-=Zeqs=-

Well...the original concern was that the DEALERSHIP claimed that the warranty would be void if the factory rims had some snow tires slapped on them. That is hog wash to say the least. If Cardinal has the money for the snow tires, go for it. It'll be the best investment he can make during this time of the year.

As for the dealers saying that the traction control will suffice in handling the snow...that's crap. They say that just only because they fear that the customer will change their mind on buying the car if they get informed that they'll have to spend another 1000-2000 dollars on a set of snow tires on top of the cost of the car as is. Dealers are better known as floor ******. They'll say anything and do just about anything until they get your signature on a form stating that the sales transaction is completed. And if you didn't get it in writing, they will give it no second thought as to the things they promised you.

If I lived in a place that snowed, I personally would find the money to throw the snow tires on, just because I love driving this car that much. Not everyone is willing to justify the cost of the tires though, which is understandable because unlike a 23 year old punk like myself, many others have families and houses to take into consideration.

Raise hell Cardinal. Be professional about it though, but the dealership you went to needs to be better informed that you know they are full of crap.

cardinal35

I am calling Mazda tomorrow to get something from them that says the dealer is full of crap. I cant wait to hand it to him upon finalizing the transaction. I am getting the snow tires and putting them on tomorrow as well. I am a bit concerned about using the factory rims cuz the dealer says it is pretty hard to get low profile tires on and off repeatedly without damaging the beads on the rims. I guess I will take my chances for now. I might get rims in the future but I really would rather not spend that cash. Cant wait to get the 8!

rx8cited

You should run snow tires with 36 psi cold (vs 32 psi cold for the stock summer tires).

Aside from pulling the stock tires off your stock wheels, putting the new snow tires on, and balancing them, no other changes should be required and the TPMS should work fine.

Consider that your wheels may get scratched up sooner when having the tires swapped twice per year from the single set of stock wheels.

Weigh that against the cost of buying another set of wheels/TPMS sensors for your winter tires. Factor in the savings and hassle factor on the twice a year tire swapping costs associated with sharing the single set of stock wheels between two sets of tires.

Sounds like they're yanking your chain on the warranty issue. What happens to the rest of us when we need to replace our stock tires due to wear? - no warranty coverage? - I hope not!

good luck,
rx8cited

-=Zeqs=-

As the dealer...it's their responsibility to ensure that they, or the people the contract the work out to, has the proper equipment and trainning to do such work. Seeing as it was a factory produced and equiped item, the rim, they should be able to deal. I've read that others that just simply had tires replaced, got crappy work and the dealers ended up having to replace the rims. Make sure you have a camera and take before and after pictures.

-=Zeqs=-

The dealer is doing what dealers do best...talk out of their ***.

WHealy

cardinal35,

Obviously the dealer misstated Mazda’s stance on snow tires. They are listed as an “option” in the manual.

Now they are right about not having to honor warrantee issues if they found that the snow tires cause the issue. This would apply for any aftermarket add on. Of course the burden of proof is on Mazda, but they could also withhold services until you prove them otherwise. But how an item that covered outside of their warrantee could cause such an issue is beyond me.

My guess would be that the dealer thought he had a “sale close” for Saturday or whenever you were last in there and was frustrated that it was caring over to Monday. He pulled out everything he could to try and convince you to buy that day. It’s the dealership way.

Also keep in mind that even though the sales department and service department are at the same dealership, they are completely separate profit centers. So for sales to get what you requested, they have to “pay” service to get it done. And they don’t always get priority service from their own service department either. So they probably just didn’t want to deal with your request but begrudgingly did to make the sale. I personally don’t understand why service departments don’t setup accounts for their clients to give back a certain percentage of their service costs back for use in purchasing a new car. Kind of like a Big Three credit card. Service would perpetuate sales and sales would perpetuate service business. It’s not like the two are unrelated, but at most dealerships they are!

I have snow tires on winter wheels with tire sensors in them. If the dealership is in the Indy area, I’d really appreciate knowing who it was. Please feel free to PM me if you don’t want to list their name here. I want to make sure I stay clear of that dealership!

cardinal35

The following is the response from Mazda about this issue.

Thank you for contacting Mazda North American Operations. I appreciate
the opportunity to respond to you.

The Mazda dealership is correct. If you place snow tires on your
vehicle and they would happen to cause a concern with another part of
the vehicle, that particular part would not be covered under the
factory warranty. The factory warranty only covers defects in
workmanship or materials, not items related to maintenance, normal wear
and tear, or outside influences. The snow tires would be considered an
outside influence. Any change from the original equipment would be
considered an outside influence.

