The Mazda RX-8 Is a Fun Car You Probably Shouldn't Buy
video description
Date: 2020-05-26
Related videos
Comments and reviews: 10
Xmvw2X
You can turn the beeping off in the HU menu. I personally keep it on, but that's just me. You're normally not interacting with the controls enough to care. The coolant sensor is just a bad design. The plastic construction wears out, and it's not a cheap fix. You normally just unplug it, and the light turns off. You won't know when your reservoir is low, but this is no different from any other car on the road where there is no low sensor. These cars don't have coolant problems, so it's not even an issue. Oil consumption is kind of misleading. It squirts oil in for lubrication, and it will squirt in about 1 quart total every 1000 miles. The dash has an oil light that comes on when you're 1 quart low (comes on right when you're at the low mark on the dipstick. Unlike most cars, the oil light isn't low pressure. It's low level and simply tells you to refill, so you don't actually have to keep an eye on it or carry around a quart of oil everywhere. The engine holds 7 quarts. 1 quart down is no big deal, and you're never in any hurry to run the engine dry. There's actually an oil pressure dial gauge instead for showing actual oil pressure. This really isn't much of an issue for general use, about 1 quart of oil every 4 gas fill-ups. The engine isn't a problem for power. You need to compare it to similar sports cars like the FT-86 or S2000. The Renesis engine is just as powerful as the very loved S2000 engine. It revs smoother and has less inertia than the S2000 engine, even feels more premium and has better low and midrange grunt than the S2000 engine (AP1. The FT-86 is a weaker engine in direct comparison. For sport use, all these cars are very on par with each other, doing each back to back in autocross for example which I've done. These cars are far closer in performance than you might think. What's unique with the RX8 is it's a soooooft setup in comparison, more specifically a GT car. It's quieter, softer riding, and just a better cruiser. Pair this with packaging that actually allows 4 real adults to fit, having both leg and head room which is pretty rare, and it is a rather good GT car. This is it's greatest asset as a sports car. It's a car you drive daily in pretty good comfort. But it's also a really good sports car. It's a very good balance of the two. In hard driving, the soft setup makes for a lot of body roll. But, the damping is excellent, well controlled and behaved. The chassis moves fluidly and predictably. The balance is excellent, and the driving, especially on the earlier years that still had the hydraulic steering, is very tactile. The only real issue I have with the way the car is set up is that the 9000+ rpm engine is paired to a transmission with rather tall gearing that feels like it's designed for an engine that only revs to 6500 rpm. You can go 65mph in 2nd gear, and for a low torque and high revving engine, that's kind of counter intuitive. They did change the final drive slightly in newer years to help, and there's aftermarket final gears that go a wee bit further. However, it really wasn't until the ND Miata that Mazda really made a gearbox with short, close ratios that would actually be more ideally suited for the high rpm Renesis engine. I just don't know if a ND transmission would drop into a RX8 chassis, but oh. this would so transform this car. I do think the RX8 would be significantly more fun and feel quite a bit faster if paired with as aggressively low geared, close ratio transmission as the ND Miata, and having driven the ND Miata, it feels pretty darn good in the the ND. I really do think the tall gearing hindered the sportiness of the RX8 overall, enough so that it feels slow despite being deceptively quick. The car is faster than most V6 equipped cars and trucks I've owned, but it always feels very slow driving climbing up those tall gears. It really isn't until I get back into another car and think, why is this accelerating so slow? that I realize how quick the RX8 actually is. It's deceptive in the way that all tall geared vehicles are. A Viper feels slow stuck behind gearing that will do 65 mph in 1st, even though it isn't actually slow at all. Tall gearing has a way of making a quick car feel very underwhelming. Plus in a sports car, the one thing you kind of want is the activity, the fanfare of rowing gears. You really need a low geared, close ratio gearbox for this. The ND Miata is good in this way. The FT-86 is decent in this way. The STI 6-speed is a ton of fun specifically for this. These low geared, close ratio transmissions also make the vehicle feel a bit more like a brute of a car. The FT-86 will happily spin 1st gear, just as easily as a Mustang 5. 0 will spin its 1st gear. The Mustang will be a good bit faster by the time it gets to the top of 1st, but both feel equivalently sporty. Gearing plays a big role in feel, and that's one thing that could have created advantage for the RX8. As-is, the gear box just feels out of place. You can get to highway speed in 2nd, and you can cruise the highway fine in 4th through 6th with little discernible difference since the engine revs so smooth. You can be in one of 3 or 4 different gears at any point, and that makes the gearing not feel purposeful and of value. It's just a car with tall gears and 3 overdrives.
