Went to Jeff Haas Mazda in Houston yesterday...
 

What a pleasant change from the first dealership I went to last week. Here the cars and building were immaculate, the staff friendly, professional and best of all knowledgable. Kudos to Judi and Justin for making me feel I was in a Lexus dealership. Apparently the owner Mr Haas is crazy about the RX-8 too.

On to the real news. The sales manager Justin seemed to have some hard information about the RX-8. Apparently after the public unveiling of the car on Tuesday 7th January we should be able to go and pre-order our exact build of vehicle as the dealerships will have all the prices, options, colours etc. He went on to 'suggest' the pricing would be base $25k to fully loaded $32k, better than my expected $27-$34k. I mentioned to him that I want a fully loaded car including Navigation, so I think the $32k includes that option.

More interestingly he stated that the first build allocation of cars would begin arriving end May/Early June onwards and the second allocation arriving in September. Anyone who pre-orders before February should fall into the first allocation (this dealership already has 35 people on the waiting list). I don't think he was trying to pressure me into pre-ordering ASAP as I told him I have a lease that finishes in September so I would have to wait until then (not quite true - I will probably return my lease car a few months early as I will be over my mileage limit).

Anyhow I will pre-order my car on Tuesday with a refundable deposit and then decide if I will go ahead after seeing the car at the Houston auto show on 25th January. If I like seeing/sitting in the car at the show then I will wait until driving evaluations from the magazines and people on this forum on production cars (i.e. June).

Congrats to ya then :)

Hope you get exactly what you need from this dealership. My experience has been to call them every few weeks and see if they have any new info... just to keep them on their toes :)

They promised to phone me on Tuesday with more info so I will see if they keep to that at least.

I should have thanked Toadman for recommending this dealership. My first Mazda dealership experience elsewhere almost turned me off the brand forever, no matter how good the products might be....

In Houston, you can't go wrong with Jeff Haas Mazda. He even had a pristine unsold 3rd Gen RX-7 in his lobby that was recently sold.

Would you believe it - he gave me accurate info! Three days ago 'my' dealer said $25k base and $32k fully loaded inc. Nav, and with end-May or early June availability. I think I'll stick with this dealership....

I have had pretty good experiences with them myself.

I hope to be picking up a nice 05' model there early next spring.

:) ( I still have RX-7 projects to finish)


BTW.. that RX-7 they recently sold... was that the "white one" ?

Confirmed : No RX-8 in Houston.

:(

Thanks that is all.

More bad news! Oh wait - just the same info re auto show but it sounds worse the second time. The sales person at Jeff Haas was the one who told me the RX-8 would DEFINITELY be at the Houston show, so that's a black mark against her. Still the best Mazda dealership I've been to (out of two).

to the dealers credit.. I know this info.. a heck of a lot faster than they do... -- and the Houston Auto Show website even still says the RX-8 is coming.. so they don't even know.

but there will be a RX-7..... (one that spits out well over 700-800 horsepower) YAY!

per Cagiva :

I can confirm that in the past 15 minutes arrangements were made to expedite a Silver on Red manual trans from Irvine to Houston for the auto show.

Given no transport hassles the unit can be seen starting on Saturday. I understand that a great big thanks has to be given the Reliant Center Management for allowing a late arrival into the show!

I hear that this RX-8 is a special unit thus will be on a turntable and not on the floor open to the public.

Wonderful news! I take it the vehicle is silver with black/red leather interior. I will be at the Houston show Sunday 26th at 11am and will try to persuade my salesperson to let me get in the car.

it's not gonna happen... I don't think anyone at the show will even have a key. at least that is the story you will be hearing .. :)

if it's the one i think it is, jeff haas listed it on ebay for like a day and a half... i grabbed the pics cuz i thought it was SO nice... it was '95, silver/black, 5,500 miles... i was interested in seeing how much it went for but they ended it early. when i wrote an e-mail to them, the dumb reply was something like "i don't know what auction you are referring to. i don't even know what a 3rd gen RX-7 is" !!! i wish i saved that email to see which idiot that was. anyway, pm me if you want to see the pics... nothing fancy though.

as far as jeff haas as a dealer, i have no specific complaints; although i was only using their service department. they were very nice... but in the end, they ARE a dealership. i've started using maz-max. kinda far, but the guys there are more "hip" and not so conservative and "staunchy" (to factory specs). the service guy at jeff haas almost had a cow when he saw my aftermarket intake; so much so he gave me a mini-lecture about water ingestion. hahaha.

FWIW though, i will definitely check jeff haas out when i buy my RX-8.

(maybe this should be moved to the Gulf Forum. :D)

Jeff Haas Mazda is also one of the reasons why this site exists in the first place. They've been our longest standing paying advertiser. So I'm glad to hear about their excellent service.

YaY Jeff Haas... hehehe .. ...

BTW I did confirm with the sales manager the other day and he assured me that no RX-8s would be sold over MSRP.

If there is any descrepancy please let me know.

I just have to know how you got them to sell you the car under MSRP....? 33,100 is US MSRP Fully Loaded (at least that is what the rx8 website says) and you are saying you got it for 32K.

That's a great deal!

Well, how about posting who is paying the freight here… I think that they deserve some credit!

No - prior to prices being officially announced the dealership said around $32k fully loaded (inc. NAV) - and in fact it turned out to be about $32,580 fully loaded (+ $520 destination charge). This was fairly accurate at a time when I though it would be $34k or more fully loaded.

I paid MSRP ($33,100 inc destination), which is what the dealership will charge everyone for at least the first few months of sales.