z). From a legal standpoint, the 238hp figure was ideal because the true output of the Renesis at that time fell within the 10% limit (To answer standfordcole's question in the quote at the top: the horsepower difference caused by ECU tweaks to meet certain emissions standards mandated a rating change because the true output of the Renesis did not fall within 24.7hp of 247hp. If even a single engine falls below this threshold, Mazda can be held legally responsible, so it only makes sense that they would cover themselves by changing the rating rather than risk lawsuits and very bad press if hundreds, if not thousands, of RX8 owners found themselves to have cars making less than 222.3hp and found it worth their while to lemon law their cars.) and Mazda will not further detune the Renesis in the future. From an engineering standpoint, 238hp represented a plausible goal, something they could strive for with their continous tweaks of the ECU system, and something that they know the engine can handle, what with the 247hp (250ps) version available in Japan.

All of the above is my personal view of what has happened with the RX8's power rating since the car was released. Questions, comments, and/or rebuttals to any/all of the points that I raised or projections that I have made in this post are welcomed. Because this subject does not really fall in to the topic under discussion in this thread, I will be happy to move this post to a new thread for further discussion if a mod deems this a sensible course of action (or at least preferable to hijacking this thread).

zevans

...and how many of you actually hit the power peak every time you drive the car - in other words, does it matter? It's quick enough.

marcj1

I'm contacting the FBI CT Team

stanfordcole

I'll say this and then I am done. I agree, it is fast enough for me, probably too fast, and a wonderful car. But what happens to our resale(I never plan to sale it but you never know) when Mazda comes out and says or it becomes public knowledge that most of them don't have 238HP. We can not sale the same car that we thought we bought. Therefore we get less on resale. Mazda just cost you and me money because they were not truthful or could not follow through with getting the performance up on the car.

With that said, I don't think that my car has 215 HP, I would tend to believe that it has more than that. But does anyone really know. If you guys haven't noticed I like to play devil's advocate. :-))

Rupes

I'm sure the autozone employee drove a much sweeter car than you.


Idiots...why do people go out of their way to make other people angry, reading this post even made me angry. I feel like writing a letter to autzone too even though it didn't happen to me. :p

-Rupes

JJ01769

I went to auto zone not too long ago to get some car wash and told the guy I was driving an rx8. He asked me if it was a mini van......

Jeffjett

Why would you care what other people think? I know the women like the look of the car. I don't really care about the negative comments others make. Have you seen the thread talking about how many times 8 owners look at their cars when they leave them? People who buy the 8 just love the car.

Don't let others ruin it for you.