WhiteDealershipRice

^^ I hope that's the case too, and am willing to give Mazda the benefit of the doubt for a couple of months,

but even then, having them lay the cards on the table and letting us know EXACTLY what is going on would be the best way to appease the doubters...

Old Rotor

Thanks Jeremy. My first new car was a Mazda RX-2 in '71. I have had a dozen since then and from six different dealers. I think it would help us to understand better if you would tell us what will be done with the RX-8 surveys so we dont feel like mulligans. We all here love our Rotary's and know it is an Exotic car and appreciate your response.

zoom44

autoblog has picked up the story and response

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/08/04/m...-leaked-video/

zoom44

and at diggs

http://digg.com/business_finance/Maz...us_RX_8_owners

and netscape

http://autos.netscape.com/story/2006...t-rx-8-owners/

tiggerlee

Like I said in another thread. I'm not ready to jump ship just yet. However my confidence in Mazda has been somewhat eroded by what I heard in the video and from what I've personally experienced.

It's going to take more than a single post on a forum for me to regain my complete faith again. That said, I do want to at the very least thank Jeremy for his response.

otherside

Thank you very much Jeremy for your response. Seems like most of us feel more at ease. Ive known all along how Mazda feels about customer service. I practice the Mazda philosophy every day.

I hope everyone feels better now.

Jon

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

Thank You Jeremy for your response.
I feel the same as tiggerlee. I'm going to take a wait and see attitude. We'll see how this turns out.

zoom44

of course the video has gone down now at google as well. both videos are down as expected.

i believe jeremy is sincere in his response. autoblog has a point- he was dealing with the ship problem this past week- i would have possibly given him more time to respond before posting this had i thought about that. as i said in the first post i would have rather had a response to print in that post.

stangmatt66

Wow...thanks to Autoblog.com I am finally hearing about this ridiculous video from Mazda. I cannot believe that they would just throw our survey results away. Have they ever stopped to think that perhaps it's not the owners, but rather the dealers who are wrong here? I've had nothing but horrible service everytime I've been in the dealership for service.

spork

I guess my problem was I already got bad service in the first place. For the people that got decent or good service, there's a fear of losing the good service but it's unlikely because it's unlikely the dealership will change their policy to take advantage of this announcement.

For the people who haven't been getting good service, it's basically saying that Mazda NA KNOWS that RX8 owners are getting bad service at those dealerships and they're willing to forgive it. This doesn't mean the service is going to get worse, but it does say to me that they're giving the dealer NO INCENTIVE at all to be better.

otherside

Round and round we go.......

jeremyB

Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback on the response, and for your understanding. It's enthusiasts like you that keep us working on cars like RX-8 and MX-5. Safe driving to all of you.

saturn

This is a very cool series of events. The power of all of us seems to be more than just pwn n00bs in tha twisties!!11! If nothing else this should serve to make dealerships and MNAO more attentive to the service needs of 8 owners. I mean, I doubt this would have been such a sore subject if the 8 hadn't had such a long history of TSB's and customer gripes.

No one wants to feel ignored when their car is having issues. Hopefully Mazda continues to actualize its commitment to excellent service and not just talk about it.

Omicron

Very nice to see you here and reading Jeremy. There's a lot of passion behind the RX-8 here (and other Mazda products on our other forums) and if that could be tapped it would only benefit us all. Participation and caring is more than half the battle, and the fact that you took the time to both post here AND follow up and read/respond to the thread speaks volumes.

I encourage you - and all the Mazda Execs - to spend some time here beyond just this thread. You've got the worlds most passionate and knowledgeable focus group at your fingertips. Mazda's really on a roll right now with awesome products, now use the power of the internet forums to help build that momentum into catching Nissan/Honda/Toyota.


(PS: While you're listening... a Mazdaspeed supercharger or turbocharger kit for the RX-8 would be a sure fire hit... )

Cam

iTrader: (1)

Wow, I didnt even realize it was Jeremy Barnes who registered and posted his/Mazdas response (and he's still online, hopefully reading).

I as well would like to thank you Mr. Barnes, as you can read we RX-8 owners care deeply about our car, the rotary engine and Mazda Corp. deeply.

Ive been extemely satisfied with my RX-8, University Mazda, and MNAO since my purchase and look forward to that continuing.

Now bring back the RX-7!!!! (or Mazdaspeed 8).

RedSheDevil

Any chance this isn't the real Jeremy Barnes responding?

saturn

We should get Jeremy Clarkson to post here too.

otherside

Im pretty sure its Ron Jeremy.

zoom44

no RSD its the real Jeremy Barnes. He contactd me shortly before he posted the response as i mantioned on the previous page. by real i mean the one that works for mazda and not some other random jeremy barnes

RedSheDevil

zoom-- you da man!

rotarygod

The way I interpreted the video was to basically address how each Mazda service center rating was figured out and not to imply that any service on the car itself would be neglected. In other words I thought it was a rating system that judged the service centers themselves. Think of Mazda corporate as the teachers and the service centers as the students who are getting the grades. It didn't seem to say to me that they were going to neglect owners at all.