reply
You can turn the beeping off in the HU menu. I personally keep it on, but that's just me. You're normally not interacting with the controls enough to care. The coolant sensor is just a bad design. The plastic construction wears out, and it's not a cheap fix. You normally just unplug it, and the light turns off. You won't know when your reservoir is low, but this is no different from any other car on the road where there is no low sensor. These cars don't have coolant problems, so it's not even an issue. Oil consumption is kind of misleading. It squirts oil in for lubrication, and it will squirt in about 1 quart total every 1000 miles. The dash has an oil light that comes on when you're 1 quart low (comes on right when you're at the low mark on the dipstick. Unlike most cars, the oil light isn't low pressure. It's low level and simply tells you to refill, so you don't actually have to keep an eye on it or carry around a quart of oil everywhere. The engine holds 7 quarts. 1 quart down is no big deal, and you're never in any hurry to run the engine dry. There's actually an oil pressure dial gauge instead for showing actual oil pressure. This really isn't much of an issue for general use, about 1 quart of oil every 4 gas fill-ups. The engine isn't a problem for power. You need to compare it to similar sports cars like the FT-86 or S2000. The Renesis engine is just as powerful as the very loved S2000 engine. It revs smoother and has less inertia than the S2000 engine, even feels more premium and has better low and midrange grunt than the S2000 engine (AP1. The FT-86 is a weaker engine in direct comparison. For sport use, all these cars are very on par with each other, doing each back to back in autocross for example which I've done. These cars are far closer in performance than you might think. What's unique with the RX8 is it's a soooooft setup in comparison, more specifically a GT car. It's quieter, softer riding, and just a better cruiser. Pair this with packaging that actually allows 4 real adults to fit, having both leg and head room which is pretty rare, and it is a rather good GT car. This is it's greatest asset as a sports car. It's a car you drive daily in pretty good comfort. But it's also a really good sports car. It's a very good balance of the two. In hard driving, the soft setup makes for a lot of body roll. But, the damping is excellent, well controlled and behaved. The chassis moves fluidly and predictably. The balance is excellent, and the driving, especially on the earlier years that still had the hydraulic steering, is very tactile. The only real issue I have with the way the car is set up is that the 9000+ rpm engine is paired to a transmission with rather tall gearing that feels like it's designed for an engine that only revs to 6500 rpm. You can go 65mph in 2nd gear, and for a low torque and high revving engine, that's kind of counter intuitive. They did change the final drive slightly in newer years to help, and there's aftermarket final gears that go a wee bit further. However, it really wasn't until the ND Miata that Mazda really made a gearbox with short, close ratios that would actually be more ideally suited for the high rpm Renesis engine. I just don't know if a ND transmission would drop into a RX8 chassis, but oh. this would so transform this car. I do think the RX8 would be significantly more fun and feel quite a bit faster if paired with as aggressively low geared, close ratio transmission as the ND Miata, and having driven the ND Miata, it feels pretty darn good in the the ND. I really do think the tall gearing hindered the sportiness of the RX8 overall, enough so that it feels slow despite being deceptively quick. The car is faster than most V6 equipped cars and trucks I've owned, but it always feels very slow driving climbing up those tall gears. It really isn't until I get back into another car and think, why is this accelerating so slow? that I realize how quick the RX8 actually is. It's deceptive in the way that all tall geared vehicles are. A Viper feels slow stuck behind gearing that will do 65 mph in 1st, even though it isn't actually slow at all. Tall gearing has a way of making a quick car feel very underwhelming. Plus in a sports car, the one thing you kind of want is the activity, the fanfare of rowing gears. You really need a low geared, close ratio gearbox for this. The ND Miata is good in this way. The FT-86 is decent in this way. The STI 6-speed is a ton of fun specifically for this. These low geared, close ratio transmissions also make the vehicle feel a bit more like a brute of a car. The FT-86 will happily spin 1st gear, just as easily as a Mustang 5. 0 will spin its 1st gear. The Mustang will be a good bit faster by the time it gets to the top of 1st, but both feel equivalently sporty. Gearing plays a big role in feel, and that's one thing that could have created advantage for the RX8. As-is, the gear box just feels out of place. You can get to highway speed in 2nd, and you can cruise the highway fine in 4th through 6th with little discernible difference since the engine revs so smooth. You can be in one of 3 or 4 different gears at any point, and that makes the gearing not feel purposeful and of value. It's just a car with tall gears and 3 overdrives.
