I'm going to try to keep this short.

Took my 2005 rx8 to Mazda as it was feeling strange, getting extremely hot inside, made a rattle noise when I pressed gas, had an eggy smell, car shook a lot especially when ac was turned on, it stalled on me whenever I was at a red light or stop sign, idled very low, seat bracket on passenger side got so got you could only touch it for a second or else you'd get burnt.

They diagnosed my car and here's what they replaced...motor mounts as they were broken and leaking, replaced catalytic converter, said car was over heating, replaced all 4 ignition coils, performed a decarbonization service, performed a compression test and that came out ok. All of those things replaced were covered under my warranty.

They suggested these things be fixed/replaced but I have not done so yet as these are not covered under my warranty...drain rear, need new cabin air filter, and need plugs and wires. I just got my car back today excited it was finally fixed.

I head home and she seems fine. I get home and put her in park. She is emitting loads of head from both sides of car, lifted hood and it was extremely hot under there, had a burning smell coming from sides of car and from under hood, and seat brackets were STILL extremely hot.

There's a brand new catalytic converter on her. Should I give it time since its new? I heard the oil that's on the outside of it when it comes brand new is probably what's causing the strong burning smell. What about all the crazy heat I'm experiencing, is that just because it's brand new? Please help it would be very much appreciated!!

 

Replace your plugs and wires ASAP. Wires are ~$60 for all 4, plugs are $20 each, $80 for all 4. If you order online, you can usually find deals that knock even more off the price. Replacing is 10-20 minutes and easy.

The most likely scenario is that your new cat is still glowing because the ignition is still failing (replacing 1/3rd of the pieces doesn't solve anything if the others are still failing, and they usually fail somewhat together, by 30,000 miles), and this means you have unburnt fuel and air getting dumped into the exhaust, and it's igniting there and blow torching your cat.

I really don't recommend driving your 8 with it doing that. Car fires from a glowing cat have happened before, not to mention it's cooking your O2 sensors ($150ish for the rear and $250ish for the front) and could start to damage your engine. Yes, ignition health is that important, and it can cascade into further failures REALLY quickly.

If you MUST drive it, then keep the RPMs low, as light on the throttle as you can, and when you feel the heat look under the car next to the driver's door. Your cat is probably still glowing.

 

Thank you so much! Dealership said plugs and wires will be almost $300, that's why I didn't have them replace those, didn't have the money. What about the burning smell?

 

Ok ... I'm saying this very nicely and not as a flame. Do realize how hard it is to read this!EDIT: MOD FIX I added some spacing-zoom44
Just add some hard returns to space stuff out.
And ... TL;DR (too long Didn't Read) because of the spacing.

 

Burning smell is likely the plastic and rubber under the car that is melting from the heat. Common with overheating cats.

 

Thanks again for all your input. Any suggestions where exactly I can get good priced plugs and wires?

 

When you say burning, is it like oily burning, or like a rotten egg smell? If it's rotten egg, do NOT drive the car (actually don't drive it in any case), that's the smell of the catalytic converter dying.

If it's oily, could just be leaked oil from your motor mounts cooking slowly. Of course could also be an oil leak. Try to localize the source of the smell, but not if it means running the engine in this condition any more than you have to.

Like the man said, spark plugs and wires.

 

 

Not rotten egg. I'm not sure how to explain it. Just smells like something is burning. Heard since I have a new cat the oil on the outside of it from being new is burning off it?

 

Plugs and wires are available just about everywhere for the same price. Advance Auto (usually a 10-15% off + free shipping), Amazon (prices vary), BHR (forum vendor), Mazmart (forum vendor), etc...

You need 2 leading plugs and 2 trailing plugs. Don't get 4 of the same ones

 

got my spark plugs coils and wires from Mazmart.

i think it only took 3 days to arrive.

You will need to remove your driver side wheel to replace the spark plugs and you will need a 13/16 spark plug socket to remove the spark plugs.

All the wires are the same (thanks riwwp for confirming) but are different lengths. Best thing you can do is take one wire out at a time and wrap a piece of tape around it and mark where it came from.

Thanks to Jedi and riwwp for sourcing this pic for me when i had some trouble.



read the guides in the DIY section of the forum for more info.

 

What I don't get is why the drawing shows a bolt mounting the coil. In mine there is a stud on the mounting bracket and then a nut holds the coil on. Apparently they never updated the drawing or maybe this is an S2 drawing, who knows.

 

I had a 2004 displaying the same problems yours is. After so many trips to the dealer, I took mazda to court and had my 2004 replaced with a 2007. No problems since then!

 

She is doing the right thing by coming here. Going to court doesn't solve anything for anyone. Something was wrong with your 2004 and we probably could have told you exactly what it was, saving you and the dealer lots of time, you and the corporation lots of money.

 

Thanks for saying; I was about to mention the same thing.

 

Thank you guys so much, especially riwwp. I bought the spark plugs and wires from car quest and my boyfriend is going to put them on. Hopefully he doesn't mess anything up 😳

 

As long as he does one piece at a time, there isn't too much to "mess" up.

 

Ignore the "Sequence" labeled in the pic, since that is for coil removal.

The two things for him to keep in mind is that 1) The picture shows the proper routing of which coil goes to which plug and 2) that the two plugs labeled "T" (little blue print) go on the Top, and the two plugs labeled "L" are the Lower ones.

 

Worse that could happen if he does?

 

he will be looking for a new gf. jk you would know right away if its wrong

 

It depends on what order they are if they are messed up. It's technically possible to have engine damage in the worse case scenario. I don't want to scare you though. You would be able to immediately tell that something isn't right when you started up the engine at idle, WELL before you have a chance to damage the engine. It would take exactly the wrong wire order AND you driving it hard to get there.

Just make sure he follows the picture for the plug wire order and it can't go wrong

 

And this picture might be a bit clearer, as Mazurfer took the time to color the lines

 

ha!

 

Much better thank you 😊

 

Sorry ill keep that in mind next time I decide to write a 10 page story, oops 😝