mikeb

nice internet tough guy
dont be made because the only thing you can fit in your trunk is a newspaper

S2000

I'm not trying to be tough. If I bought a car because of it's trunk, I would have bought a 4 door Audi A6. I bought the S2000 because I love a car that is a great track performer. The S2000 is exactly that. It is not a big V8 beast of a car that eats 1/4miles for breakfast like the SVT Cobra. It's not a high dollar, "look at me" car like a Corvette or a Porsche. It's not meant to hold anything except the person driving it. I bought it because of that. If I need a trunk, I'll take my wife's car.

Now, why did you buy the RX8? Was it because it looked good? Has a trunk? Something new and fresh? The next rotary? I ask this because you certainly can't say you bought the RX8 because it was the best bang for your buck like the S2000. You can't say it gets great gas mileage like the S2000 and still equals the performance of a Porsche. You can't say it has plenty of power, because it simply doesn't for the weight it's at.

So I guess you are left with the fact that you bought the RX8 for it's trunk and it's good looks. And good looks are subjective to everyone.

It's funny that you even try to use the "my car has a bigger trunk than yours" line. That's gay. I bought the S2000 because it is a beast on a track, and add a Vortec supercharger and it is better than the ZO6 on a track, hell, maybe even the Modena,......Ferrari that is.

Hercules

Yep, I am having *no* fun driving my RX-8. It's like driving a power wheels car.

Now where is that rolls eyes icon we sorely need?

And yet again, a great reason to enforce a no-trolls policy. Whoever's with me...

S2000

Did I make a personal attack on anyone? No,.....then shut up.


Just stating facts here. The RX8 is quickly turning into a novelty car like the Mini, the Turbo PT Cruiser(which has more power than the RX8), etc, etc. The RX8 is a beautiful car, but it has been raped by Mazda. The power just isn't there for the weight of the car. Sorry if the truth upsets you. Take it like a big boy.

Hercules

Remind me to cry about it later.

Mind you, the S2000 was my strongest consideration alternative to the RX-8. But with the fact the S2000 is obscenely loud inside (with the top down), only has two seats (takes away from occasional practicality), and the fun-to-drive factor is comparable (though the S2000 wins out in performance in every aspect), I couldn't justify it. I was looking for a four seater.

The RX-8 is a compromise car, and I realize this. However it's more fun to drive than the G35 Coupe, 330Ci, and countless other cars. The S2000 has all the advantages of the RX-8 except in a louder, more expensive, and two seat package that I can't afford with 'reason', not for price. I had the money for any car I drove.

Now for those of us looking for a car that's fun to drive, seats four, performs reasonably, and fits our price range... the RX-8 is really the only car that fits the bill. Did I ever say the RX-8 is the king of any performance number? Nope. And do I care? Not really.

I buy a car because of the smile it puts on my face. I will ocassionally track the car just to see what kind of skill level I can achieve by pushing it to its limits. Now if your goal in mind was to constantly track your car, then you got the right car. I got a car I can *use* every day, that accomodates four, and still is fun.

The G35C was fun, until I drove the RX-8 and started noticing the nuances I hadn't before. Understeer and a poor shifter being the most standout of those. The 330 is a dime a dozen and very expensive, also on insurance. It didn't offer anything over the G35C or the RX-8 for the price point anyways.

Your recommended option (as you 10 year old trolls enjoy so often) was the Mini Cooper S. First off, if your idea of 'fun to drive' is found in a front wheel drive car, and you can compare it to a *reasonable* (not even good) RWD car, then you simply have no place to drive a 'performance' car at all. Go get the mini van right now, because your driving suggestion is laughable.

The Mini Cooper S is fun... FOR A FWDer. But the experience of a RWD car is not comparable, as it isn't comparable (as much as revhappy would like it to be) to an AWD car. Each drivetrain is in a world of its own. Your owning of an S2000 should illustrate this example to you every time you start it. However given your prior comments and trollish nature, I think the only RWD car you've driven is a cab.

Go back to your home at the S2000 forums where most people are adults, and learn something from them in manners.

revhappy

Herc,
Don't forget, Herc, a RWD car can be tuned to understeer (i.e. like a FWD car). I would suggest a bit of open-mindedness about which wheels spin on the cars on your shopping list. If handling is your thing, no one can deny the old ITR (FWD) when it was out) and EVO (AWD) aren't great handling cars.

