Was driving home from Miami, on i95, going 70ish, on cruise control, I'd been consuming more fuel than usual, it only takes me about a quarter of a tank from Miami to home, and I was barely halfway home and already down to half a tank.

I suddenly see the RPM gauge suddenly drop and cruise control light goes to yellow/standby, so I think I musta hit the cancel button, clutch, or brake by accident or something, put my feet on the floor of the car and hit the resume button. Light goes back to green and car starts to shudder as the RPM struggle to move back up, so I downshift and I hear a loud POP and I see 2 fireballs erupt out the exhaust in the rearview mirror followed by the engine, oil, and DSC lights flashing on for a second and going back off.

I turn cruise control off, and push the accelerator down about halfway, engine just feels bogged down, running extremely rich maybe, so I try to downshift to 3rd (I'm now going about 55) and another set of fireballs erupt out the exhaust. Cars are passing me by flashing their lights at me.

I start to merge to pull over and the engine just dies, flat out turns off, steering wheel locked in the direction of a merge towards the highway divider, I'm still going 50mph, so I press down the clutch and the accelerator to hit the fuel cutoff override thing, and turn the key, engine starts to turn over, sputters, groans, still turning over, trying to start, the wall is steadily approaching, cars are blaring their horns at me, I shift it into 2nd (going 40mph now) let go of the clutch and turn the key again, engine roars to life followed by another set of fireballs out the exhaust and then I feel the engine dropping in performance again, I have my foot flat down on the pedal, in 3rd gear, and the RPMs are dropping and losing speed (70mph).

I finish pulling over, put it in neutral, coast down to a stop, the whole while the engine is idling painfully at 300rpms, oil light is on again. Once stopped I turn it off, open the hood, it reaks of gas and oil with a bit of fire/burnt smell, I check the oil level, it's not too low, I add another quart to it (always keep a quart in the trunk).

I try to start it, engine turns over but doesn't start. I wait a few minutes, push the accelerator all the way, try again, nothing.

I unplugged the battery, waited 10mins, plugged it back up, reset the ECU, started the car, it turned over a few times before coughing to life with loud popping noises, I went around the back and saw small flames erupting every few seconds for about a minute and then the idle sound smoothed out and flames disapeared.

Drove it home, occasionally I would get a drop in power, and my transmission felt rougher than ever before, grinded a few times in 1st, 4th, 5th, & 6th. I got all green lights after getting off i95, and when I finally got to my house and stopped, the engine died.

I reset the ECU again after 30mins, and it's running fine now. I'm really confused about what's going on, I've only got 8,000 miles on it, I'm going to take it in to the dealership tomorrow. I think I might cancel the deal and demand they take the car back considering they already supposedly swapped the transmission once and kept denying there was something wrong with it afterwards even though there was a very significant differnt between my "new" transmission and other 09s.

So yea.. fun stuff.. I kept seeing wrecks, police, and tow trucks all the way home and kept thinking "man.. that's going to be me tonight probably.."

At least I made it home safely, but it took almost my entire tank (15gallons) to travel barely 70miles.

Ninja-Edit:
Oh yea, at one point (after all the above happened, and about 5miles from my exit) I heard something scrape, bang around, and saw a black shape pirouette off behind me in rearview mirror. I tried taking a look upon getting home but didn't notice anything missing.

 

damn man you have been having some serious problems with that car

 

this would be a dealer issue.

the 09 is way to new to even guess. my guess is you hit something, and the car has bad karma.

beers

 

cat maybe??

 

clogged cat?...get it warm then take it around the block and then look under on the drivers side if you see a glowing red circle then that there is your problem....and the tranny issue? maybe you messed something up while trying not to die on the highway....clutch cable or release bearing maybe....

 

It won't start anymore, I took it for a drive around and it was running fine, came back home, turned it off, and wanted to go get some food, and it's not starting anymore, I'll have to get a tow to dealership in the morning it seems.

I've been having the transmission problems since I got the car, even after they replaced it, but I'm sure what happened tonight didn't help.

 

Any new FLASH come out for that year yet?

 

clutch cable?

beers

 

Well, naturally, car arrived at dealership on flatbed, started right off the bat, drove perfectly, transmission shifted smoothly, everything was fine and dandy. I swear to god I wanted to scream and curse and beat the car with something large and heavy.

I hate this car so much sometimes! ARGH.

However they did manage to make it not want to shift into 3rd so data has been sent off to Mazda's R&D department and I might get a call back or something later down the line.

 

Ehh.. New problem is developing.. it'll randomly start to stall if I let the car idle for a few minutes, RPMs will drop to 500, the frame will start to shudder and I can hear the engine start to strain and groan, after that, if I give it gas, it'll feel sluggish and slow for a minute or so. If I let it stall and start it back up, it runs fine.

Doesn't happen all the time, just occasionally.

 

Get a camcorder in the car with you and record everything that happens....that way they will know it happens instead of it getting to the dealership and it working fine.

At least I think it will help more!

Good luck, man.

 

^I agree with cyber....It sounds like a problem with fuel either getting too much or not enough...Since you said the first time it smelled like fuel sounds like a rich problem...when it stalls now does it smell of gas or just idle rough and shut off.....air filter is clean and not clogged???

 

I've kept a little diary/history in pen about the problems occurring, sadly I don't have a working camera to record with


Air filter is clean, and it doesn't smell like gas anymore, just rough idles, and it'll sound like it's straining, attempts to go back to 800 RPMs, fails, and stalls.

Either that or it'll hover at 200 RPMs and just struggle like that, jumping between 500 and 200 RPMs until I either push the gas or turn it off.

Today, however, it's been running fine without a single problem.

It frustrates me to no end.

 

if you hit a bag or something, check the two lower spark plug wires. make sure they are tight!

beers

 

^ahh a very good pont CRH....Would ot hurt one thing to check the MAF

 

Yeah, that's what my car was acting like when I had a faulty MS CAI in... That damn sensor is very touchy.. Problem was that my upper screen in my CAI would keep rotating to a 90 degree angle and rubbing up against the other screen.. Soon as I replaced the stock intake it has been running perfectly.

I think if the sensor is all f'd up the same issue could arise..

 

Hmm, I'll have to take a looksee tonight then, check the plug wires and the MAF.

I haven't hit anything that I know of either, but I've yet to take the car in for a checkup and I'm about to hit 10,000 miles now

 

Dude, you've been having nonstop problems, have you looked into lemon laws yet?

Im sure a new RX8 is soundling appealing right now......... Make sure you read up on that.

 

The thing is that, whenever I take it in to dealership, they say it's fine.

I don't know if it's because they see I'm 19/20 and think "oh he probably drives like an asshat so we're not going to really bother with his problems, make it seem like we look at it, and then tell him to **** off after making several lame attempts at hinting at the fact he probably races and mistreats the car" or if it's because I just don't know how to drive (highly unlikely since 3 of my friends felt the problem, as did my dad).

Like for example, when I took it in Monday, I told the guy everything that happened and that I have a lot of problem with shifting to/from 3rd gear (from/to 2nd/4th) and drove him around to show him how I shift and let him shift for me at one point.

Then I let him drive it, and he just cruised around in 6th gear.
Of course, he said he felt the problem when I was driving, but not when he was driving.. gee whiz, how bout that.

I contacted MazdaUSA and they told me they're going to contact a county inspector or something to take a personal look at it. However it's already been 3 days and I'm still waiting so.. I'm not getting my hopes up.

I would REALLY like a new RX8. Either that or I'm getting rid of it and buying a BMW or something.

 

At 8,000 miles? Could be a lemon. Sucks to hear about the car

 

Call MazdaUSA again, and again. Keep climbing up the ladder til you get the results you want.

Be nice at first but you may need to get aggressive if they mistreat you because of your age. I went through the same ****, my first dealer kept trying to blame EVERYTHING on abuse becuase of my age when there was no proof AT ALL of abuse.

Once I switched dealers and after numerous calls to Mazda, I ended up with a new trans, new clutch, new throw out bearing, new headlights, had every possible gasket on the engine replaced due to oil leaking, had 6 output seals for the trans (which is leaking again BTW), a pair of tails, 2 batteries, a cat,and much more.

Now, becuase of them fixing my car after months of arguements, my car has ran great since 40K miles (now at 72K) and Mazda kept me as a customer. I intend to keep this car forever once paid off in 2.5 years.

Make yourself vocal.

 

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-discussion-3/slightly-rough-idle-165704/

 

yeah bitching to MazdaUSA is the beest way to get things done! that's what I had to do when I had a tranny problem thatwas in the shop for a month!