RX8 for the Family
 

I currently own a Mazda6 and I am considering trading it in for an RX8. I was wondering if any of you have kids and is the 8 a usable car for the wife, my 3 year old and me. She rides in a Britax Marathon car seat. I am 6ft tall. Any info would be great. If I can show the CFO (wife) real people use it as a family car I might be able to sell her on it.

Thanks

Not too sure how the car seat will fit. My SO is 6'3 and he fits in the car fine. The backseat is actually a decent size. But, I wouldn't want the car as my family car. I also have a Tahoe.

We also have a mini van but we like to share the mileage between the cars.

I'm 6'0" and i fit fine, the back seat has, for a lack of a better description, the things that babyseats clip to on top. has lots of air bags and does have 4 doors. back seat space is a little limited, but if you had the baby seat installed and kept it in there it probably would not be a huge pain.

Have you considered the Mazdaspeed 6. Might be a good choice for family car. 4 doors. Quick, AWD. Plenty of safety features.

Yes I did think about the Speed6 but the fun factor of the 8 just can't be achived in the 6. Don't get me wrong I love my 6 and the speed6 is a great car, but the 8 just has that "thing"

I'm 6'1", we have an 8 and a 5 year old, though we've had the '8 since my little one was 2. Her car seat fit fine (I don't remember the model), and we can all still fit in there. The only "bad" thing about small rear passengers is that they can't see out. I suppose it's mostly just annoying for the kids who are used to looking out the windows in our other cars. Other than that, the kids love it, my wife loves it, and best of all, after almost three years, I still love it.

I have a little one who loves the 8 (she's 10 now). She says the best part is the cup holders in the back seat. :)

Im not the tallest, 5'10", but I have a little nephew i often watch. He's about two, so he still has a carseat. Not to sure of the brand, but it fits fine in the passenger side back seat. He loves when i take corners fast.

before someone says something about taking corners fast with him in the car, I never take them that drastically fast. Just enough that theres a little lean in the corner. I would never endanger him!

Although it has its disadvantages compared to a regular 4 door car or SUV, the 8 has proven itself a competent family hauler if you're prepared to deal with those issues. I would assume you'd want to put the child seat behind the passenger. Placing your kid in the rear driver's side seat could be a pain as there's not too much space between the back of the front seat and the rear door opeining (I'm 6' and don't like trying to reach behind my seat).

Take the family on a trip to the dealer and see if you're willing to deal with the rear seats.

Also, if you plan on having more than two kids, the trunk will fit about one or two little ones depending on how many air holes you're willing to punch in it. If you don't golf, that is. I wouldn't recommend putting a child AND a golf bag in your trunk no matter how many air holes.

Good luck.

Air Holes are not necessary. Remove the back of the center console, and there's plenty of ventilation for as many kids as you can squeeze into the trunk (not many).

There are four pair of air bags (front seat forward, A pillar, side curtain, and C pillar). Every imaginable restrain is standard.

Both back seats have the standard three-point metal anchors for the car seat .

Data Point - My daughter discovered during the dealership visit that all of the vehicles in the showroom have trunks that can be opened from the inside... to the amusement of the sales staff. :yelrotflm

I can fit my 5 and 9 year olds in the back with boosters with any problem. The seats are tighter because of their bucket design. The 9 year old can ride with out a car seat but when he dose he cannot see out the windows which increases the probability of motion sickness. He did get queasy once so I always us the boosters.

There's a total of six air bags. Front driver, front passenger and a mirror image of the two seen in the attached image.

Rotrdoc - Thanks, I forgot about the trunk pass-through. :lol:

cant really answer your question as i dont have any kids and have both 6 and 8 at the house .. but this one time i was getting my oil changed or something at the dealership and this guy popped in out of nowhere with a car seat and started shoving it into the showroom rx8 .. this was the funniest display of a proud father not exactly giving up on his life .. this was a pretty slow day for the salesmen .. weekday morning .. so after 45mins all of them were standing around the 8 still trying to get it set up .. and there i was thinking how many mazda salesmen does it take to put a car seat in the 8 .. what clowns .. anyways in another 10 mins my car got out of service and i took off and left them to it .. feel sorry for the 8 though .. at times it sounded like they ripped the cloth right of the seats .. should have been there to see it .. hillarious

We have 2 little people that are 6 and 9 and they fit fine. We have had several Mustangs like 7 total and they have more room in the 8 then any other car minus our new mini-van. Got that for the DVD feature. I would recommend an 8 for a family car and they are somewhat practical and car seats do fit as we are now looking into needing one of those again as well. Good luck on your choice

Just give your family a tutorial on operating the doors and its fine.

