Spin9k

How can anything you refer to be a confirmation of anything? MNAO rarely, if ever, admits to, says, or announces anything (other than new models) in the last 5.5 yrs I been following them. For them to do so on a few days notice (by us) would be astounding. I agree it's not PC in our minds after zoom wrote to them quite a while ago, but they may still have layers of signatures to get to send out any type of answer...

And how can they say something about changing what they agreed w/the dealer council until they have a chance to negotiate with them again? Things don't happen overnight. No defending anyone or anything going on, but lets be real ... take a deep breath .. give this issue a few weeks to work through the beaurocracy. Any beyond that, why would dealers change their repair quaility on one model that already is causing them difficulties... that would only make the issue more of a sore point. After all we know ....

to quote swoope... "have a cold " , be (at least a little) happy

rotary crazy

exactly

spork

Well, I'm either getting a BMW, Infiniti, or Acura. I'm almost positive I'll have better service w/ BMW or Infiniti than I did with Mazda and Acura would be hard pressed to match Mazda's crappy service (for me).

I know two people extremely **** about their cars. They take their cars in for EVERYTHING. A little squeak? The car's at the dealer. Something sounds strange? The cars at the dealer. One of them was a male friend of mine with a G35C. He was treated well until I think he took his car in for like the 5th time (with a minor rattle or squeak) or something. Haha, I think at that point the dealer was sick of him, but they still gave him all the perks. (Apparently they were just short with him).

The other person I know is this girl with a Honda Accord Coupe. Anything that sounds out of the ordinary, she'll take her car in and demand them to fix it. But she's attractive and always gets good service (she brings the service team donuts too, cuz she knows she bugs them more than she should).

I took my car for squeaky brakes. I brought the frickin' TSB FOR THE DAMN PROBLEM IN and they didn't do it. They tried to blame the brake squeal on me and my failure to take my brakes in for cleaning every 10,000 miles "like you're supposed to", even though there was a TSB for it. I had never brought my car there before so they can't claim they were sick of me complaining.

Honestly though this car really doesn't take that much special care. I learned it pretty quickly. Just make sure you rev up the engine if you're shutting the engine down cold (which doesn't happen all that often anyways) and for me (if you drive your car very hard, probably more often than this), half way between oil changes, add a quart of oil (it's cheap anyways).

And the thing is I wouldn't complain about the service if the service was good but the car was bad. I mean if my car had major issues every month but the service people were always good, then I would've rated the car poorly, the service well.

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

Not only do they have to work with the Dealers Council, but they probably have to run it past the lawyers before any answer comes out.
Something is different now than in the past. With the internet and this website, we as owners have become semi organized. We now can exert some sort of pressure on someone at Mazda to give some sort of response to a perceived problem. This is something new to the business world.

dmp

Ya know - If I had two fantasies, the 1st would involve a 30-day-long 'ohface' brought on by Elizabeth Hurley, Beyonce, Jessica Alba, and a buffalo...real OR stuffed...stuffed for safety's sake.

the 2nd would be this:
Mazda creates ANOTHER buy-back program, while admitting the car does indeed fall short of the revamped 238hp figure (based on when I bought the car) OR Offers free ECU tuning from Racing Beat AND extended the powertrain warranty to 100k miles.

(sigh).

EyeBall Fixer...(o)(x)

"Well Mulligan-Man, which curtain would you like?"
"Bob, I'll take curtain #1..."
"Curtain #1 has a higher likelihood of being a reality..."

BunnyGirl

And what would be the point of this?

Oranje

In the happens all the time department -- Just recently, I worked for a large corporation in global sales and operations planning. Part of my teams responsibilties included the weekly and monthly corporate scorecard. When we tweaked SAP and obtained a much truer picture of our key account delivery metrics, the global logistics Veeps, (the folks who ran the distribution networks around the globe, whose bonuses were metric dependant) complained that the new measure was far too stringent. Rather than root causing and increasing the performance, it was easier to lobby the COO to dumb down the measure.