Gord96BRG

A month ago or more, I posted a cost analysis comparing having one set of rims and switching the tires twice per year, vs. buying a separate smaller set of rims for smaller winter tires. Not factoring in the cost of the TPMS transmitters, it turns out that if you keep your RX-8 for more than 3 winters, it's cheaper to buy the separate 17" wheels and 17' winter tires. The TPMS transmitters probably extend that payout to 4 winters.

A non-cost factor is that your one set of wheels would look like crap in a few years after having tires swapped on and off twice per year. Another non-cost factor is that with a second set of wheels ready to go, you don't have to wait or worry about getting your car down to the tire shop to swap tires. If an early snow storm hits, you can swap your winter wheels and tires onto the car yourself, and be ready to go at an hour's notice.

BTW - if your RX-8 came with 18" wheels, then no 16" wheel will fit, because your RX-8 has larger front brakes than a 16" wheel-equipped RX-8. 17" wheels are the smallest you can use, and even then not all 17" wheels fit. Any 17" wheels recommended by Tire Rack will be OK, because they test fit any wheels they recommend.

Regards,
Gordon

Scotchee

The part that Mazda failed to emphasize in this statement is the phrase "would happen to cause". Your modification (i.e. putting on non-OEM tires) would have to be proven to cause a concern with another part of the vehicle. It's not a case where the dealership / car manufacturer can simply say that they think your change caused a problem, they have to prove it.

I may as well give my experience with the snow tire issue. I've chosen to purchase new wheels and tires as a package from TireRack. I also chose not to purchase new tire pressure sensors for my wheels.

What I've noticed, for those of you considering to go this route, is that the TPMS light will not come on until I've been driving for about 10 minutes. So if I happen to have a bunch of short trips I would never know that I'm driving without the sensors. And when it finally does come on it will blink rather slowly and without any kind of beep or sound. To this point I've dealt with the blinking, knowing that if it bothers me enough I can just put a piece of black electrical tape over it. So far it's not been to bad.

All in all, I've been pretty happy with my decision since I've already had to drive my car in the snow a couple of times and it's done really great compared to the Eclipse I used to drive.

ciccone376

hey guys,
I've been following these posts about snow tires religously for a while now. Mainly becuase I used to own a rear-drive car (IS300) and live in VA where it snows and we have tons of ice. The first thing I did when I got the IS300, was trade in the summer tires for snow tires. Yes, I literally traded in the summer tires, with 32 miles on them, for brand new winter tires. If you look around, there are tire places that will do this.

Anyway...I find it interesting that some of you purchased a sports car without any knowledge of how it would handle in the snow or without any knowledge of the tires it comes with. I expect some of you to also complain when the sticky/soft summe tires wear out in 12-15K miles!

People, this is a specialized vehicle with specialized equipment on it. It is as much your duty to investigate this as it is the dealers to inform you about certain things.

I used to sell cars and it amazed me how many people had NO CLUE what ABS actually did. I like people, I loved helping people (hence the reason I failed as a car salesman) and I would always ask "Do you know what ABS does and what it 'feels' like?"

People would stare in confusion.."what it feels like"? Many people had no idea that when ABS kicked in it made a kickback in the brake pedal. When I explained this many people where astounded and then remembered feeling that in their own brake pedal and thiking something was broken!

What does this have to do with the topic? I'm trying to let you know that the new car buyer has to do their homework and don't blame the dealer or manufacturer (its like the parents blaming videa games for their kids killing someone).

RESEARCH and Learn. NO sports car should be driven in the snow without snow tires, actually I would even say no car with SUMMER tires should be driven in temps below 35 degrees. I also had an A4 Quattro that had summer tires and let me tell you, I got caught out in a flash snow storm and it wasn't pretty.

Anyway, please don't put blame on Mazda or the dealer for not blatently telling you "DO NOT DRIVE THIS CAR IN THE SNOW"...you really should know that yourself.

happy safe driving.
Ciccone

P.S. I also think some of you need to do some research and find specialized wheel/tire shops in your area. None of the sears, jiffy lube/goodyear crap. Find a higher end place that has the proper equipment and expertise to mount and balance 18-20" wheels. They are all over the place, you just need to LOOK. I can cound 4 places around me that handle BMW/Porsche/Audi/VW etc that do this. JUST LOOK. trust me.and you won't have to worry about wheels being scrathced or beeds not taking.

