Feeble?...FEEBLE!!... I resent that. I think I made a perfectly legitimate attempt at saying, "I told you so." Besides, it doesn't matter. Nobody listens to us "old guys" anyway.
Actually I hope Gulf Coast gets a new engine out of the recall. When you think about it, it's not a bad deal. Purchase a pre-owned car at a greatly reduced "used car" price, and get a brand new engine installed by factory trained mechanics all for free.
The RX-8 owners that I really feel sorry for are the ones whose cars pass the vacuum test, and Mazda doesn't replace their engines. You know they will never have any faith in their cars after that, because they will just keep waiting for their engines to eventually go bad. On top of that, it will hurt their resale, because all other potential owners are going to be skeptical about any car that hasn't had the engine replaced. So it's a bad situation for Mazda's credibility, and for any RX-8 owners pocketbook, and peace of mind.
Personally, I like all the previous "RX" models, I'm just not crazy about the RX-8's styling from the "B" pillar back. And the thought of a "4 door" sports car goes against every fiber of my being. Sure it's more practical, but I think it was BullFrog who pointed out (in another thread) aren't true sports cars supposed to be impractical?
I applaud Mazda for "pushing the envelope" with just about all the rotary engine models it's ever produced. Nearly everyone was ground breaking in one way or another. But unfortunately with almost every new model came the inevitable "teething" problems. You would think that after 35+ years of "fiddling" with that engine, they could get it right.