My yellow does the same thing. I've got 3 good scratches already... the paint is paper thin.. actually thinnner. One of the scuffs on the bottom of the front ait damn on mine was a soda can i know I hit I saw it. it peeled the paint away. IMHO the pint on the front nose is way too thin and not bonded well at all to the plastic. same with the *** of the car. it's too thin and it doesn't stick well. anythihng stiff touching it will make it pop right off. What's worse is that they used a black nose/*** so it shows right through.

 

here's some of my damage

please don;t hate me I haven't washed her in 2 days. Driving 200 miles a day and she gets trashed. Florida sucks.

 

yea the paint sucks...I've had my nordic green for a few weeks only and I can see chips in the front already. I've had a 3 series bmw for 3 years and I didn't even have a single chip in the front and no scratches at all(except this one spot where some guy hit me while I was parked!). With this car I feel like I'm driving around in an egg shell....

 

I second the advice about staying back from traffic. If you try and follow the 4-second rule you will not only be safer but will encounter a lot less debris kicked up by the wheels of the car in front. Most of the nicks and chips are just from tiny pebbles kicked up by car tires. Give 'em a chance to settle so they don't hit your bumper. Some are inevitable but you can avoid a lot.

 

my RX-7 is pretty bad, and its only got 50k on it... i hope my 8 holds up better

 

I use the Mazda black snap-on bra and rather like its appearance on my TiG. My high-speed mileage is on the weekends (900 miles on I-10), so I try to wash the car and remove the bra afterwards. Yeah, stuff does collect under it, and you need to remove it to dry thoroughly after a wash or a rain. But the net result is positive, and it's worth the hassle.

Driving 120-ish within the first couple weeks? You're pretty gutsy. I trust that you already had a 1000 or so on the clock before winding her out.

 

If your FD is a '93 RX-7, the paint was true issue on the first model year cars. Mazda had just switched to a new paint process for the RX-7, but there was a flaw in the paint process that caused the paint not to bond properly. I remember it well, I had bought my car new and the RX-7 mailing list (pre-internet website days) had owners complaining left and right. Some of them had their cars 100% totally repainted at Mazda's cost.

Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, don't worry the so called weak paint on the RX-8 is nothing like the paint flaw with the old RX-7. The '93 RX-7s had a real actual defect in the paint.

 

Watch out for those SUV's

Those trucks are pretty large now too.

there should be a law for mud flaps.