WHealy

Yep. As expected. But in frequenting many boards on many cars, I can say I never saw a single post of a warentee issue with Snow Tire additions. And we all know these kind of post have a way of coming to the top. Certinaly a risk (if you can even call it that) that I'm willing to take.

Good luck cardinal35. Hope the purchase went well.

MEGAREDS

Gordon, the Tire Rack web site does not list any 17" rims for me. I input Mazda RX-8 Automatic, Touring package. (GT package is not listed as an option). I get only 18" and 19" wheels. Please comment.

Also, would you mind commenting on the type of rims listed. They seem to be alloy. An article in today's Chicago Trib recommends an extra set of snow tires and rims for most all cars, but says that the rims should be steel -- I assume because of salt issues? Is steel too heavy for our cars? Is the only difference in alloy rims a question of style, or are the many different rims listed better/worse quality.

silvercloud

If you click on the winter tire/wheel package on the tire rack
website you'll get 17 inch rims as an option.

Gord96BRG

The 17" packages and choices only show up if you select Winter or Winter Packages or Winter Wheels.

Quote:

Also, would you mind commenting on the type of rims listed. They seem to be alloy. An article in today's Chicago Trib recommends an extra set of snow tires and rims for most all cars, but says that the rims should be steel -- I assume because of salt issues? Is steel too heavy for our cars? Is the only difference in alloy rims a question of style, or are the many different rims listed better/worse quality.

It used to be standard to get steel wheels for winter use, only because they're cheaper and who cares how they look if they get rusty? For the RX-8, there are no steel options, just alloy wheels so far. As you mention, though, steel wheels are always quite a bit heavier than good alloy wheels, so they do degrade ride quality noticeably anyway. Alloy wheels sometimes have the finish degraded by salt use, but the wheel itself isn't affected by salt the way steel wheels are. Alloy wheels can always be blasted and re-painted or powder coated, if they degrade, but I don't expect it to be an issue.

As for quality of the alloy rims - usually, you get what you pay for, but overall even the cheapest alloy rims these days are better than most that were sold 20 years ago. You can't go wrong with pretty much anything sold by Tire Rack - the differences won't be so much in quality, but weight. I always recommend getting the lightest wheels you can afford, because keeping unsprung weight to a minimum is always worthwhile, even if it's only in winter. My RX-8 will be wearing winter wheels for 6 months of the year, so why sacrifice ride and appearance for 50% of the time?! :D

Regards,
Gordon

MEGAREDS

I agree completely. Talking to the dealer and reading this forum in September and October was all part of that process, as was reading the manual cover to cover before buying the car.

I think you're right about snow tires, but the dealership, service department and Mazda manual misinformed me of this; the manual Mazda published on the web and gave me when I took delivery of the car was deliberately vague about snow tires, even though it only took you 12 words to make a rather important point. I looked into the issue. The information just wasn't there. Instead, it said this:

"Your vehicle is originally equipped with
summer tires designed for optimum
traction on wet and dry roads. If your
vehicle is to be used on snow and ice
covered roads, you may find it necessary
to replace the original equipment tires
with snow tires, during the winter
months." (Emphasis added).

I am not blaming anyone but the particular sales/service people I spoke to and, to a somewhat lesser degree, Mazda's manual, but a large part of what an ethical salesperson does is educate the buyer and the Mazda dealership people I talked to lied or were incompetent, take your pick. All the manual had to say is that the car was not designed to be driven in snow without special tires. Instead, Mazda did not talk straight. I "may find it necessary" to put on snow tires? Is that a fair statement? This statement set the dealership people up to talk about how great the traction control and ABS would be in the snow and how smart I was to add the traction control as an option.

Luckily, I have other options and enough money to buy the snow tires. I'm also lucky to have access to the kind of people (like yourself, ciccone376) who offer help on this site about tire issues. If I had scraped to afford this car and had no other choices on how to get to work, I'd be furious... and screwed.

ciccone376

magereds,
I wasn't trying to point fingers directly at you...sorry if you took it that way.

i agree that salespeople should have some sort of responsibility...but trust me...they can care less and most times know jack and sh*t anyway. Most of them are told that TC and VSC will handle everything in all world environments. Its the dumb leading the dumber at most of the dealerships.

I remember when i bought my IS300, there was a day-glow sticker on the window that said something like "the OEM tires on this car are high performance summer tires and are succeptable to faster wear. These tires may degrade after 12K miles of use depending on your driving conditions etc etc etc."

i don't see why it would hurt anyone to do this in Mazda and also put a snow tire warning. that that would be too easy