It all began on Friday as I was idling in traffic. My idle dropped to around 500 rpms and the engine started sputtering. I lost power and the check engine light started flashing. I pulled to the side of the road, checked my fluids, and restarted the engine and all was fine, until yesterday. I was bringing my girl home when the same thing happened, I managed to sputter the last two miles to her house. She was bad-mouthing my car the entire way, reminding me of all the problems I have had to date with a "brand-new" car and how her 1987 camry doesn't give her any. I couldn't argue with her either. Anyway, so I'm headed back to my house on the interstate when It happens again, only this time I hear a loud popping sound and sparks start shooting from my tailpipes. I'm thinking at this point that either i've blown a seal on one of the rotor housings or the cat has just failed. Either way I'm pissed off and ready to get rid of the car. I exit the interstate and drove another mile to my house. After i got off the interstate, I started smelling a pungent burning smell. So, i finally get home and i get out to check out my exhaust, which is a Greddy by the way, for any damage, and to my amazement my bumper is on fire! I put it out with the hose, let out a couple of choice vulgarities and went inside. My girlfreind then tells me "well you always wanted your car to shoot flames", lol.
Has this happened to anyone else? Do you all think that my bumper will be replaced under warranty along with the cat? Also, could this have severely damaged my exhaust? I'm hoping that the dealership doesn't give me any **** about me having the Greddy. Any advice or opinions is appreciated. Thanks.

 

First, dump the GF, she obviously doesn't understand you. J/K

Second, dealers are inconsistent when it comes to authorizing warranty work, so you'll just have to see what they say. IMO, they should at least replace the cat, assuming your conclusion that it has failed is correct.

Third, I don't know about possible damage to the Greddy cat back, but when they replace the cat, ask them to remove the cat back and shake it out.

Fourth, and this is the iffy one, my guess is that the dealer will claim that the Greddy caused the bumper fire while the OEM exhaust would not have, and will not cover a bumper repair/replacement under warranty. I hope for your sake I'm wrong, but don't count on it.

 

Mazda doesn't cover anything if it's modded be careful. Even if you have a K&N air filter in your car and some sensor or anything after the filter goes they'll blame it on aftermarket parts. Mazda only covers damage done by stock parts. Having aftermarket anything will give them way more of a reason to not cover the damage or just plain void your warranty.

 

Yeah, I'm also worried that they might attribute the bumper fire to the Greddy's larger tips, but it wouldn't have happened at all if the cat didn't fail. To think, they reduced our power to prevent this from happening, but it happens anyway! I have a pretty good relationship with the local dealership, as I'm one of the only slightly modded RX8's that they service. They know me by name and, all so I hope that helps my case. The exhaust note sounds like nails being rattled in a tin can, which is the way I think someone else on the forum described itwhen their cat failed, that's what leads me to believe it is the culprit, but i'm not positive.

 

How many miles do you have on your car. Cause i'm interested if mazda is gonna replace our cat's
with one that'll hold up, i've had tons of people tell me that their cat went very early, it seems like they should replace ours with one that wont burn our bumpers :o), just imagine if you were hurt because of the failed cat? That's a lawsuit that mazda doesn't want, they should fix this cat problem before someone gets hurt because of it.

 

swap it out with the factory exhaust or you're likely hosed

 

As rightly they should

 

Maybe true but the problem is that the exhaust system was modified so there is some contributory negligence.

 

so if it were a mazdaspeed muffler installed at the dealership, would they still consider it a liability (sincie it's covered under warranty and is larger than stock)? there's a legal document floating around here regarding modifications and a dealers warranty responsibilities, you should find it and read it thoroughly.

 

in the case of the new MS exhaust which is larger then stock, they would have trimmed the exhaust shrouds in order to keep them from catching on fire.... as directed from mazda

 

I currently have a little over 24,000 miles on my car. I'm waiting on the tow truck to arrive as I type. As long as my cat is replaced and the car runs fine, I'm not too concerned with the bumper. If they replace it, great, but if not, I'll just by a used stock bumper or take this opportunity to get a body kit. As far as replacing the exhaust, its not really worth the time and effort. The connections could very well be fused at this point. Also, I'm sure it has already been noted in the system that I have a modified exhaust. I'll let you guys know how it went after i speak to the service manager.

 

I hope there aren't any warranty issues, such as Mazda attempting to void it. Having a warranty is one of the main reasons why I decided to buy a new sports car versus a used RX7 or Supra. If they attempt to do so, I don't think that i'll be keeping the car.

 

I understand Mazda's position. Theres no point for them to give your car warranty when it was really the aftermarket part that causes a problem. but sometimes, its really NOT the aftermarket part causes the problem and they still dont want to warranty it, and tries to void the whole thing.

I used to have a CEL light for "Air System Problem" , and they blame it on my Intake saying that cuz the intake changed the air flow, thats why its throwing code and went into limb mode.

Come on, after a few more days I discovered it was the Clogged Cat(failing) and thats the main reason of the cause.

they didnt break my warranty, but its just one way of showing how stupid dealerships are.

 

yeah, but he started shooting flames through his aftermarket exhaust after his cat blew. would it be a different story (as far as a warranty claim) if it were a MS product vs. any other manufacturer? the flames still would've shot through the MS exhaust and likely have caused the same damages. sorry, just playing devil's advocate...hope everything works out

 

The tips on the aftermarket cat-back are most likely larger than the OEM. This puts them closer or touching the bumper cover. If I was the dealer, I would work to get this covered under warrenty. If I was Mazda NAO, I would'nt allow it.

 

Hey guys, thanks for the input. Well, I dropped it off at the dealership this morning. The service manager came out to look at the damage. He asked me what happened and then simply said "whoa that thing got pretty hot huh?" He wrote down on the service slip to run a complete diagnostic to find out what happened and to replace the bumper. So, I'm not worried about running into any problems with the dealership, its Mazda that may object. I really do think that even the stock exhaust would have damaged the bumper to a certain extent. If you guys had only seen the parade of white hot metal shavings and flame bursts, you would understand. My exhaust tips are a chalky white from the heat, hopefully it'll buff out. They probably won't be able to service it until tomorrow because I brought it in without an appointment, so I'll have more info in a day or so.

 

I work for a race team, and one of our previous exhaust systems was just a few mm shy of touching the bumper cover and it was heat wrapped all the way back to just before the bumper, plus we run our cars wide open for long periods of time and even with all the extra heat the exhaust only caused alittle melting right around the edges of the bumper cover. I believe it would take an open flame and just a ton of heat to cause the bumper to catch on fire so im guessing the GReddy exhaust had absolutely nothing to do with the damage to the bumper cover. If the tips were smaller (stock) more heat would have probably built up in the exhaust and it might have even been worse.

 

Well, I got my car back today. It turns out that it wasn't the cat after all. One of the coils was bad, so the dealer replaced it. I swear, I don't remember the last time my car felt this good! That coil must have been going out for a while because my starts are much quicker, the throttle is way more responsive and I don't backfire on every upshift like I used to. The part that sucks is that they won't cover the bumper replacement due to the aftermarket exhaust. I know, an "I told you so" is in order, lesson learned. I was just holding out some hope that it would be covered, but now I have to replace the bumper on my own. Anyone looking to sell a stock brilliant black bumper in pretty good shape?

 

Oh, can anyone explain to me why I saw sparks in addition to the flames coming from my exhaust as a result of a bad coil. I told the dealer that I saw what looked like metal shavings bouncing along the road after exiting my exhaust. I'm puzzled by this and the dealer couldn't explain why.