So I spend 3 hours yesterday scrubbing out the salt build-up on my carpets, detailing the interior, cleaning the leather seats, dusting.....blah blah blah.

I then spent some time under the hood. I missed her I tells ya

Today I go to start her as I have plenty of errands to run, and she won't start.

Arrrggghhh

She's flooded. First time for me too. I rolled her out of the garage yesterday morning, and I needed to pull closer to the garage, I had to start her in order to do that.

I started her, moved closer, let it run for about 3 minutes and revved to about 4k prior to shutting her off.

Try to start today, nothing. Lots of turn-over, but no go!

Anyway, Mazda Roadside picked her up in under an hour, and my dealer, Avante in Richmond Hill says they will cover all costs. She's obviously still under warranty, so all is good once I pick her up tomorrow morning.

I read a post just a few days ago here where Mazda were (allegedly) no longer covering this. Well, I was told on the phone they will, and in the morning I hope it to be true.

Cheers,

Ed

 

LOL your title makes it sound like flooding is a rite of passage...
I suppose it almost is!

I've never flooded.. YET, its only been 10 months of ownership..
But I suppose now I have jinxed myself by saying so..

 

Idling for only 3 minutes in this weather will do you in for sure. The first week I had the car, I warmed it up in the garage for 3 minutes, *drove* 2 km to the supermarket, and it flooded there!

 

I honestly think it was a combination of not enough warm-up, and the high humidity. When I opened up the hood on Wednesday afternoon, there was lots of dew and condensation present.

Anyways......got the car back a couple of hours ago, and they only needed to replace the spark plugs.

All is fine in RX-8-ville today

Cheers,

Ed

 

what year is your car? i believe later year cars are not prone to this issue.

 

It's on '05, and I too thought I was not prone to the flooding.

After chatting with my Service Manager, he stated that the newer the RX-8, the less prone it is to flooding, but that ALL RX-8's may exhibit this "feature"....

 

Too bad too hear but Iam glad to hear that they resolved it and in timely fashion, Avante is awesome to deal with thats why I went with them instead of the brampton one, even tho I prob would have gotten it cheaper at Brampton

 

Glad to hear that they covered you. I made the post about Mazda no longer covering because that's what the Dealer told and charged me. Based on the fact that your dealer covered you and me getting the previous flooding covered, it would seem that it's probably not a hard fast Mazda policy. I finally did get a call back from Mazda. First thing the guy said was it's not covered because there is a section in the manual that explains how to de-flood. Yah right....lets see you de-flood this! I told him if he or anyone at Mazda can physically show me how to de-flood my car I'll except responsibility for any future flooding, otherwise they must continue to cover. All I got was "I don't personally know the mechanics of the RX8" but I'll get back to you after talking to the dealership.

 

This respond scares the bejesus outta me. Rotary technicians are few and far b/t. And it will get scarcer in the future too. I'd be leery at some mechanic who works on mazda3 or tribute engines all day long and then have a rotary placed in front of him. He'd prolly think it's the new cappucino maker!

 

^^ Now that's not nice delhi....some of those newfangled cappucino makers are quite complex

 

Dunno what flash rev you guys are on, but I just had my 2006 reflashed last week, and they said that this flash was supposed to solve the flooding problem by delaying fuel injection for 3 seconds of dry cranking before fuel is allowed to the injectors. Even If for whatever reason it does flood, you are supposed to hold the pedal firmly to the floor and crank for 10 seconds. This is supposed to clear all the fuel from the chambers because by holding the pedal to the floor while cranking cuts out the fuel pump. I don't personally know how well this works because I've never had a flooded rotary. Neither my 1990 RX-7 that I had for 2 yrs nor this RX-8 for 1 month have ever flooded...knock on wood.

 

The procedure you wrote is pretty much standard for fuel injection and has worked for me when I owned an '87 RX7. Don't recall why it flooded the 3 times that it did except one time when I accidently touched the gas peddle but it was relatively easy to clear the gas using the above procedure. took no more than a minute or two. With the 8 it took me 20-25 min. this past Summer, weeks after I got it but it finally started. Ever since, I've read all the horror stories about flooding and can't say that I've had the opportunity to actually try to de-flood it. Since the last 2 times was in winter with temperatures around -15 to -22 Deg. C, it became clear that the battery will not hold out for more than a few minutes of trying. Could I have started it if I kept trying by boosting with my wife's car? Don't know, but judging from the effort I had to put in during Summer months...I wouldn't bet on it.

I'm cofindent that they've partially solved the flooding problem with the last flash and I will not have issues during the Summer months. As for our winters...I'm too scare to even use my remote starter when it's too cold...and that's not right. It's also not right that Mazda doesn't make a block heater for the 8, which would help alot. This sense of uncertainty on whether the car will start on cold mornings sucks!

 

My first time flooding it in 2 years was a good time. Me and my subie friend wanted to go play in our first snow this year and I had been driving it for about 45 minutes and we were drifting in this huge empty mall parking lot then a plow truck showed up and called the police luckily right when I stalled... Tried to start again and wouldn't for about two minutes but the the pedal to the floor technique saved me and we sped away... Well as much as rx8 can in snow.. So I slid my way home. Subarus are starting to look mighty fine lol

 

6 year bump to tell us about your illegal and moronic exploits, cool story bro!

 

wow, bumped from the grave~