Ahh, wives - what skeptics. I also have a 3yr old and with the car seat behind my wife (passenger side of course) there is plenty of room. If you were to put it behind the driver's seat with someone tall at the wheel it could get a little cramped - doable, just not as comfortable. I haven't had the 8 very long (few months) but I can say that if you are wanting a good balance between performance and practicality at a reasonable price you have found your ride. The car we traded in for the RX8 was a Mazda3; a little more interior room than the 8 but not so much that would make you forget that the 8 is a helluva lot more fun. :)

Oh yeah, one more thing: don't let your 3 yr old. shut the door on the back of your legs while putting the car seat in...it hurts like hell.

Okay, that is exactly my situation, but my wife and I have *3* kids!!! When I take them in the car she doesn't come, or if I take her in the car, they don't come.

That is actually a reasonable use model:
Me taking the kids someplace in RX-8 - works
Me taking wife out in RX-8 with no kids - works
Whole family going someplace in her van - works
Using my car when wife's van is in the shop - works not so well, but we find ways.

That's for my 5-person family.

When I take the kids to dance on the weekends I have all 3 kids in the car and worst-case load in the trunk:
Spare tire,
My briefcase and laptop bag,
Diaper bag,
2 dance bags,
2 children's school bags,
Spare oil, spray wax, misc car supplies,
Coats,
......and then we go grocery shopping on the way home.

Okay, truth be told, *once* I made a compromise due to the small trunk - we did not buy the big 24-pack of paper towels because the 8-year-old would have had to sit under it the whole way home - we just got 10 bags of groceries and jammed them all in the trunk.

My wife and I are mid-30s (no further question on this subject), the kids are 10, 8 and 2. The RX-8 has worked out to be a perfectly practical, year-round, daily-driver for me. I've never suffered from, "oh, we can't do *that* with the sports car." I've done everything with the sports car.

Tell your wife it's still a 4-door, 4-seater car - it just doesn't look all common and boring like a Tarus, Accord, Sentra, Sonnata, etc, etc....... I won't even bother to name them all, they all look alike. ;)

We use our RX-8 as a second family car to the Odyssey. While it transports 4 pretty well, its not the ideal family car due to:

• Interlocking doors- the front doors must be opened before the back doors can be opened.
• The high center tunnel- there is no center seat and the high tunnel restricts the kids from easily going from one seat to the other.
• Access to the rear seats- most easily accomplished by entering from the side the passenger will sit. Not ideal when parallel parked on a busy street.
• High sills- The little ones may not be able to see much from the back seats.

No, its not an ideal only family car, but its pretty darn good. My kids love to ride in mine and even named her "Pearl". :)

I drag my 8month-old around in it all the time. It's usually the car we take for trips anywhere too. With the seat facing backwards, it's tight fit in the front passenger seat, but since one of us always rides in the back to entertain her it's not really an issue. I'm sure that once we turn her around it'll be a lot easier. We're planning on a Britax Marathon or Boulevard (haven't tried the Boulevard for fit yet) and she's currently in a Graco Snugride, which works just fine.

Those are good points, but none of them applied to my typical driving.

In my previous cars I used the child-safety locks so the kids could not open the rear doors when I didn't want them to do so (such as on the freeway). In the RX-8 I consider having the rear doors blocked by the front doors to be bonus.

Personally I frown on scrabbling over the center tunnel. There is a toddler-seat in the rear/passenger-side seat so the 8-year-old can't easily get out that way anyway (and couldn't do so in my Subaru either - there's really no crawling past a child seat in a regular car). When I load/unload her when parallel parked I open the front and rear door wide and stand holding the front door watching her and glaring at the on-coming traffic. The rear door is shorter so she can step around it without stepping as far into traffic as the front door.

Of course, with one kid you would have them always on the curb-side anyway - so not an issue.

High sills - my kids rode with me on a test drive in a 2005 Mustang. The sills were much higher, in fact, the back seat was like a cave. Sure, the back seat of the RX-8 is no green-house, but it's not completely claustrophibic - it's tough for kids to see out of lots of cars.

My kids love mine too. They'll love it more as they get older and begin to appreciate just how much less they'd like riding in a plain sedan or minivan. They also refer to her as "Annie" more often than they refer to her as 'the RX-8' or 'dad's car'.

I only foresee a few problems you may encounter:

1.) You will become obsessed with the RX-8 and start spending kid's lunch money on exhaust, springs, etc. :nono:

2.) Wife will be pissed because "you're always out in the garage messing with your car". :mad:

3.) You will spend every waking moment reading threads on RX8Club.com :ylsuper:

4.) Premium gas costs about $3.00 per gallon and you won't even care. :Eyecrazy:

5.) You will freak out about parking at Wal-Mart. Wife will pissed because she has to walk 1/2 mile from where you parked. :spank:

I haul my kida around in the 8 all the time. One of them is out of a car seat now and the other uses a booster...their only complaint is that it is hard to see out of the side windows.