can't decide if this is the right car for me

Hambone1

I have a close friend with an RX-8, and I have owned my Z for awhile now, so while this isn't a balanced comparison, I still have some decent experience in the RX. Echoing what a lot of people said, the Mazda is completely dead down low in the powerband, I mean DEAD. If you get caught short geared, it's embarrassingly slow to pull out of the hole. As far as the backseats go, they are pretty much child or emergency carpool use only, I wouldn't subject anyone of decent size to more than a few minutes back there. The tranny and gearbox on the 8 are actually very smooth, although you get to the point where you're working so much that it gets kind of tiresome, not a knock on the gearbox itself, more the entire package.