I can only imagine how those key accounts (ie Walmart, Target, K-Mart, etc) would have reacted had we produced a video annoucing our new and improved metrics.

I sincerely hope that someone at MNAO/Mazda quickly realizes how and why REAL customer satisfaction is measured ... and right soon.

Cheers,
Oranje

dmp

The point would be mazda 'doing the right thing' by it's customers.

saturn

Why didn't you just synergize your cross-development architecture into a integrated market model? I mean, come on...

zoom44

i did that twice yesterday

rodrigo67

Spin I know you love your car, but sometimes love isn't always enough. I know things take time and I know companies have to run things by lawyers and make sure all dots are crossed (you know what I mean), but a company knowingly making no attempt to correct something they know is damaging to thier image as soon as possible in todays world is not very promising. A little email back to anyone who wrote in with a blurb to the effect "don;t worry, we are working on it" or "This is just a misunderstanding and more details will come out later" (both of which are not obligating Mazda to anything but could be a calming jester), but to get nothing seems to lend credence to at least some of our negative thoughts.

When someone found a finger in wendy's chili, they came with something right away. It is the perceprtion that needs to be address because if nothing is said, that too is a perception...

I'm not expecting anything official, but if MNAO really want to get something to RX8 owners to let us know they are in the process of something, they could, it doesn't have to be official. 10 days in todays world of internet is a very long time...

Or you could just look at it this way....Mazda's new ignore the RX8 owners plan is in effect...

BunnyGirl

I think you are by far overreaching there. Do you hate your car or something? Is it a broke down piece of crap that never runs? Why should they do a buy-back a second time? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I think the "buy-back" was a too little much the first time, although the free service/maintenance work was a nice gesture and a little more appropriate to the situation.

I don't understand how saying their car has no power (which seems to basically be what you want them to say or you won't be satisfied) and then start passing out all kinds of performance freebies is doing right by their customer in any way.

I can't see what this would have to do with them evaluationg RX-8 surveys separately, either.

BunnyGirl

When I called the number I got a totally generic response (after numerous attempts) something along the lines of "Thank you for your concerns, blah, blah, blah, looking into it, blah, blah, blah." Something pretty close to that. Does that count as a response for anyone, since someone said even a "no comment" would suffice? Their attempt at appeasement.

Basically, they said they have received a lot of questions and complaints about this and they are looking into a way to address it, I guess. Gotta love cryptic corporate talk!

No real explanations about that this means, no real chance to ask questions, no committment to changing anything.

I haven't received any response to the emails I have sent. I also wrote and snail-mailed them a letter, so I doubt it made it there yet.

therm8

I don't think Mazda will be getting anymore business from me. In fact, anyone I know who's thinking about getting a Mazda will be dissuaded by me at every oppurtunity.

So basically, those of us with crappy service departments have no recourse whatsoever for unsatisfactory service. I'm very happy this was leaked (though I bet MNAO isn't), and it should be spread throughout the automotive forums web-wide. Mud in the eye is a great way to fix things.

I think I'll email it to the local news programs, newspapers, etc. Do the big boys back in Japan know yet, I wonder?

otherside

A quick update. I have yet to hear from the Mazda CARE team in response to my e-mail. I talked to my DCSM (district manager) today and she knew nothing about the leaked dealer council meeting. I told her all about it and the comments from the forum. She will tell someone about this, she gets right on these things so we will see.

My take on this is that dealers in the hot weather climates were getting slammed by customers because of the many quality issues. The dealer council decided to come up with the plan of eliminating the RX8 "scores" from the survey responses in hopes of proctecting the dealers from bad surveys due to quality issues. The surveys are extremely important to the dealers. They are Mazdas dangling carrot. Thats why it makes no sense for a dealer service department not to care. If surveys are bad, they are pissing dealer money away. If I caused such an issue at my dealer, I would be fired. In my opinion, everyone needs to relax. Dont get rid of your RX8, still consider buying that other Mazda product for a family member re: CX7, Mazda 6 etc...Dont feel like the red headed stepchild. The dealer council video was a knee jerk reaction and void of complete information or explanation. Believe me, Iwill be all over this until a statement from Mazda of some kind is done. I've been known to stir the sh-t.