reply
Mark
1) Sunvisors really is there to block the glare. The reason why manufacturers put sunvisors that block the sun is cost. It's cheaper to make one whole slab of plastic than put holes in it when technically speaking, the one with holes are better since it blocks the glare, but still let's you have a little more view of the road. 2) It's a cup holder. I don't think the designers were thinking about a liter of hydroflask when they design those cupholders. And either way, anywhere you put that liter of hydroflask, it'll fall and hinder your driving. Unless you place it in your doors. 3) Dunno about long wheelbase, but generally speaking, RWD cars tend to look to have longer wheelbase. Short wheelbase RWD will be so twitchy it'll become undriveable. 4) The huge wheel well upfront is a quirk. The whole car is about balance and to achieve better balance, it has to have lower center of gravity. Low slung front section will amplify the look of the front wheels more. 5) I would've notice also that there's no B pillar so it would have to have some sort of strengthening in the chassis. Would've researched about it. 6) Rotary engines in general should be reliable. Apex seals break down mostly due to poor maintenance. Rotary engines are maintained differently, and if you maintain it like a normal piston engines, it'll surely be unreliable. A rotary engine won 24hrs of LeMans. Would've also discussed it a bit. 7) I'm shocked how dirty that car is. For an RX8 person, damn that's dirty. If you can't even keep your car clean, I wonder how that car is maintained at all. This is the kind of review you get from a person who makes money out of cars but doesn't really have the passion for cars. IDC about his opinion on the looks, to each his own. But man, trying to be funny and trying to be informative has a fine line to get right.
reply
1) Sunvisors really is there to block the glare. The reason why manufacturers put sunvisors that block the sun is cost. It's cheaper to make one whole slab of plastic than put holes in it when technically speaking, the one with holes are better since it blocks the glare, but still let's you have a little more view of the road. 2) It's a cup holder. I don't think the designers were thinking about a liter of hydroflask when they design those cupholders. And either way, anywhere you put that liter of hydroflask, it'll fall and hinder your driving. Unless you place it in your doors. 3) Dunno about long wheelbase, but generally speaking, RWD cars tend to look to have longer wheelbase. Short wheelbase RWD will be so twitchy it'll become undriveable. 4) The huge wheel well upfront is a quirk. The whole car is about balance and to achieve better balance, it has to have lower center of gravity. Low slung front section will amplify the look of the front wheels more. 5) I would've notice also that there's no B pillar so it would have to have some sort of strengthening in the chassis. Would've researched about it. 6) Rotary engines in general should be reliable. Apex seals break down mostly due to poor maintenance. Rotary engines are maintained differently, and if you maintain it like a normal piston engines, it'll surely be unreliable. A rotary engine won 24hrs of LeMans. Would've also discussed it a bit. 7) I'm shocked how dirty that car is. For an RX8 person, damn that's dirty. If you can't even keep your car clean, I wonder how that car is maintained at all. This is the kind of review you get from a person who makes money out of cars but doesn't really have the passion for cars. IDC about his opinion on the looks, to each his own. But man, trying to be funny and trying to be informative has a fine line to get right.
reply
Bon
Never buy this car! Bought 2004 when it was new, it was a headache to deal with. 1. Smells bad when warming up. 2. My rear tires would not last more than 10, 000 miles. (never did burn out or anything and had it properly aligned) 3. No mechanic knows how to work on this car engine. Your gonna spend a lot of money out of warranty and is gonna be hard to find a mechanic 4. Really bad gas mileage. I had to fill up twice driving from Los Angeles to Vegas. Oh and it only takes premium gas 5. My Left Side driver speaker had loose wire connection. 6. Engine needs oil top off every 1, 000 miles 7. Engine flooding OVerall, this is the worst car I have ever owned. It's slow and it burns too much gas, and as a new car, it had more problem then my 1st car which was a used Honda Civic that had over 100, 000 miles. No wonder they cost so cheap now.
reply
Never buy this car! Bought 2004 when it was new, it was a headache to deal with. 1. Smells bad when warming up. 2. My rear tires would not last more than 10, 000 miles. (never did burn out or anything and had it properly aligned) 3. No mechanic knows how to work on this car engine. Your gonna spend a lot of money out of warranty and is gonna be hard to find a mechanic 4. Really bad gas mileage. I had to fill up twice driving from Los Angeles to Vegas. Oh and it only takes premium gas 5. My Left Side driver speaker had loose wire connection. 6. Engine needs oil top off every 1, 000 miles 7. Engine flooding OVerall, this is the worst car I have ever owned. It's slow and it burns too much gas, and as a new car, it had more problem then my 1st car which was a used Honda Civic that had over 100, 000 miles. No wonder they cost so cheap now.
reply
No
I test drove one in late 1993 in Germany to find out whether I'd like it. It was fun to drive; due to the very compact and low-mounted engine, it had a very low center of gravity which showed in the corners. However, I found the visibility poor and the interior cramped. The instructions tell you not to park the car before you've driven the engine fully warm - I don't really like a car to tell me when to have my break on a trip. Rotary fear was there, too - so I let it pass. A few years later, I toyed with the idea of buying one used - but I read that Mazda hadn't really solved all those engine problems so they still were energy hogs, wore out soon and tended to fail technical checks for bad emissions. So I didn't regret letting it pass as a new car and decided against buying a used one.
reply
I test drove one in late 1993 in Germany to find out whether I'd like it. It was fun to drive; due to the very compact and low-mounted engine, it had a very low center of gravity which showed in the corners. However, I found the visibility poor and the interior cramped. The instructions tell you not to park the car before you've driven the engine fully warm - I don't really like a car to tell me when to have my break on a trip. Rotary fear was there, too - so I let it pass. A few years later, I toyed with the idea of buying one used - but I read that Mazda hadn't really solved all those engine problems so they still were energy hogs, wore out soon and tended to fail technical checks for bad emissions. So I didn't regret letting it pass as a new car and decided against buying a used one.
reply
Wilfred
I know a guy who had one of these as well as a corvette from the same era. He loved both of his cars but he always said that the handling and driving experience of the Mazda was better than the Corvette but he was not the biggest fan of how the Mazda looked. He said if he could combine the looks and power of the Corvette with the handling and driving experience of the Mazda he would have one hell of a car! lol At least he was financially well off enough to get both! lol
reply
I know a guy who had one of these as well as a corvette from the same era. He loved both of his cars but he always said that the handling and driving experience of the Mazda was better than the Corvette but he was not the biggest fan of how the Mazda looked. He said if he could combine the looks and power of the Corvette with the handling and driving experience of the Mazda he would have one hell of a car! lol At least he was financially well off enough to get both! lol
reply
Belznis
Yes, that engine is a pain due to its design, the fuel consumption is also a bit higher. Oil changes have to be done by the book or you will have problems very soon. It has a beautiful design, there are kits to renew the engine, but not available to small repair shops and it is costly. One of Mazdas where rust seems not the biggest problem. Pleasing to the eye, but would not buy one unless you have funds to take care of such a car and you like drifting.
reply
Yes, that engine is a pain due to its design, the fuel consumption is also a bit higher. Oil changes have to be done by the book or you will have problems very soon. It has a beautiful design, there are kits to renew the engine, but not available to small repair shops and it is costly. One of Mazdas where rust seems not the biggest problem. Pleasing to the eye, but would not buy one unless you have funds to take care of such a car and you like drifting.
reply
Harawanagangsta
Pretty much everything he said he disliked about the styling of the car is why I like the styling. The complaint about the rear window is really odd and obtuse. Might have been more clear with a different color rx8, but still, the back glass flows way better than a lot of cars he likes the styling of more. not to mention its in the same vein as 70s fastback american cars the way it wraps around. Just a very unreasonable gripe imo.
reply
Pretty much everything he said he disliked about the styling of the car is why I like the styling. The complaint about the rear window is really odd and obtuse. Might have been more clear with a different color rx8, but still, the back glass flows way better than a lot of cars he likes the styling of more. not to mention its in the same vein as 70s fastback american cars the way it wraps around. Just a very unreasonable gripe imo.
reply
Ace
As a Mazda 3 owner for a year now I've struggled to find something to complain about. It has an automatic transmission but with a manual option that feels sporty and not a decroative extra, an interior that pushes above it's weight, not super hard to work on, and a pretty face. Mazda is a great manufacter not because they sell a ton of units, but they put quality over quantity and is a great niche brand.
reply
As a Mazda 3 owner for a year now I've struggled to find something to complain about. It has an automatic transmission but with a manual option that feels sporty and not a decroative extra, an interior that pushes above it's weight, not super hard to work on, and a pretty face. Mazda is a great manufacter not because they sell a ton of units, but they put quality over quantity and is a great niche brand.
reply
cfc1001001cfc
I think that there are tax advantages to having a four-door car instead of a two-door in Japan, so that's probably the cause. Also, if you get an RX-8, you'd be well advised to go with the later models with the three oil metering pumps. this will go a long way to help make sure that the rotary engine received plenty of lubrication during its lifetime.
reply
I think that there are tax advantages to having a four-door car instead of a two-door in Japan, so that's probably the cause. Also, if you get an RX-8, you'd be well advised to go with the later models with the three oil metering pumps. this will go a long way to help make sure that the rotary engine received plenty of lubrication during its lifetime.
reply
Heartbeat
In this day and age, something with wacky proportions like this will always look good to me. It gives it character and makes it stand out from the bunch. I ve always thought that the styling was interesting, but in a good way. The taillight design in this is probably one of my favorites in any car, much more appealing than the ones on the facelifted RX8
reply
In this day and age, something with wacky proportions like this will always look good to me. It gives it character and makes it stand out from the bunch. I ve always thought that the styling was interesting, but in a good way. The taillight design in this is probably one of my favorites in any car, much more appealing than the ones on the facelifted RX8
reply
Add a review, comment
Other channel videos
