fray

iTrader: (1)

Does anyone actually know how many 2004 models were produced? Also does the sequence part of the VIN actually indicate the sequence of the car as they roll off the line? If so, is that for each region or for the total production?

I bought a used 2004 with a very VERY low sequence number. (less the 100900) I'm curious as to how early of a model this might be.

msrecant

As someone noted earlier, the way it works is that at some point Mazda stops making 2004s and starts making 2005s. The 2005 Model didn't make it to Richmond until October which would mean an August or September cutover. 92,340 cars were produced through the end of July 2004. Another 3,709 were built in August so I would estimate between 92,000 and 96,000 2004 models were built.

In terms of your car, just check the build date noted on the plate on the driver's door frame. I believe production of US cars started in May 2003.

Senna

[QUOTE=PaulieWalnuts]What bugs me is how many people I run into that want to buy an 8 but are totally misinformed by people who don;t have a clue of what they're talking about. A buddy of mine "read somewhere" that the back seats are unusable for adults and won;t fit a baby seat. I corrected that BS and now he wants one. Someone else told me rotaries blow up at 100,000 miles and they would never buy one. I asked where they heard that crap from and corrected that BS. Another guy read that the 8 got crappy gas mileage. Crappy compared to what, a Honda civic, or a G35 and 350Z both of which get similar mileage on average. There are too many mindless bashers and not enough evangelists. QUOTE]

I'm joining this discussion a little late but nevertheless...I tend to agree with this. That being said, I wonder why Mazda hasn't embarked on more of a promotion campaign to counter the BS. I think a good percentage of people who might be in the market for the 8 are not likely car enthusiasts like us who join forums, do the research and distill the facts. They are more likely to be misinformed and therefore easily turned away by the BS.

There is information out there when one looks at the awards the car/engine has won. The success of SpeedSource, the record breaking run in Germany, the Star Mazda series, the return of Mazda to the ALMS with a three Rotor Renesis, the many media based positive reviews, etc., etc. I doubt that all these things would be happening if the 8 was failing in reliability and was not a success. Returning to ALMS in itself tells me Mazda is committed to continuing to develop the Renesis.

Perhaps, as others have said, success and sales don't necessarily go hand in hand when it comes to this car. But I still wonder why Mazda doesn't do more to promote the strengths and successes when there is a lot of unwarranted skepticism out there??? It seems like a no brainer to me---do a more aggressive ad campaign.

Gomez

As I said earlier....2004 RX-8 production was 51000 (50,813 to be precise). Yes, VIN sequence is relevant to line position....and yes, it is regional.

msrecant

The 50,813 number is a calendar year 2004 (Jan 04 to Dec 04) total. What we don't know is when they stopped building 2004 model cars and when they started building 2005 model cars.

SpacerX

Good insights. And I, too, am a bit skeptical and more inclined to suspect exaggeration when it comes to pricing stories -- attempts at "validation" -- again, good insights.

As I posted earlier, national pricing data on the Edmunds website, which is well-established and fairly reputable, don't support a broader conclusion that prices are plummeting -- to wit: comparing the Edmunds report I had from over a year ago with an updated report shows the current "aggregate" or "TMV" price (minus TTT), is actually ~$128 greater than Feb 2004. I've tried several other zip codes, and they're all fairly similar...

SpacerX

To be fair, Edmunds is no longer listing current data for new MY04 RX8s still available. The dealerships, of course, will be more motivated to move the older inventory and offer super prices...

Of course, my advice to anyone looking for a good RX8 is that they can very likely find a solid 2004 -- and these are pretty much the same cars. The "great deal, great price!" stories we're occasionally hearing are most likely MY04 RX8s

msrecant

I agree and this puzzles me. On one hand Edmunds, Kelly Blue Book, Carmax and even used RX-8s on the dealer's lot show pretty high prices. Those prices don't jive with reports on this forum about $5,000 below INVOICE on a "new" 2004 RX-8.

Are the reports on this forum anomalies?

SpacerX

(shrugs) Maybe...

I'm certainly not in a position to dispute anyone's (self-reported) good fortune. I just don't see any broader indications of price drops. I think it's altogether VERY likely someone may bay able to get into a MY04 RX8 at a significant discount... but prolly not MY05.

I also have become increasingly convinced that the "forecasts" and "conclusions" of the demise of both the RX8 and the Renesis are overstated, or perhaps uninformed, at best, and childish, at worst.

msrecant

Yeah, the concensus from this thread is that while sales are below Mazda goals, they are probably not anywhere near the cancellation point.

I would expect the current below-target sales to cause exactly what we are seeing. Mazda is NOT rushing out with:

- major RX-8 improvements (key fobs and windshield washer buckets don't count)
- new models (convertible, 2 door coupe)
- spin off vehicles (new RX-7)

Instead we get a model "freshener" like the Shinka which takes minimal investment to put in the showroom.

For now, they appear to be milking the car to improve its lifetime profitability. However, it will be a very good sign if the RX-8 really gets a new automatic with the 238 HP engine, or some other major technological bump, in 2006.

sandia8

This thread stated exports to the US of the RX-8 to be

42,428 in 2003
41,577 in 2004
60 in 2005
or a total of 84065 units (? Mazda quotes 55,414 in FY2003)

Mazda says they sold
12346 in 2003
23690 in 2004
4917 in 2005 for a total of 40,953 units
See web site for data
http://sev.prnewswire.com/auto/20050...4012005-1.html


The math says that there are currently 43,112 unsold RX-8’S that were exported to the U.S.

msrecant

Two considerations.