So, until then, keep loving your car. This is just another unique situation for a unique car.

therm8

Keep at it. I do love my car. I have had zero problems with it. I have had issues with my current dealerships, and now they can be perfectly justified in screwing up my parts/service because they won't get slammed on a survey.

My issue is with Mazda fudging the numbers. Instead of addressing the root cause they disregard it. So until my survey counts again, I am Mr. Anti-Mazda Propoganda Guy.

brothervoodoo

http://home.comcast.net/~store0001/comedy/target13.html

BunnyGirl

Yay! A sane voice! I am agreeing fully with you. What I am wondering is, did anyone actually pay attention to what they said in the video or bother to think about anything other than getting pissed off? They are still sending the surveys out. Obviously they count for something or they wouldn't bother. Why waste a big chunk of money on them for no reason? That would make no sense whatsoever. I would buy other Mazdas in the future, so would my mom and other family members. They have always been great vehicles and great service, and the quality (in our experience) has always been great. I highly doubt the dealerships are going to start passing out crappy service and not fixing problems or anything else just because an RX-8 isn't going into their total satisfaction score. What would be the point? They'd lose customers, which means they would lose money.

I think most of you are getting far too uptight and bent out of shape over something that doesn't not seem to be a huge deal, although somewhat perplexing as it has not been fully explained yet.

dmc27

Thanks for the info Otherside.

rotary crazy

its not right to make a desicion having incomplete info, lets wait and be patient

therm8

That's the wrong side of the window. Many dealers already pass out crappy service, or borderline crappy service. Now a portion of their surveys don't matter to them anymore, so they don't even have to try for that portion. This isn't about Mazda vehicles in my way of looking at it, it's about Mazda the corporation and Mazda's dealer network. A good service department won't be affected by bad Rx-8 surveys. They already provide quality customer service. This is rewarding mediocrity.

Now, it's quite possible that this appears much worse than it is, but I feel like being reactionary. So until I know different, I'm marching to the castle, torch in hand.

BunnyGirl

I guess it's a moot point with me since I get GREAT service at mine. When I was there getting my oil changed four other RX-8s were there, two already there and two came while I was there. They were all getting routine stuff done. One of the guys said this was the only dealer he would trust his car with. Another said he switched because the one he had gotten his car at were so terrible and they kept messing up the paperwork and not doing everything he asked for that he would never go back there so he switched and has been going back to mine ever since.

I know about five years back a Mazda dealer near me was messing up servicing and warranty work so Mazda revoked their certification to perform work on Mazda vehicles. The auto group stopped selling Mazdas because they could no longer service them.

EyeBall Fixer...(o)(x)

I took my 8 in today for it's first oil change. While I was there I ran into my salesman. I mentioned
"Mulligan" to him just to see his reaction... His reply was " I see someone has been
on the internet..."
He's a low-key type of person who went on to tell me not to worry about "the video" too
much.
He said he (and the dealership) realizes that there are many places that want my business.
They'll do all they can to keep me as a customer in the future. He also said that I bought my 8
from him not MNAO. A personal touch...

I realize that not all dealerships / salespersons don't have this philosophy. I think all it really
comes down to is a bit of mutual respect... Am I concerned? Yes.
MNAO in my opinion has problems and if they keep their current attitude it will only drive
customers away.

Nemesis8

iTrader: (3)

My service department at least has a known rotary mechanic from the old days, so they are great to me. But the salesman lost my pre-order car back in Sept of '03. Had to select one off the truck out back

otherside is right, just sit tight until there is an explanation for us. Knowing this will not make me buy a frickin Honda. LOL