Greetings all. Thought I come over here since I am now the owner of a 2004 '8 with the Touring pkg.

I've been a regular over at VWvortex for about five years (and two VWs and one Audi). Today, however, I bought my first Japanese car. It's funny, I wasn't really thinking about an '8 until I stopped in to my dealer on a whim and drove one. It just fit. It felt like MY car right away.

I'm looking forward to a long and great relationship.





Don't worry, the front plate is already gone. I'll order some clear corner lights on monday and start doing some research on the little things that those in the know, know.

Right, just wanted to introduce myself. Now, I've got about 500 threads to read on this board...

 

Welcome aboard!

 

Hey...welcome to the cult!!! After the clear corners.....tint that baby!!! :D Congrats. You will love the 8. I have had mine since Feb of this year and everyday it puts a huge smile on my face. :D

- Irish

 

What's with this start-up and shut-down proceedure I'm hearing about? I'm supposed to let it warm up before I move it and rev it right before I shut it down? Um. Ok.

 

Per the manual, no need to warm up. Just go once the idle settles (about 10 seconds). Just keep the revs low unil you reach normal temps. When shutting down I let it idle for about 10 seconds also. The "M" flash is supposed to fix the flooding issue so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

Force of habit for me....I always let the car run for approx 5 minutes first thing daily before I drive. Then at shut down I let her idle for approx 5-10 seconds. The M-flash should be the solution to flooding, however, some threads contradict this. I would always urge letting the car reach optimum temperature before a quick start/shut down.

Dive into this website....I did, thought me so much. There are truly some amazing people in this club. Thanks to all of them reading.....

- Irish

 

Congrats! Welcome!

 

Congratulations on your choice and welcome. Be careful; This forum is very addictive!
I've never found the necessity to let the car warm up before driving off or idle before shutting down. As a precaution, I rev it for a few seconds before shutting down if the engine is not totally warmed up. No problem so far after one year's ownership.

 

Nice! I think the 8 looks better without the appearance/rotary accent package but thats just me

 

Thanks for the welcome all. I'm glad to have found a community - I can't tell you how much I relied on the folks from the Vortex.

What is up with the shifter floating around over bumps as if the whoe transmission is rubber mounted (on really soft rubber). It that it? If so, does Mazdaspeed make tranny mounts to firm that up?

 

Another VWVortex convert, cool! I came to the darkside about a month ago and couldn't be happier! Welcome...

 

Aye, welcome to the group.
I'm thinking a 'new to the group' subforum is sounding good about now- we're starting to get flooded with these sort of posts(NOT A BAD THING!) :D

 

Sick color, baby! Silver all the way!

 

Silver is gorgeous. CONGRATS !

I'd be afraid to park at your place....

 

So have I. Didn't you have the silver, lowered, debaged Passat wagon? I remember you from years ago when I first got my <spit>GTI</spit>.

It kills me when I read people reading here about how Mazda has "really bad" or "the worst" dealer service... have all you people driven nothing but Mercedes your whole lives, or what? Maybe a fellow dub driver/vortexer can bring some perspective and compare experiences of Mazda & VW quality/service.

 

Yes, very nice color!
Greeting and Salivations!! :D

 

Nice and congrats as well. I also opted for silver and have been happy as hell since bringing my baby home just last month. It is a beatiful car and especially in this color IMO although I prefer the appearance package vs. not. As much as I loved my 300zx tt prior to this, I never took so many look backs while walking away from it as I do my 8.

 

That's a pretty car - the stealthmobile ... love that silver. Did you get the red leather?

I opted for the "Look at me!" package - Lightning Yellow with the appearance and rotary accent stuff ... ah well, what the hell. Only live once.

Regarding "follow the bouncing shifter": If you've never had a front-engine rear-drive car before, where the shifter sticks straight out of the gearbox, then you're right that will seem strange. I too was a Vee-Dub to rotary convert, although way back in 1985 when I went from a Scirocco to an RX-7. If you're used to transverse mounted, front drive cars, with cable or rod-actuated shifters then you know that your shifter is remote mounted away from the transmission, and normal driveline movement is isolated from the shifter. Therefore no shifter bounce.

With this driveline, this is normal. By the way - WAY less shifter movement than some car's I've seen/driven - if you've ever driven a Mustang GT, you'll know what I mean by this - those shifters move INCHES with driveline bounce - either rear suspension deflection or engine "torque twist" and all things in between.

Stew