Recently totaled my wife's 2003 Mazda 6i and to make the loss of her car less painful, we upgraded to a 2006 RX-8. She loves it and I get to have fun with it on weekends or whenever we're driving together. The 6i was a great car for it's price (no injuries at all in the accident), but the 8 is definitely a nicer ride.

This site is great and I've learned alot about the 8 and it's little quirks. A bit concerned about long term reliability since my driver side sun visor just melted off, but it's nice to see that mazda is addressing some of the more common issues (flooding, gas mileage, etc.)

No major mods so far, just changed the door lights to blue leds and installed the PIE aux in module (salvaged it from the 6).

 

nice upgrade!
i see you got it in Long Beach.
have fun

 

Yeah, Long Beach Mazda had what I think is a pretty good price (correct me if I'm wrong). It was $22,000 for a base 2006 6MT.

 

Did you total that poor 6i on purpose? You dog. Welcome to the fun. I have not had a problem w/mine, but the visor issue can go right alongside the ones you listed as common. Enjoy!

 

ya the dealer said a few came right off the truck with messed up visors but they went in to be fixed right away

 

No way the're selling an 06 base for $22K, that has to be an '05

 

schweet. let me guess its an auto? lol. have fun with the 8!

 

Hmm... I'll take it from your response that I got a good deal. It is a 2006 and new. If anyone has access to the LA Times, they can see the ad because it's still there and they've been running it for the last month or so. New 2006 RX-8 for $21,995. 2 at this price and they list the car ID number. Interesting thing is once I bought the car, I checked the ad the next day and they just put a different car ID number in the ad so they always have 2 at that price.

And it happened to be a manual instead of an automatic and was the shade of blue we were looking for (winning instead of phantom).

 

Congratulations, you got a much better deal than me on your 2006 base. When I was shopping for my 8, Long Beach Mazda only had base 6MTs in Sunlight Silver or Brilliant Black and I wanted either Galaxy Gray or Velocity Red.

And in case you're wondering why I was shopping Long Beach Mazda, I'm still in LA at the moment. I'll be moving to San Jose at the end of the week for my job.

 

I assume you ask because it's the wife's car. But no, it's a manual although I wouldn't mind the auto too much. I kinda like the paddle shifters.

 

Probably asked b/c the auto costs less, and your deal sounds unbelievably f8cking cheap.

 

Excellent choice of car and color Winning blue all the way

 

Congrats on the new RX-8! That's one heck of an upgrade on cars.

 

The autos and manuals cost the same in 06.

 

^ So they do.