2004 Mazda RX8 rotary from North America

Summary:

The RX8 offers real sports car performance, beautiful design inside and out, truly a great value

Faults:

Check engine light came on the first week. Issue was promptly corrected by the dealer with "flash" firmware update.

General Comments:

Handles like a dream, stops on a dime, and begs to go faster!!

I usually give in…

This car turns heads everywhere I go. The oil consumption is by design and to be expected. The fuel consumption is higher than expected, but I don’t mind because I love the car so much. I would buy it over in a second, it handles better that anything I’ve ever driven.

When I go on vacation… I miss my car!

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? Yes

Review Date: 29th June, 2005

29th Jan 2006, 13:18

I could not agree with you more. I am in love with this car!

7th Aug 2006, 18:13

I purchased my 6-speed '05 '8 in March and absolutely love it. It's a blast to drive alone,...but I love the looks it gets when I pull up, let my wife out, and my two boys bounce out of the back - ha ha - priceless. Push the tach past 4500 and it has more than enough acceleration, superbly precise steering, and excellent road hugging performance thanks to the front & rear wish-bones. Had I wanted more power, but less performance I'd have purchased a Mustang or GTO. The mpg (19-23) and oil consumption are "acceptable" trade-offs given the expected longevity of the Renesis rotary engine. The RX8 is a wonderful vehicle for a person desiring sports performance with capacity to seat four.

2004 Mazda RX8 1.3 Rotary from UK and Ireland

Summary:

Total Rubbish, What a waste of Money!

Faults:

The ABS was not working the day I picked my car up.

Then 2 days later the electric seats stopped working.

Then a week after that the radio started smoking then blew itself up.

After only 800 miles the ABS stopped working for the second time.

At 1350 miles the Air-con Stopped working.

General Comments:

This car was the biggest heap of rubbish that I have ever owned.

That is why I bought the car for over £20,000 and sold it to some boy racer for almost half that. Hope that he Kills it quickly.

The car looked great from the outside. It was a real head turner. But I didn't, but it just for people to look at it I wanted to be able to enjoy driving it too.

To top all of this off when I got to know my local dealer in Surrey, (As you do when your car spends so much time there) he tried to make out that it was the way that I was driving my car that was causing it to go wrong.

When I asked the guy if he was joking he said no because he had never known a RX8 to go wrong before.

(What fantastic customer service)

I Wished that I had never laid eyes on the car and had kept my 2002 Honda S2000, That car had done almost 90,000 miles and had owned it from new and it never once let me down.

Would you buy another car from this manufacturer? No

Review Date: 21st May, 2005

10th Dec 2005, 05:49

Your Honda S200 (presumably a mispelled S2000) did 90k in 2 years. That's 125 miles a day, 7 days a week. Ever thought moving house might be cheaper than all this commuting?

15th Jan 2006, 05:35

Hi, I work for a Mazda dealership in Surrey, This review just does not add up!

If you had all of these problems with one of our cars it would have been repaired under warranty. All our cars come with a 5 year guarantee. If you the customer are still unhappy as a last resort we would even change their car for them.

As for the dealer telling you that It is your fault the car had gone wrong, I can't speak for the other Mazda dealership that I know of in Surrey of which there are 2 that I know of, I would question weather this statement is correct as all Mazda Sales executives have the same training at the same place, There is a way of talking to and dealing with our customers and we just would not say that.

Just thought that I would point out that I find this review a little hard to believe.

In my opinion this review is false and has been written by someone who either has a grudge against Mazda or someone with too much time on their hands.

22nd Jun 2006, 17:34

Amen!!!

15th Mar 2007, 09:34

You shouldn't have got rid of the S2K it's a much better car, better build quality, more reliable, faster, etc.

17th Mar 2007, 23:05

While I can't verify that this review is genuine, I can verify from my own experiences that the RX-8 is unreliable, and poorly constructed. Further, when I brought my RX-8 to my dealer to remidy a problem with the seat cover wearing prematurely, I was told by the Mazda representative that it was my fault. BTW: a single leather seat cover (lower portion only) costs nearly $1000.

3rd Aug 2007, 12:10

I have had problems with the ABS on my RX8 too. Also the power steering has failed 5 times in 3 years.

That's not Good for a car with only 30K on the clock.