This is my first time posting in this forum but I have been a member since June.
My car is an 04 RX-8 MT with less than 8000 miles.

After only 3 days without driving the car my battery died yesterday. I had the battery jumped and it started OK. The DSC light came on but I have read about that in these forums. With the car running, I decided to bring it in to Sears Automotive yesterday afternoon just to have the battery checked etc. This Sears is less than one mile from my home and being Labor day, the service deparment at Mazada was closed.

After an hour or so Sears calls me to tell me that I needed a new battery which I ok'd (this may have been a mistake). They later called me again to tell me that after putting in the new battery the car alarm triggered and now they cannot start the car. I went to Sears and we proceeded to follow the instructions in the manual for post enagement of the alarm system. Nothing worked. The car is dead. The only power item that works is the emergency tail lights but they did not flicker or blink just a steady light. Cannot even close power windows or use the horn etc.

I will have car towed this morning from Sears to the dealership. Any ideas what is happening here?

 

Yup. Its the antitheft alarm. Its in every car. I had a 2003 3G Eclipse. The owner had a after market alarm and when my battery died it went off too. Had my car towed to the dealer that I got it from they replaced every thing for free. Then I went out the next day and got a viper alarm installed lol. So relax. You & your car are fine.

 

In my Pontiac, when the battery died, it wouldn't even let me remove the key from the ignition. Everything was locked in place.

 

shouldn't have done that with just a new battery. I'd suggest you put the old battery back in call mazda roadside and have it towed in to them.

 

thats insane changing a battery will not trip the alarm. someone at sears f-ed up a fuse or something.

 

They probably tried to jump it backwards and blew the main fuse.

 

Why would facing away from the car while jumping set off the alarm??

And actualy I thought removing the battery required the alarm to be reset, via FOB key or something. Should we all get beter batteries if they die within 3 days? youch.

 

i agree with zoom, something else is missing here, you should be able to change a battery in your driveway without having the car go to defcon 5.

 

OMG!ROFLMAO!!!!!!111!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!

 

Several of you are correct.

I had the car towed to the dealership early yesterday morning. Apparenlty, the good folks from Sears cannot even replace a battery. They installed the positive to the negative terminal and vice versa. Can't believe it. Anyway, the good from this is that Maza is performing the latest recall while my car is there. Thank you for the feedback.
Tony

 

you should suggest that sears only hire monkeys that know what a + and a - sign are.

 

Last time I changed a battery the POS terminal post was thicker than the NEG. So Sears would have had to exert extra effort to clamp the NEG cable to the POS post. Something still sounds funny.

 

The dealership informed me that Sear installed the wrong battery and hooked in to the wrong terminals. All is fine now. Sears paid for the Mazda labor and the recall was performed (no new engine for me, I suppose that is good news). I am back to enjoying my RX-8.

BTW -- I test drove a spanking new BMW 335 coupe today. However, it had the paddles as opposed to a manual. I like the power and how it handles but I wasn't overly thrilled with it. Great looking car but not sure yet if it is worth 46k. I want to test drive the manual to see if I like it better.

 

Intelligent...