Bought 2004 Mazda RX-8 for my daughter in November. Car would crank and run PERFECTLY every morning to and from school. One morning it was cold and I made the mistake of going to warm up the car and seeing the gas light on. I shut the car right back down.... i know... The car sat for several days-1 week. Went to crank it. Nothing. My husband finally got it running. Ran it for 30 minutes. Shut it off then tried to restart it.... nothing... Took out back seat and saw gas leaking under the seat. husband fixed that. Great! Started just fine.... ran for 30 minutes or so. Shut it off and attempted restart. nothing. Will NOT turn over for crap. We get these random runs and it just quits again. My husband did a compression test as well and said it was showing a compression of 60. spark plugs and all that general stuff has been took care of. It has also shut down before when I shifted into drive... Any ideas? Sorry if my details are kinda spastic. This is just how it has happened.

 

If it won't turn over its likely battery or connection related. When batteries are cold they loose a lot of capacity and slow cranking on rotary engines doesn't work well.

If it is turning over and won't start that is a whole other can of worms. Could be flooded. Could be poor compression...lots of things. Usually though...look for what has changed and start there

 

Would you say it has problems starting when warm only?

Compression of 60 sounds like he used a regular compression tester. Those don't give accurate results on these engines, but if that 60 is anywhere near close to reality, the engine has low compression. Whomever you bought it from should have experienced similar symptoms, did they mention anything?

 

No :-( Bought it from a dealership. It was all perfect for our test drive. The problems seem to all occur AFTER it gets hot

 

As a rotary gets hotter, it loses compression, so most likely the engine is shot or on its way out.