Now, your love with RWD is due I assume to your like of oversteer/wagging the rear end out and dislike of torque steer. However, the RX8 is tuned for understeer (mass-market car) and is one of the most stable RWD sporty cars I know of. From your signiature, it appears you have two other cars with back seats. If you really loved these RWD characteristics, it only seems logical that the S2000 would have been the better choice.

BTW...I've driven the RX8 and the S2000 and they are not nearly as similar in "feel" as you suggest, IMHO.

mikeb

why is it the first person to defend s2000 is not a rx8 owner.
s2000, you didn't make a attack on anyone but why are you here. I don't go to s2000 forums and talk about my car.

S2000

I completely agree pretty much with everything you said. You can not judge a car by the fact of which wheels pull or push it to make it go. I owned the MP3 prior to the S2000, and I will tell you right now that the MP3,....all 140hp of it, will completely embarass the RX8 on a track. Add a turbo to the MP3 and it is a complete track car.(with a big trunk by the way for you trunk lovers)


Why am I here, to learn more about the RX8. I love all cars, I'm not narrow minded like most people that are religious to one brand. I have owned pretty much every brand that makes a good car. The dumbest statements that I ever read on these forums are the one's that say, "go back to your (insert your car brand here) forum". That's just stupid.

mikeb

its not stupid, if you are here be respectful dont be a troll.
You dont go up to someone on the streets and say we did you get that car, I dont like it.

S2000

I never said I didn't like the RX8,.....please see my above post.

If anything, you guys should take your anger out on Mazda instead of me. They are the ones that screwed you. If they had advertised the car at 210hp like it's at now, would you have even got excited about it, much less bought one. The only reason people in the US got excited about the RX8 is because it was supposed to be the new reliable highpower rotary engine. Well, we all know it's not high power now, is it going to be reliable? We'll see.

Gord96BRG

Really. So why did you just trash the RX-8 and call it a pretty car with a trunk, inferior in every other respect? You learned that here? That's not narrowminded?

By the way, I don't care what an RX-8 turns on a dyno (have you learned from here yet that the RX-8 control systems are falling back into a safe mode when the car is run on a dyno, thus making any dyno run show less power?). It doesn't matter if the RX-8 is only making 150 hp, when it can turn 0-60 in 6.0 seconds and a 1/4 mi in 14.0 at 101 mph. (Posted by a forum member last month, measured with a GTech Pro Comp).

Regards,
Gordon

mikeb

Its like trying to talk to a brick wall

ectomort

Many of us have no anger against Mazda. You are displaying animus against Mazda the RX-8, and forum members with your off-topic, non-constructive and self-contradictory posts. Using inflamatory and insulting language speaks volumes about your level of mental maturity and further undermines your opinions.

TybeeRX-8

The current issue of EVO also rates the RX-8 higher than the more expensive "favorite hot hatch", the Golf RS!:D

Haris

Wow, are you saying S2000 is reliable? It was on top 10 lemon cars for awhile. it might still be on there. I dont know the issues it had, but it sure wasn't better in reliability than RX8 so far. And this is stupidest thing I have heard:

You came to learn about Rx8 and all you have learned was RX8 has nice trunk and looks nice but it sucks in every performance category?

You better do your homework! And get a life...

zthang

How do you prove that a car is "more fun to drive" than others? If the rx8 has a better shifter (which is debatable) and less understeer does that mean its more fun to drive? Does power not have ANYTHING to do with driving fun factor? I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but i just don't get how someone can flat out say one car is "more fun to drive" than another. Theres just no way of proving that. If anything that should just be your personal opinion, instead of a fact.

Hercules

The RX-8 in my opinion, has a very neutral balance which I found quite refreshing. I'm well aware that RWD cars are prone to understeer if they would be designed for it. The case is clear in the G35 Coupe and 350Z.

I have never denied the Evo and S2000 aren't great cars for performance; they just aren't what *I* was looking for. And time and time again I'm reminded constantly by the childish trolls that don't get the attention they need at home, that sadly, I've bought the wrong car. According to them, of course. Their requirements. Their 'important' criteria. Not mine. And I tire of it, because it is a tired arguement to make.

All the buyers of the RX-8 (with the exception of the unhappy few that returned the car because it didn't have the numbers or other niggles) drove the car, and after careful decision with our $25-$30 THOUSAND dollar purchase, made that decision and went with the RX-8. I followed this same procedure, weighed the cost of performance against the cost of livability, driveability, and other little things I looked for and combined it to see that the RX-8 was the car for me.

The fastest? Hell no. The best handling? Nope again. Best looking? In the eye of the beholder. But combining what it doesn't do well with what it does there is a car in my eyes (and others) that cannot be matched, especially given what we have been looking for (and found).

As an addendum, the reason I wanted a RWD car over an AWD one wasn't because I wanted to kick the tail out, I just didn't want any hand-holding from AWD. My goal with the car was not only to have fun transportation but also to learn the limits of a RWD car and how to properly control the understeer and oversteer that I can dial in with throttle and steering. I'm slowly learning that now as I drive this car daily, though my skills will improve greatly when I attend my classes next year (I'm still savin!). If I decide after that, that I want an AWD car, my prowess in RWD driving will help me become far superior when using an AWD car because the limits of AWD are generally higher and more controllable. So if I've mastered the harder to drive of the two drivetrains, the easier one should make me look damn good.

As they say... AWD can make a bad driver look good, and RWD can make even a good driver look bad. I'd rather be the latter of the two that is learning and then if I feel so inclined, jump into the former drivetrain and show everybody up

graphicguy

Proof that the RX8 is more fun to drive than a 350Z is the mere fact that I chose it over the 350Z for that very reason.

I'm driving the RX8, therefore, it's more fun to drive.

Wave

Yeah!! LOL... I like your way of thinking!!! Proof enough for me!!

zthang

Wow...up until now i thought people on this board were pretty intelligent and not very childish at all. I parouse this forum to see what RX8 people are up to and what they think of other cars. Up until the whole HP thing, most people were nice and no one made remarks that were not subjective or factually based. Graphic guy, if you were just being sarcastic, I apologize...if you were being honest, then thats cool too :D. I'm not Blue350 or whoever it was that you were having an argument with so I'm not gonna bash your car, nor do i feel the need to defend mine...i was just asking if there was another way of telling if one car is more fun to drive than another that i didn't know of...apparently any non-RX8 owner isnt really welcome on this board, so i won't be posting very much anymore. Enjoy youre little RX8 world guys.

Wave

That was how I took it.

Gord96BRG

Some of this 'fun-to-drive' factor is opinion, but much is quantifiable (if not measurable by the ordinary driver). Go test drive a 240 hp Honda Odyssey, and then a 142 hp Mazda Miata. Which is more fun to drive? That comparison is much closer to fact than personal opinion.

First define the characteristics that make a car enjoyable to drive - then rank your contenders in each of those characteristics, weight the relative merit of those characteristics, then come up with a combined, weighted-average score for your fun-to-drive ranking. Not that tough... and fwiw, Mazda products (especially their sports cars like RX-7, Miata, and now RX-8) have always been ranked very highly by reviewers in the fun-to-drive category. Further, check out the Evo review of the RX-8 (available on-line at www.evo.co.uk ) and read the last paragraph of their RX-8 vs. Golf R32 comparison - it explains perfectly why they prefer the RX-8 even though the R32 is faster and corners better on paper.

Regards,
Gordon

revhappy

Nice explanation, it makes sense (though I wouldn't say exactly what you said regarding AWD).

S2000

I agree. I give differing opinions on the RX8 and they all get mad. When you tell me that the S2000 is loud inside the cabin,....I agree. When you tell me the S2000 was a lemon,....sorry, I disagree and I don't think you know what you are talking about. The ONLY problems the S2000 ever had was the oil bolts on about 1% of the cars produced. This caused cylinder wall scoring and broken rods in those cars.

But when I say the RX8 is a great car but shouldn't be compared to any performance car, you all get all pissy. I'm sorry guys, but the RX8 just doesn't have the hp/wt ratio that all the other cars have. This has been proven on the track. Hell, the WRX greatly out-performs the RX8 on the track.

The RX8 is a fun to drive car on the trip to and from work, but not on the track. A souped up civic could probably beat the pants off of it.

Sorry, just my opinions.

Wave

And most of us could care less about how it does on a track. We won't be driving on any track. For us it's about making that everyday drive more fun and doing it with style. The RX-8 does that just fine thank you. :p

And I can take my kids along for the ride too! :D