Mazda RX8 as a daily driver ?

Supergurrier

So im only doing about 12,000 km a year and have decided my current daily is abit dull to live with day to day.

What are these like to live with if the compression test checks out ?

Im 6'2 and 15 stone if that makes any difference.

Thanks alot

Jim

Dartz

I'm bigger than that and I fat in mine. Nobody'll fit in the seat behind me, but you'll fit.

They're really not fans of city and town mileage however. Crawling in traffic is not a nice place for a wankel engine, considering how much heat the thing puts out, and that it's at it's worst efficiency below 3000rpm. It'll carbon up the intake and it just won't be happy with it.

If you're doing a fair bit of miles out of town, it'll love you for it. Cruising at 4000rpm on a motorway is stress free. The engine just doesn't give a **** about RPM, but around 4000 is where it gives its best economy, which just happens to be 120kph in top.

Living with wise. They're fine if you keep on top of the maintenance. Changing the oil, filters and sparkplugs is all nice and easy to achieve at home. There's nothing complex or too peculiar to worry about. The things you should be doing with any car, need to be done with an RX-8 is the best way of putting it.

A healthy one will get between 8 and 15L/100 km. If you're getting horrendous fuel economy, there's something gone wrong in the engine - usually it's the first sign of an ignition failure. Ignition failure will kill the Catalyst (An annoyance since they're not NCT'd on emissions), and soon after the engine if it starts misfiring. The engine's a lot less tolerant of a misfire - you'll kill it quickly enough if you let it run for long with a misfire.

If you buy one, fit This kit. It's a little expensive, but does a much better job compared to the stock coils. A much stronger spark, and better reliability by far. The engine will love you for it.

The back seats useable, provided the person in front is of the short-arsed variety. I'll even fit in there. Bootspace is low but, tolerable. The back doors make sticking things in there dead easy. I've had tellys in the back of mine. And not small tellys either.

Front seats are lovely and comfy and comfy and the cabin on the higher-spec models is a genuinely nice place to be. The styling and ambience have managed to age well, giving a comfy cockpit that feels like a proper GT-car. It's got some lovely nice toys like a 6-CD changer (With no Aux input), a Bose soundsystem that's pretty ****ing good and a lot of little toys that just feel premium somehow. (If a little lightweight).

Tax is 650. Insurance is "1.7L 4-door Saloon", and since they don't seem to attract too many muppets it's quite low. You'll never get good fuel economy, but I've had 10L/100km with mine on a motorway cruise (With a soon to be dead ignition coil)

The only real annoyance I've had is that it doesn't like being shut down cold. But it takes maybe a minute of driving to get it up hot enough to not have to worry about it.

The worst thing about it, is it tends to make demagogues of it's owners. They either love it to bits, or hate it, and won't be shy in letting you know about it.

And is it just me, or did I get a sense of Deja-Vu tping this? ;P

Noccy_Mondy

Ha, you "fat" in it, some sort of a hidden pun? :pac:

Dartz

I won't deny it... I'm no skinny ****er. And I fit in them seats just fine.

Then again, my daily driver to work comes courtesy of Irish rail because it works out much faster than dealing with Navan road traffic in the morning. Even with the walk to the station it works out quicker than driving because of the bloody traffic.


One other thing you'll find with one of these is that - if you drive another car immediately afterwards, you're going to be using a lot more right foot, and that modern diesels just feel weird. I end up spinning them to 3000-4000....