long story short, left work one morning. check engine light came on after doing a 3rd gear pull on the on ramp. stopped at the dealership later that day and they said it was throwing a "clogged cat" and "misfire" i bought the car about 2 months ago, with 50,000 miles. the car is seems to be driving just about as good as it did the day i bought it, and just about as good as any other rx8 i have drivin, so do you guys think this could just be the early signs of catalytic failure? it is being replaced under warranty and they want to run a check on the misfire again after the new cat is installed to see if that was causing the problem, chances are the mechanic said he will be replacing the plugs,wires, coils though since it has been a while, under warrenty again.

i guess what im getting at is in terms of the gas mileage im recieving. so far i have been getting around -+14 mpg. i drive 16 miles round trip to work 95% highway with 1-2 redline pulls each trip. when i do drive in the city i usually shift before 3k. would you say this is about normal, i was expecting maybe -+16mpg. i have been getting about 200 miles to a tank of gas. do you think the cat is slightly affecting the gas mileage in a negative way, although it seems the car is still driving 100% and it is not showing any signs of ACTUALLY being clogged. it is getting replaced regardless so im hoping to maybe see a slight improvement along with the new ignition system. but would you people say im hitting what should be average or do you think i could be doing a little better?

matt

 

When they say 'clogged' that also covers Dead, Burned Out, Missing It's Guts and just plain Not Working Good.

The sensor just tells the tech that there is no difference in the gas composition before and after the cat.

Nice to get a free one and new ignition bits.....if your cat failed from a misfire, you may pick up a couple of mpg, but driving to redline will get the mileage you mention.

S

 

oh ok i understand, i thought it was odd that he said it was "clogged" when the exhaust seemed to be flowing well. of course i know that driving at redline will decrease the mpg, but i do it more the less what i like to tell me girlfriend "engine reguvenation" haha. just to keep the carbon build up at a minimum.

i plan on replacing the exhaust with a header back setup up utilizing a highflow cat "to keep things legal", and upgrading the ignition to BHR, but figured i might as well take the free replacements anyways.

suprisingly, unlike most dealerships that say "we like to take care of our customers" this one actually seems a little to good to be true. they squeezed me into an appointment within the next hour of me bringing my car in, gave it a car wash with out even asking, when the mechanic sat in the car he noticed the sliding center console was not locking into place so he offered to order me a new one. under warranty. the car wash was funny because he said, they dont like dirty cars pulling off their lot. lol, i guess we will see how things go

he also jacked the car up because he said there was a slight hint of burnt clutch smell. (that would be my fault) so he tore out the transmission and checked the clutch for me to make sure everything looked fine and while they were doing that they offered me a rental car for the 2 hours my car was there!

 

They removed and replaced your trans in 2 hours? That seems like a record to me.

 

2 hours to drop and reinstall a tranny?

wow

these guys work ultra fast. (if they really did do the work)

 

sorry the 2 hours was just a guess, i wasnt actually paying attention. he did walk up with a small ashtray type thing with a bit of dust/debris and say this was out of the clutch assembly which was totally normal for the mileage of the car. i suppose he could have been lying. it is still a dealership...

 

60000 mile check engine light- is that a scheduled maintenance setting? The car is running fine...

 

wow. what happen to the common sense these days? my god.

This is ridiculous.

Go read the code fool.