Cup holder
 

Ok, does anyone have any recomendations on a good after market cup holder?

I'm sick of hitting my elbow on my water bottle. (I normally keep it in the passenger seat but when my wife is in the car with me, I really have no comfortable place to put it.

My arms are not long enough to comfortably/safely reach the back cup holders.

Any ideas?

(yes I already did a forum search)

Yeah this is one of the few minor annoyances I have with the car, the cupholders are good for size, but badly placed since you hit whatever's in them whenever you shift.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I need some place that I can safely reach for frequently, I'll give that thigh seatbelt one a try.

can anyone else recomend any after market mods?

Put your water in a flask and put it in the door compartment.

Use the rear cupholders. Unless you have alligator arms, they work great.

Wear one of those helmets that hold the 12 oz cans and use a straw.

Here I was thinking that taking a pull from a flask would get unwanted attention at stoplights, but the drinking helmet... now that's inspired.

Personally, I put water bottles in the mesh behind the passenger seat, where the airsickness bag and in-flight magazines would normally go. Marginally less awkward to reach than the rear cupholders.

I don't drink anything in the car on short or day-to-day trips - plenty of time to drink before or after. For that reason I use the centre cupholders to stash other gear.

On long driving trips, I find the easiest thing is to hang a Camelback behind my seat and rest the tube on my shoulder. You only have to take one hand off the wheel for a second to place the tube in your mouth and there's no fumbling about with bottles, caps, etc - simple.

i've noticed that those cup holders get pretty warm.

But at this point due to the excessively easy way to consume liquids comes the next travesty-where to recycle said fluid. At this point, one needs my new invention called the "bladder buddy". Stay tuned for further announcements...

my car didn't come with cupholders....it did however come with a cupholder shaped oven.

There are after market cup holders that can be attached to the vent. I used to have one but it's not tall enough to hold a full water bottle securely.

I think the cup holders in the 8 are really useless. They interfere with shifting and are too warm for everything else. Last time, I thought my cell phone was fried.

I think the cup holders in the 8 are really useless. They interfere with shifting and are too warm for everything else. Last time, I thought my cell phone was fried.[/QUOTE]

Are you running the Mazda factory tranny oil? You might want to try Red Line tranny oil. I swear that the cupholder and tranny tunnel on my 8 run cooler since changing to Red Line.

Cheers!

Bob

Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try.

I used to have the same problem. I like to rest my arm on the arm rest so I never put my bottle there. I wedge it in between the center console (arm rest unit / gear box) and the passenger seat. A normal size water bottle fits perfect there. Don't force it because it's not meant to be there. But there's a little slot, almost near the left rail that the seat sits on that the bottle can fit in (on its side of course). Just make sure that the bottle is tightly closed so the water doesn't leak. Give it a try and let me know what you think. If my description is horrible, let me know and I will take a picture of were I am talking about tomorrow.

I agree that it is not the best place for a bottle.

My problem with the cupholders is that they don't hold with any tension. If I put a Venti Starbucks coffee there, it will rock back and forth and spill. I use a plastic card jammed in the cup holder with the cup to hold it firmly. That works except that I can't take a sip of coffee and then put it back while driving.

Many cards have part of the holder which is spring loaded or flexible rubber to prevent this problem. Has anyone seen an aftermarket RX-8 accessory which would fit into the stock cup holder?

I use the rear cupholders. heh, I have aligator arms;)
since the front ones are useless has anyone replaced the plastic to make that compartment bigger?

Thread revival! Has anyone found an alternative option for the cup holders? Basically I want it to look like it came from the factory. Is there something that you have made or bought which has retractable clips, so any size drink will fit? Any ideas would be appreciated.

has anyone tried to put some insulation between the cup holder and trans.
underneath console

thatz why you put your cups or bottle in the back cup holders!
:)

here is an rx8 DIY link hope it helps.......
http://69.108.208.137/ryang/modify/modify.html

Here is my DIY and it is really cheap and easy to do. All I used was double sided tape the rubber kind and some extra garage door foam, which I cut into 3 pieces.
Here are some pics: