I understand that but it's not the same. I have 140k km on my motor and my warranty extension ended in early June. If my motor craps out now I don't expect Mazda to cover anything. BUT, if my motor was replaced right before the warranty was up and they installed a bogus product then the onus should be on them. I'm not saying they should be responsible for ever but a basic 12/12 warranty from Mazda should apply.
To say its fair that they replaced it with **** is just garbage.

 

If I wad the OP and Maxda refuses to help I would be contacting every newspaper in the area with my story. It won't get Mazda to help but maybe it will cost them a few peoples business.

 

This is why you need to protect yourself as a consumer. Buy a extended warranty if you want insurance, when the "new car" warranty expires. This can happen with any car, or any purchase - read the black and white, and manage your expectations. The 2nd cheque goes to the insurance, it sounds as though you don't have any.

 

Okay, I'll buy into your logic for this particular case. Say I buy an extended warranty, then whilst under said warranty, just before it expires, my engine pops. Mazda replaces the engine with a defective unit. Now the new defective motor pops a few months outside of my extended warranty and Mazda claims there was no parts/service warranty on the new DEFECTIVE motor THEY installed. How did the extended warranty benefit me? How is it my fault? Mazda should have put a quality product in the car.
I'm not saying they should warranty it forever, but 1 year and 12k miles shouldn't be too much to ask for.

 

Legally, it's the same as if the motor had first popped just outside warranty. Just with more bitterness etc...

You don't have to try to convince us that Mazda should have an overlapping 12month 12k on the remans, because we all agree that Mazda QA at the reman plant needs to be quite a bit better than it is.

Still, the fact remains that there isn't such a warranty available, and unless you can convince Mazda to offer it, there isn't much you can do about it.

 

I think you are having trouble understanding that you are trying to DOUBLE DIP on the warranty.

IF you walk into a dealership and buy a reman with cash, you (are supposed to) get a 12m/12k warranty, I don't think that is in dispute as to whether you get it or whether you should get it.

But, if you are under a vehicle warranty and you get a FREE reman, then you also do not get ANOTHER warranty on the engine itself, in addition to the overall warranty on the whole car. Your original car warranty covers the car and the engine for however long is left on it, for better or worse.

You are asking to get TWO warranties, or to artificially extend the first warranty (beyond the extensions already issued), for FREE.

I know that this is NOT going to change your stance (and you are not going to change everyone else's) so we will probably just have to agree to disagree...you see things one way and most of the rest of the world sees it another. I'm just trying to help you understand why we think that way.

 

I'm not having trouble understanding anything. I get it. I understand that Mazda doesn't have to do anything, I never said they HAVE to do anything, only that they should. All I'm saying is a warranty is a joke if all mazda has to do is replace a defective part with a piece of ****. And, if Mazda was any kind of decent company the regional rep for Mazda in the OP's area should be stepping up and helping him put.
And I would argue that most of the rest of the worlds consumers probably see it my way and not yours.
A warranty is only as good as the company it's with.

 

OK I have managed to bite my tongue for a while - a couple of things.

Firstly we all know that the engine in the 2005s was a bit more fragile than expected hence the extended warranty.

But, in a million years, with all the hassle I had had I NEVER expected a replacement engine to fail after 3,000 miles. And it simply should not. There is really nothing more to say about that. No engine should only last 3,000 miles and be called ok. That is super crap quality.

I was told by the service department Valley Isle Motors that I had a warranty on the engine and this made me very comfortable and I was looking forward to saying to the new owner - look not only do you have a nice new engine but it is under warranty. I do not hold this against them - I expect they just assumed a replacement part would have a modest 12/12 warranty. The warranty is about the quality of a product not how it came to be used.

All that is subjective BUT - this failure occurred about four weeks outside the warranty period. This car has had stalling problems since BEFORE I was the owner. I am 90% sure that many of the problems I have encountered have been because the engine was buggered and I have spent a fortune trying to sort this out.

The car was in the shop about three weeks waiting for the engine to arrive.

Subtract three weeks from the warranty time and I would have been one week outside. If ANY of the other work was because the engine was failing I would have been INSIDE the warranty period.

LOL cannot decide if that is bad or good news - imagine the original engine blowing ONE WEEK outside warranty.

I am 90% certain I will get the new engine in the end. So I have two new questions:

1) Who could I go to to get a professional second opinion to see if the engine was buggered about 18 months ago? and secondly

2) They did a compression test and it came back OK. The problems persisted and they took it back in said it was definitely the throttle body. Throttle body replaced and Mazda tech support THEN told them to try a "hot" (????) compression test. This failed. So the question is this - is it possible/easy for a shop to misread or screw up a compression test.

This dealership is only looking after a few Rx8s (I think there are about six on the island) so they must only be doing about one compression test a year or so. So are they easy to do or could they have screwed this up?


One last thing on the warranty replacement question. If you had a warranty that said we will replace you component but if the original part breaks the replacement may be absolutely crap - would you be happy with the solution? I think this is an endless philosophical discussion but if I had shares in a company that said that I would dump them. As I said before the warranty is about a company saying we make good products but occasionally a lemon will slip through.

Oh one last, last thing - no no probs with overheating at all.

Thanks for all your many useful and thoughtful responses.

aloha Steve

 

1) It sounds like your options are severely limited. A compression test typically won't show a coolant seal failure. Failing a coolant test for the presence of combustion gases, having coolant detected in your oil by an oil test, or finding coolant on the spark plugs or in the housing after sitting overnight are the main methods of detecting a coolant seal failure. If you know every single other part of your cooling system is perfect, then a coolant system pressure test can find it too.

2) The "Throttle body" is an insanely lame and really annoying diagnosis by Mazda dealerships. Every single common failure point on the RX-8 had had a tech suggest a throttle body replacement as a fix. I have only ever seen ONE case where a throttle body had actually failed. When I see a dealer jumping to that, I try to get people to just take the car back in hand because the dealer techs don't know what they are doing.
But yes, it is possible to screw up the compression test. The heat in the engine can easily change the results for example. Excessive oil in the housings can increase the scores inaccurately (since it burns off once the car starts), and some other random cases.


Yes, reman coolant seal failures are rarely from actual overheating. Given the pics of the complete mess of remans RotaryResurrection has posted before, it doesn't shock me one bit. Looks like a toddler's experimental use of crayons on the living room wall.



And Mazda isn't the only company that can, and does, do this. I sued Toyota over a similar problem a decade ago. I see the same thing other other non-vehicle manufacturers all the time. A friend just had this happen with Ford, etc... I won't ever buy a Toyota again because of what they did to me, but I'd be an idiot if I thought Toyota was the only one that could do it. I'm letting my personal experience with them bias my opinion of them heavily but whatever. I completely understand anyone else doing that with <insert company name here>

 

Very true about it being across many different companies. When I worked for Ford it made me sick many times having to tell people there was nothing I could do when the customer was really being hung out to dry.
I guess that's business.

 

I was about to add that most high end mechanics have the coolant system pressure test tool which replaces the rad cap and allows you pump pressure into the system and see if it holds or bleeds down. IF it bleeds down too quickly AND no external leak is found, it is possible or likely that you have an internal engine leak. Another way to use the tool is to start the engine and run it and see what the max pressure generated by the cooling system goes to...anything above 13-15psi probably indicates extra compression/combustion pressure being pushed into the system by a weak seal. These tests are rarely conclusive but can add to the general body of evidence one way or another.

Which is why you are supposed to do the test on a hot engine, so that no oil from the OMP or oil control rings has had time to drip down into the chamber and artificially fill sealing gaps. You lose compression when hot vs cold, and you will encounter problems mostly when the engine is hot, so you also test on a hot motor to get the worst case scenario numbers.

 

Just a quick point the compression test was on the old engine, the coolant in the chamber is in the (ha ha) new one.

EDIT: LOL I just realized something. I think it was when it went in for compression test I was told there was a leak in the rad. I suspect they DID do that test - cost me about $300 to replace the rad. (They said it just happened but if you need to pressure test the system and the rad blows - probably better to tell the dumb customer that "it just happened" than say "we were pressure testing the system and it popped" I would probably have said "you bastards, I didn't ask you to do that!!!")

 

Steve,

Ask around for a guy named Ted Koseki. I think he lives/lived on one of the islands. He's the only guy I've ever heard of out there with rotary experience.

Now, he probably knows little about the rx8 and may not know as many renesis specific quirks, but he has been around rotaries longer than I have.

 

You're right, it is crappy.
I'm sorry that it happened to you, and to all of the other people that it has happened to, because it has happened to other people.

If the car wasn't fully running right after the engine replacement, why didn't you push the issue back then, instead of letting the warranty expire, and eventually finding out that the internal coolant seal was bad?

BC.

 

BC maybe I am being a little unclear.

I thought the new engine was fine until it suddenly started starting rough. It did have a LITTLE dip on idling which I still felt was not right but was a lot better than the old engine.

The old engine is another story altogether. The day after I bought it I discovered it would stall in various situations. The service history showed this had been going on for some time although theoretically cured

I tried various things and, when it was particularly bad, took it back to the Mazda official shop here. Nothing worked. It got a bit better with BHR coils but would still stall occasionally but less often. But then it got worse again then back to shop new throttle body, finally a hot compression test - oh your engine failed.

With the "new" engine it carried on dropping revs to a worrying level at stop lights with the AC on but it would dip down and come up just in time nearly all the time.

Since the "new" engine it has only stalled about four to six times. I have never had a good running machine so i do not know if this dip is a characteristic of the build (it is after all not a problem unless it stalls). Also I do not know if stalling every two weeks is normal.

The new engine ran apparently fine right up to the moment of failure. Basically I parked it up one night and the next morning it was rough as hell! But once it was a little bit warmed up it was absolutely fine. I guess it went the previous day but as it wa warm I did not notice it. Nothing unusual had happened that day.

It just went :-(

Anyhow thanks for your contribution.

 

Thanks RR,

I can only find him once and that is on a Czech Rx8 board where it seems he was a nice guy to them. He is Oahu as far as I can tell.

His wife died 2011 and sadly his son seems to have died before him. Not sure if he is still active. I will keep trying he might be useful as an expert witness if Iever take this to trial.

 

HE still posts on rotarycarclub under RETed. He's very well known. He may be a bit of an *******, but those of us who deal with the rotary community's cheap asses long enough tend to become that way, so just push it aside and deal with it as best you can like my own customers do.

 

Steve,

I tell you what buddy. You fly me and my wife/son out there and buy all the parts, and I'll do a proper remove/rebuild/install for you free. Now you can't tell me that's not a good deal, lol.

 

Do you prefer coach, business or first class. I am assuming you keep you tools nice and clean or they won't let you in the first class cabin :-)

 

I'm told the air compressor has to go coach, but we prefer grill class (re: state farm aaron rodgers commercial).

 

Heck, that might actually be cheaper than shipping him an engine, and him shipping back a core to you.

Of course, I don't think any of us knew that you wife and son rebuilt rotary engines...



BC.

 

he comes off that way on teh internets, but in person he doesn't. he's actually really cool in person. don't tell anyone though

 

Don't let the warrantee expire is my entire point. I hear you Boeuf, but should be doesn't matter (or at least isnt going to help you) - what matter's is what is.

I hope you get it going MauiMazda2!

 

You kidding me? He's got almost as much experience as I do, he's been doing it for years. (he's 3 or 4 in these pics, 9 now)

 

I'm the same way.