If I had a car that got 8mpg, I'd ask the service manager to drive with me. I'd drive it down until the light came on after getting about 30 miles away from the dealership. Stop at a gas station, put in one or two gallons of gas then ask him to drive us back to the dealership using the "proper" method.

 

What does education have to do with working on an assembly line?

Only in a union can you have a guy make $35 per hour driving a fork lift.

 

Raptor75, what I don't think you get, is that Mazda built the car, and then sold the car to the dealer who sells it to you.

I have never heard of a Mazda dealer loosing its sales franchise because of pissed off customers. It may have happened, but normally they only loose their sales franchise because they can't pay the bills. **** off enough customers and you can't pay your bills. So Mazda corp doesn't need to care. They care about being paid for the car from the dealer and making their 30%. The dealer is their customer, not you.

So when you take the car into the dealer, the dealer needs to expend time and money to fix it. He then either submits a claim to Mazda or the Insurance company or the customer to pay for the fix. Either way the dealer did the work... not Mazda.

So as a dealer, wouldn't you want to stop any hemorging of money. The customer must pay to get his or her car back, so you get paid right then and now. Wheras if they must submit a warranty claim, you might not get paid for 30 or 60 or 90 days. So as a dealer it is in your best intrest to get the money the easiest way you can.

Because you didn't buy your car from Mazda. You bought it from a dealer. You are not MNA's customer, the dealer is.

Sort of like if you have phone line DSL at your house, and you pay for service through AOL, yet your local phone company is who provides the actual wiring to your house. You could call the local phone company and bitch about a poor connection, but they wouldn't care. You are not thier customer. AOL is. So you have to call AOL to get the DSL line serviced (of course why anyone would buy DSL through AOL is beyond me, but that was just an example).

 

Dealerships have the bulk of the responsibility to the customer. But, Mazda should be paying closer attention +/- actually acting on the things they are paying attention to and they are not. My dealership has a high rated service dept. which I have yet to need. Overall, nothing about my experience has been anything to shout about. They never bothered to get my insurance switched. They ran into a problem at the DMV (town tax issue - not their fault), but they neglected to notify me. I called at day 24 b/c my registration had not arrived - they called me back 6 days later to tell me about the problem. Mind you, it was Friday at 4.30, and getting to the town hall, then DMV was not an option. My 30 days from purchase to get my reg. was over, making my car illegal. Thanks for the heads up, jackass. Attention to details usually runs through the entire organization. So I won't be expecting anything but hassles when I need the service dept. I'll be sure to have my mechanic look at anything first, and hopefully never go to the dealership again. Mazda will no doubt be upset with that. An entire company losing sleep, I'm sure.

 

This isn't even the problem; I can recreate the 11mpg with out a problem. It is the fact that Mazda says this is normal because their computer did not report any problems. They would have to start servicing the car and stop depending completely on the computer. They would have to do investigative work to find the cause and the simple fact is this would cost Mazda money and they find it cheaper just to say the car is normal it is your fault. Zoom44 recommended dropping the CAT to check it, since no cell were issued for this the dealer wouldn't even consider it despite reports of bad CATs with out any Cel warnings.

 

Actually I have heard of a dealer losing his franchise for what boiled down to poorly representing the parent company. Many of car company's including Mazda can feel a lot of heat from the parent company. The Autobarn, where I bought my car was under just such heat. The sales guys bent over backwards to help me and I was quit impressed with them, it was a very pleasant car buying experience. The whole time they talked about a survey from Mazda that they needed a positive feed back on. They even offered to bribe me for a positive response or to just drop the card off with them.

Dealerships are privately owned but under the rules set by the parent company. Do you think the Lexus dealer gives you great service because they are a bunch of great guys.....No, it is because the parent company mandates their behavior and what is expected. Step out of line and your out.

Mazda authorizes dealers and they are Mazda’s representatives to the client. Again don't fool yourself, Mazda has the ultimate say in how your car is serviced and supported. They can over ride the dealer’s decision and can dictate what they will support or not.

The dealer is Mazda and Mazda's corporate paradigm will dictate how they treat you!

 

But was it a Mazda franchise?

Don't get me wrong. I am convinced without any doubts that the majority of the dealers are Mazda's biggest issue. The service techs dealing with Mazda are among the worst of any brand, simply because the majorty of them are really service techs for the GM brand also being sold there and they only know how to replace parts, instead of troubleshooting an issue.

But with Mazda North America worried about sales and keeping out of the red ink, I think they turn a blind eye to everything except the very very worst cases. They'd rather just sell the cars to the dealers.

But toss in a lot of owners (and dealers) have never dealt with rotary power cars, and their querks (like flooding or high gas consumption) and I can see the dealers just not wanting to do anything.

BTW on a side note, for your high gas consumption, have you checked the injectors for leaking/dirty injectors??? A leaking 2ndary injector often increases gas consumption without flooding on 13B engines. Does your oil have any gas smell??? If so it is probably just a leaking injector.

 

That's what the sales manager at the Autobarn told me and I know of a local Mazda dealer that went away, it adds up but I can't confirm.

I do agree with you on your summary of the situation. Mazda rolled out a car that they (dealers) were ill prepared to service. Put on top of that Mazda's priority of saving a buck over servicing the client and you have a recipe for very poor service and a "we don't care" attitude.

Thanks for the info on the injector, the car only has 2500 miles on it and was getting poor mileage from the start so I didn't think dirty injector. It could be leaking but again the dealer won't look at anything unless the computer tells him to. They want me to pay for the diagnostics of their malfunctioning car. I'll check out the oil for the small of gas. I can tell you that the car is throwing a ton of gas in at start up I can smell it in the exhaust.

 

Screams leaking 2ndary or third injector...(as I recall the reni has three injectors per rotor, but I am not sure, I know none of the other 13B's do).

And of course if it was a hunk of something stuck in the injector nozzle or the injector was dropped and damaged before installation, it would not show up anywhere on a diagnostic computer, but rather just that it was running slightly rich.

And as far as dealing with the dealers not being prepared to service, Mazda sent a tech from each dealer to reni school to service the cars. But again I am convinced that modern techs are just clueless.

 

Well, techs are knowledgeable to the same degree that people are in any profession. Some know their way backwards and forwards around a rotary engine, some start looking for pistons. It's a fact of life.

The key is, to try and find a dealership/tech combination that is decent, and then reward them with your business.

I know in MN we have a number of solid dealerships, and the guys/gals at Morrie's mazda do an excellent job with almost all the rotary cars that come through there.

 

Thanks this gives me something to pursue. How can you test for the leaky injector?

 

the PCM would compensate for a leaky injector by dialing down the amount injected by the primary- or at least you'd think it would. if it couldnt get it down to where it was supposed to be then it would throw a CEL light for the over rich condition detected by the Wide Band O2 sensor.

 

the 6spd manuals have 3 injectors per rotor and the 04, 05 automatic's have 2 per rotor....i know i get about 17 mpg with fairly aggressive driving.

the only problem is we count on the computer to steer us in the correct direction, and if the computer doesn't think that there is a problem it's hard to find one. I know for gas mileage complaints all we normally due is monitor the sensors to make sure each one is working properly.

Mazda does tend to stay out of the equation unless the dealership can't handle a problem. They would prefer that the dealership resolve the problem if at all possible, if not that is when the district reps step in.

 

but they absolutely are paying attention. they know they have a dealer problem and are workign on correcting it- things just dont happen over night


http://www.forbesautos.com/news/head...206-mazda.html

http://www.cartype.com/page.cfm?id=465&alph=ALL&dec=ALL

 

"better treatment of customers in the back shop. "

If they go near my 'back shop' I'll never go there again! I think . . .

 

I understand what you are saying, but believe that there will be problems with a car that the computer will miss. It seems that today’s attitude is if the computer can’t spot it there is no problem yet we see many posts here that tell of problems being discovered that the computer never picked up on. What about these?

Let me ask you a simple question. I have a RX-8 05 8/05 build date, GT model, MT. I presently have 2500 miles on the car. I drive almost 100% of the time city driving in Chicago. My average drive to work is 9 miles one way with city stop light driving. It takes me about 25 minutes to make this drive and while the car is moving I average about 30mph. In the Winter I get around 11mpg and in summer about 12mpg. When I have taken it on long drives(100 miles plus) I average 20 to 22 mpg Highway. My driving style is moderately aggressive. Most the time I'm following traffic shifting between 3K and 5K but if traffic opens up so will I. I will redline it at least once a trip.

Should my car be getting 11 to 12 mpg in the city?

PS Thanks Zoom44, what you said makes perfect sense, even if it is leaking the CO2 sensor will pick up the excess gas and trim it back.

 

It has been an issue since the 80's. They have said the same thing since then.

I could tell horror stories about taking my first FC (2nd Gen RX-7) into service (at the biggest best highest rated dealer in the San Diego area) for something as simple as a reverse light switch that failed.

I buy Mazda products for the product, and do the service myself.

I or a member of my direct family have owned or still own, a 79 RX-7, 86 323, 87 RX-7 Sport, 88 RX-7 Convertible, 88 10th Anniversary RX-7, 88 RX-7 GTU, 94 RX-7 pep, 96 626 Sport, and have been seriously looking at a 8. I still own the 88 RX-7 Convertible and 88 10th Anniversary RX-7.

Mazda makes great product. When you buy one, you just have to figure that you'll never ever ever take it into the dealer for anything but a recall or to buy parts at the parts counter.

 

My experience with Mazda has been exactly the opposite. They have treated me unbelievably every time I have been in. They did a warranty replacement of the sun visor and are going to buff the entire car, because of a small scratch on the rear drivers side fender that was there when I purchased it. Some dealerships are willing go out of the way to do the right thing and keep the customers happy.

 

But that doesn't help if it is a leaking injector.

See if the injector is leaking, it leaks when the car is off (remember the fuel rail stays pressureized for faster starting). With the Reni design, it would only flood one rotor face when that happend. Of course that would lead to a serious smell of gas when starting (because the cat would not be warm enough to burn off the extra gas).

So, say you loose half a gallon (per a tank full) through leakage while off. An then when starting another 1/2 gallon. Start up probably ignores O2 and cats until warm so if you suddenly are getting 13MPG (figuring agressive drivers probably only get 15 MPG anyway).

So, when the O2 and engine comes up to temp, and the ECU cranks back the primary because it is seeing a rich condition, it would not throw and error until it couldn't crank back the primary far enough to compinsate. But it would only compensate at warm engine temps anyway.

Now I am simply speculating on that. I have not looked at the RX-8 PCM code to see what it really does. Maybe it does monitor the O2 cold (but I doubt it since normally O2 sensors needs to be around at least 500-600F to send correctly).

 

Maybe in theory, but I've seen too many threads where the customer is basically told "we have to go by what the dealer says". "Your clutch was abused because it's blue", when they're blue out of the box... not to meantion strong-arm tactics to get perfect scores on questionnaires. Seems to me their dealers have too much power. There is a lack of checks and balances, or at least unwillingness on Corporate's part to establish a uniform standard of service. I haven't had a major problem yet, but the things I have read do make me worry what would happen should I need some major warranty work. One hand just doesn't seem to know what the other is doing. For an example you need go no further than the synthetic oil issue, a debate which predates the RX-8 by a generation, and will probably continue forever -- something Mazda could put an end to at once by simply making a definitive statement. Everything is iffy with them. And the fact that Ford is involved, frankly gives me the heebie jeebies.

 

Raptor,
Based on your driving time and miles (posted above), you average 21.6 mph. It is apparent that you are idling quite a bit at lights. Based on myself and deduced from what other owners are seeing, it appears your milage is about the same as all RX-8's. Mine does the same. What is really amazing is if you go out on a back road and keep the revs between 5-7K, your milage will be about the same as your highway milage.

Mike

 

I hate to go off on this tangent, but I wanted to comment on this.

Yes, unions were useful when companies abused their workers in that way. However, it's a completely different world now. My mom manages an office for a major telecommunications company, that's unionized. Here's a common scenario from day-to-day: An employee frequently comes back late from lunches and breaks. My mom will have a talk with them as verbal warning. The next time she has to address the issue, she will write them up. This employee will then proceed to call his Union Rep in for a meeting to argue that the employee is being treated unfairly. And of course, it turns racial because the employee thinks he or she is being discriminated against. This is the kind of crap that most unions are dealing with now. We no longer have companies prohibiting employees from going home after injuries and such. They're protecting lazy employees who think they have the right to do anything they want and still get paid for it.

 

Or to a reknowned rotary shop other than the dealer. They are our there.

 

I avg 17.5 or thereabouts in heavy stop-go (think S. Fl and its badly-timed lights).. I also get my foot in it a lot, shifting usually around 7k 1st and 2nd.

Actually, I do 17.5 no matter how badly I get on it. I haven't tracked it yet, so dunno how she'll respond to that.. but I've not seen 20 yet.

I think there *is* a problem with low-MPG 8s.. and that low-mpg is a symptom of something else amiss in the car, something the car's ECU isn't trapping as a fault. But y'know, the damn thing only tests for what it has been taught for.. it won't catch the "WTF" conditions new <insert thing here> usually come with.

Were I mazda, I'd be very quietly approach low-mpg owners to investigate why. I don't like the sounds of an engine with really sub-par mileage.. it says something else is wrong.

Have you had your car compression-tested? (Ye of low-mpg in this thread?) I'd be curious to see how it stacks up against 'spec' compression. How about oil analyisis (beyond using the nose, that is..) It may show something else.. lots of gasoline (side seal issue?) which would also put out a lot of metals that shouldn't be there..

 

Probably been mention in this thread but it isn't isolated to any one car maker, have seen mitsu and dodge do the same type of abuse story.

Luckily so far no real issue with the dealership and service expect trying to blame the AC issue on the XM radio, but that only took a minute to disagree and now its getting fixed.