1. All information in the table from the first post on this thread came directly from the Mazda Corporate Web site http://www.mazda.com/publicity/product/seihane.html. I assume Mazda publishes this as a service to its stockholders and the media. I simply put the numbers in a single table. I would consider these numbers to be very reliable.

2. The EXPORT portion of the table is worldwide export (outside of Japan) and not just the RX-8s exported to the US. Later in this thread people have published US export/sales numbers but one would need to confirm the reliability of those numbers.

dwynne

The ones I posted came from Mazda press releases and were sales numbers - by model by month and YTD.

Dennis

msrecant

Yes, it was probably the same Mazda North America Operations press release that sandia8 just posted a link to. I wish MNAO kept these figures on their web site the way Mazda Corporate does.

I am assuming these are end-customer sales figures, not just sales to North American dealerships. Do either you or sandia8 know that for sure?

What we are still missing are the MNAO import totals so we know how many of the worldwide RX-8s ended up at MNAO. From that we could figure out remaining MNAO stocks.

sandia8

This could clear up some production/sales info
COULD SPELL THE END OF THE RX-8 LINE AS WELL AS CONTINUED PRODUCTION IF THERE ARE 40+K UNITS FLOATING AROUND THE U.S. WITH 1/2 OF 2005 SEASON GONE

For December 2004 and dec 2003 year to date(seems domestic meansU.S.)
http://sev.prnewswire.com/auto/20050...4012005-1.html


FY2003 production (which clearly shows 55,414 exported to the U.S.)
http://www.mazda.com/publicity/produ...200404sae.html


November 2004 sales
sev.prnewswire.com/auto/20041201/LAW08901122004-1.html

January 2005 sales
biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050201/latu125_1.html
January 2005
http://sev.prnewswire.com/auto/20050...4012005-1.html

Feb 2005 sales
http://sev.prnewswire.com/auto/20050...1032005-1.html

March 2005 sales
http://sev.prnewswire.com/auto/20050...1042005-1.html

msrecant

Yes, your prnewswire.com MNAO report is for North America Domestic sales.

However, the "Domestic" I show in my table is from the www.mazda.com site report and is for Japan only. If you look in the Export breakdown at the bottom of the report, North America is clearly listed as an "Export".


I disagree. the 55,414 figure is worldwide, not US. Section #3 of the above report show Exports broken down by vehicle AND by region. Both groupings sum to 555,248 units with North America only being 177,515 of the total. Hence North America is only part of the 55,414 total exported RX-8s.


The above figures show MNAO selling out of the RX-8 supply purchased from Mazda Corporate. However, to understand the impact of the above sales volumes, we still need the key piece of info which is how many of the 84,065 RX-8s, exported in 2003, 2004 and 2005, actually went to North America. That breakdown should be somewhere.

Deslock

I was able to get an 02 WRX for $400 over invoice a lot sooner than that.

Ike

Dealers in my area wouldn't budge much until the 03s started rolling in.

Deslock

When you wrote "I know for fact that with the WRX they could barely make them fast enough and it wasn't til the end of the MY02 that they would deal on them", was it based on more than just your local dealers? I know many WRX owners who were able to get it close to invoice within a few months of the WRX's release... it didn't take two years. Hell, the MY03s were out ~17 months after the MY02s, so what you wrote ("...it was a couple years before you could expect any sort of deal on them or special financing.") would mean that you couldn't get deals on any MY02 WRXs until well after the MY03s were out, which was obviously not the case.

Some may be getting a different impression from inaccurate generalizations that favor the WRX and make the RX8 look worse of than it really is.

nsxpowered

from dummy numbers without merit... Lets say 80,000 RX8 were exported. The USA has the buying power to take 50-60% of the worldwide market share. That would come out to 40,000~48,000 in the USA. My business is relational to the study of market shares of cars, so I have to crunch these numbers a bit with; so thats how I came with the dummy number. However for more exclusive cars I've seen USA taking up to 70%. Hope this helps????

Ike

This was mainly in reference to the fact that those others cars didn't have 4k rebates, special financing for the first MY cars. Even if people were getting WRXs or any of those other cars for around invoice months after release, people were getting the RX-8 for around invoice weeks after release. Also, special financing for the WRX didn't kick in until after the MY03s had been released, all the previous offers from Subaru excluded the WRX. Find me a rebate program where Subaru had to move WRXs, or Nissan 350Zs by giving people anywhere near 4k rebates.

SpacerX

Can't say that I'm really familiar with the $4K rebates...

Deslock

I read a thread in which someone said there was a dealership selling RX8s within $500 of invoice weeks after its release. That doesn't make it wide-spread... likewise, I wouldn't be surprised if some dealership, somewhere offered good deals for the WRX weeks after its release.

Regardless of all that, let's assume that for the sake of argument that Mazda has been offering more dealers sooner than Subaru and Nissan and Mazda has offered heftier discounts. Still doesn't change the fact that your WRX statements, "it wasn't til the end of the MY02 that they would deal on them..." and "it was a couple years before you could expect any sort of deal on them..." are false.

Ike

Fine, change it to dealerships in my area weren't offering deals on the WRX until the end of MY02 and I'll admit that i was wrong. What does that change? Subaru expected 10k in sales on the WRX and got 30k +, Mazda was going for 30k in sales for the RX-8 and fell short and is now selling the cars at deep discounts which will lead to the resale values of these cars plumeting... I'm wrong, you're right, and you're still screwed if you want to sell a used RX-8 right now. <shrugs>

willhave8

Who's selling? Re-sale value for me, was never in the equation