What should I know?
 

Hi Everyone. I just put a deposite on an 04 RX8 with Nav. I am paying 298/month. with 3k down. What do I need to know about the car? IS there anything to watch out for? Thanks for the info.


Greg

You will get lots of stares.

Your friends will think you paid a lot more for it.

The rearview mirror double-pivots up.

Mind the break-in period for the first 1000 miles.

There is a pin in the glovebox that holds the driver's mat in place.

Beware of flooding the engine.

The insurance company sees this is a four-door, 1.3L engine - take advantage.

The Red Sox just hit a 2-run shot, so that is all I will say for now. Go Sox!

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andy.wray/topgear.wmv

Watch this and enjoy !!

Grego,
Congrats on joing the cult!! You should have nothing to worry about. Just ensure the car is up-to-date on all its TSB's. Where are you located? Did you buy or lease? How many miles on the car? What is the build date?

- Irish :cool:

I really didn't get all the info yet I didn't get the car yot but I am going to the dealer today to drop off some papers. Maybe I will check out those TSB's before I go and make sure they are all done before I take delivery. That video was great looks like this is going to be lots of fun. This will be interesting I've been driving a Subaru SVX for 8 years which I love. Its going to take some getting used to rear wheel drive. Well talk to you guys later. Thanks for the info.

Greg

I just got my blue GT about 2 weks ago so I am wondering what are TSB's and what is engine flooding? I keep reading about these but I don't know what they are.

TSB = Technical service bulletin (i think). Basically they're just notices about problems that should be fixed or something like that.

Engine Flooding is when your engine gets flooded with gasoline to a point where it won't start. There's measures to fix it, but sometimes those don't work and you'll need to get your car towed for a mechanic to fix the problem. This happens when you start the car then turn it off before the engine gets a chance to warm up. It's not a problem for most people, but you probably want to let the car warm up a bit before turning it off. It's fine once the engine is warm though. Just make sure you let the car warm up a bit on a cold day before you turn it off again.

As for things to watch out for....
1) engine flooding
2) oil consumption. keep a bottle of engine oil in your trunk. check your oil every now and then and refill when it's low. it uses oil faster than normal cars so you want to check more often. though i haven't had to fill it yet myself (1K miles).
3) gas mileage ain't so hot. actually i think the freeway gas milege is pretty decent but city driving seems to be really bad. i was averaging 15.6 mpg for the first 3 or so fill ups. now i'm getting like 17+ but i'm driving like 40% freeway now (vs the 20%).
4) the guy from top gear LOVED the car and said it was the best he driven that year, then said "nah that's not true anymore because the car drives awfully twitchy on a wet track." Well, it rained REALLY hard last night (in southern california!) and I noticed this. Most of the time it was fine, but in small patches it got really twitcy.

Do you plan on racing the 8? Auto or manual? If your like me you'll have a hell of time pushing the RX-8 on the mountain roads. I'd like to tell you the RX-8 is not a drag racer (for now). So if you pull up next to a 350z don't expect to burn'em.

It's a good idea to review http://www.finishlineperformance.com...ocs/index.html