My real concern though is why don't RX-8 owners opinions matter when it comes to what one of their service centers looks like? After all RX-8 owners are getting serviced and if they have complaints against their service center, MNAO needs to know about it. We here have been going to great lengths to make public all of the dealerships that we've had bad experiences with and all of them that have good ones. We even have a thread on the topic. I feel that MNAO should take a look at this thread and compare the bad dealerships/service centers on this forum with the ones that they have seen lower ratings for in their own system. I'll bet they see a correlation. At least this way, through reading the thread, they can learn why they received this.

I do applaud Jeremy for posting a response here. I know it is probably a hard time right now having to deal with the potential damage or loss of over 4000 cars as well as the death of a rescue person. I do ask though, please take a good look at why dealers receive bad ratings instead of what percentage of them come from any certain model of car's owners. We are all customers and we are all going to either have a good or a bad experience regardless of what car was serviced. We have just as much right to complain about bad service as any other car owner.

I understand that some people may just complain because they do not fully understand the rotary engine. That will happen. However please keep looking at this forum for explanations as to why there were issues. We all know quite a bit and I'll go so far as to say that there are not very many people total in all of Mazda's service bays that know even as much as most of us do here. That's why we complain about many things. It shouldn't be that way. This is because we are fanatics about 1 car and not just merely trained to work on cars in general. This is true with any car. They all have their loyal die hard followers who know everything about the car.

dupa12345

Let me translate this letter for everyone that thinks this situation has been rectified. I'll try to go paragraph by paragraph to make it easier.

Thank you for letting us control this situation here before it got too far and caused us too much trouble. After we trace all of the copies of the video and remove them from public view so as to not compromise our corporate image, I will write you this note to make you feel better.

As I understand you (though we still love you) illegally gained access to internal Mazda communication material in which we state clearly that as of July we will totally disown our flagship vehicle RX8 and leave its owners on ice when they try to service any possible issues with their cars. Though, to make you feel better, we assure you that this was not the only piece of communication surrounding the RX8, in fact, I dare to state that this other communication is completely contradictory to what is seen in the video and "customer satisfaction is our number one priority." (note - perhaps its all customers other than RX8 owners)

Because it is important for the RX8 owner community to realize that it is illegal to pouch in Mazda's internal matters that regard the RX8 owners, share and discuss such materials on owner forums, and spread them via public channels, I will write another long paragraph to repudiate the validity of the video so as not to scar the Mazda brand name. But as far as the nitty-gritty of owning the RX8, "we have not stopped surveying RX-8 owners," we have simply stopped collecting the low scores as if everything about the RX8 was great. Again, I will dare to say that "there will be no change in emphasis on the level of service customers receive at dealers or the frequency of CARE surveys sent out by Mazda" regardless of the fact that we may never see dissatisfied RX8 owners surveys and will not be able to influence the way our dealerships treat their customers.

We do hold our dealers accountable for situations that are within their control as long as we are aware of them. As such, Mazda’s goal is to ensure that dealers provide the highest level of service and customer satisfaction to owners of all vehicles other than the RX8, which has proven tough to support by the dealer community and thus was conveniently and effectively excluded from surveying by hiding all unsatisfactory responses.

To worry about future service rendered to RX8 owners after I confirmed that this is one of Mazda's interactive memo's to the dealer community is simply straight up your number one priority if you plan to still own this car. (note - I am pretty sure he just called us stupid in this paragraph)

Again, let me thank you for giving me this opportunity to try and control this situation early but most importantly for letting me have this highly paid position so I can write these bullshit letters to keep you happy while you are really getting screwed in the ***.

Seriously guys, good luck with those eights,

*** MOD EDIT: Lets not get personal here please***
My pretty title
Mazda not caring much about the RX8

ASH8

From another land....

I have not read ALL the 18 pages on this subject...
As an ex Mazda Manager, I agree with J Barnes, what is said between MNAO and their Dealers is not for general public/owner publication...whatever the discussions, for obvious reasons.

Yes, every Mazda Owner deserves satisfactory service for their pride and joy.
If you think MNAO don't care about RX-8 owners..then you are very misguided.

Yes, it is MNAO Operations responsibility to ensure that their dealers are properly trained, however as we know in the end the dealerships are privately owned.

It is also in the interest of the dealer to maintain their customers satisfaction, for repeat business..

In my time I have seen some shady and shabby deals done by some Mazda Dealers, but, overall in Australia they do a very good job.

On the flip side, I have seen a lot more Mazda Owners, who don't fairly treat their cars(abuse), or staff at dealers becoming very demanding, and downright unfair and rude.
On many occasion their expectations and lead times for repairs are unreasonable.

It would be VERY foolish of MNAO to ignore the owners of RX-8's, and I am sure that they will not do so.

r0tor

iTrader: (1)

-cough- ... i'll be car shopping in 12 months when my warranty runs out

therm8

^^^

That's pretty much how I read it Dupa.

The poor, gullible American consumer. That's us (well most of us). I have a copy though, so it's not gone forever.