hello everyone,

i drive an AT 2004 RX8. im driving on the highway and i place the vehicle in manual mode and shift from 4th gear to 3rd gear, the rpms go up and i get the speed desired. without thinking i shift down again from 3rd to 2nd. i dont notice anything and at this point i am on a long exit ramp. im going about 62 miles per hour in 2nd gear, i look down and notice the rpms stuck on 6 and in 2nd gear. i hear a loud clicking noise from the engine and i quickly put it 3rd gear.

from this point on the vehicle had no pick up what so ever. driving it in automatic felt like i was in 4th gear the whole time. hardley any pick up in the 0-50mph range. 1st gear revs nice but as soon as it gets to 2nd it would not rev past 3 or 4 rpms and i would have to floor it as the rpms and mph slowly climbed. 3rd and 4th gear is fine. when i parked the car was shaking violently and making a 'glub glub' noise. i turn it off and it has trouble starting again. it sits for about 6 hours, i come back to the car and turn it on and it drives normal.

i stopped driving it in manual mode and today as i was driving to get on the highway, when i got to about 40-50mph the car would not rev past 4 or 5 rpms and i heard that clicking sound again. i let go of the gas and the auto changes gears on it owns and then it was fine.

does anyone know what i did to my engine or transmission? i would like to get it looked at as soon as possible but i dont know how to explain what i did and im worried the dealership wont honor a warranty because of my ignorance.

any help is greatly appreciated. thanks in advance!

 

where do you live???

more than likley the motor is gone.... and the auto trans controls all it will not let you blow it up..

sorry for you..

beers

 

Either that or the tranny fell out. Not literally, but it could be shot.

 

Could be something as simple as predetonation. If the vehicle senses predetonation, timing will retard to protect the engine and you will feel it as sudden loss of power. The ticking sound was most likely predetonation.

 

no such thing as predotonation.... it is detonation or pre ignition....

beers

 

Thanks Swoope, you are correct! But you get my point...

 

oh man that sucks

 

so what should i tell the dealership? i already took it once to get looked at, i told them it was sluggish on some gears, they drove it and said it was fine.

this happened 3 weeks ago. ive been driving 44 miles to work and back and i have had no problems. it was just the time i put it in 2nd going 60 and the other day when i was accelerating to get on the highway that i heard the clicking and the halt at around 5 rpms. after that happened the car was fine.

will the dealership claim my mistake as abuse and void the warranty from mazda? how do i get them to check the inside of the engine and transmission?

 

no problem

funny the starter of this thread has had no comment... i wonder???? 1 st post and motor blew up...

beers

 

ah there you are... you cannot abuse a car with an automatec... other than reving to 7 k and pulling it into gear...

as to the dealer ship you could try another...

you did not answer the where you are ?

beers

 

the motor didnt blow up, atleast i hope not! its running fine, just a little funny in one instance after the incident. i was hoping someone here might know something technical that might be wrong with the car so i can maybe bring it up to the dealer.

going to another dealer wont solve the problem, they'll just do the same: test drive it and say its fine unless i give more specifics.

any ideas on what might be messed up with the car more specifically? im sure what i did would mess something up right guys? what i dont get is the car drives fine sometimes but doing that to a car would clearly mess it up!

please help. again, thanks in advance!

 

if you could tell me what state you car is in, i might be able to give you some info. but i am not going to beg to help you...

beers

 

alright now that we cleared that up... there is a service bulliten out somewhere that kinda sounds like what happened to you except for the clicking sound...

the fuzzy logic in the auto gets confused when going from auto to manual mode or back...

i will return to normal after restart... the clicking sound at 5k rpm sounds like i could be detonation...

what flash is your car on??

i will try to find the service bltn to look at, no promises it was not where i thought it was...

give me a few minutes..

beers

 

what flash is my car on? i dont understand.

i clearly did something wrong by driving at 62mph in 2nd gear though right? what sort of damage could i have done.

thanks for helping me out swoope!

 

no i dont think so. if you car could not handle shifting down into second at 62 i would not have done it.

do you have an owners manual??? reading it is a good start... it will have the shift points for the trans in it...

flash is an ecu upgrade...

my guess is you got this used???? if so have the dealer check to make sure all recalls are done... that will bring you up to the r flash...

might also take the time to read some of the stickys at the top of each forum..

beers

 

might start here.

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-faq-9/faq-update-63747/

beers

 

thanks for all the information.

i still cant find out what could be wrong with the car.

thanks for your help swoope, ill keep busy reading this and wait and see if anyone might have any other thoughts.

 

i am working on the service bulliten.... i have pms out to the two people that will know where it is...

will pm you the info if i find it..

beers

 

Swoope,

Wouldn't the ECU put a Pending Code to be pulled if it had to retard the timing due to Pre Ignition?

 

no,
you will get a flashing cel on a missfire..


ecu will retard timing on detonation.. if it cannot retard enough.. but no cel. you hear it... it does not sound like click click.... marbles in a coffee can is the best i have heard it described...

beers

 

might read this again i had to edit... first was not clear...

beers

 

here is the post i was taking about... that took some work..

https://www.rx8club.com/showpost.php...50&postcount=1

as to you problem... you are going to have to find away to duplicate it...

i would suggest get it hot and cruise at light throttle for about an hour and see if it happens again...

beers

 

the 2nd time it happend was after cruising for abotu 45minutes. thats a very interesting and good find!

thanks a bunch swoope. ill try and do what you said, drive around for an hour or so and try to duplicate the symptoms. after that should i do take the dealership tech on a test drive with me and show him what its doing?

thanks again!

 

yes,
and see if you can get a master tech to go for the ride... it makes the process faster..

beers

 

Hate to break it to you, but you CAN blow your engine by what you just did.

My cousin did the same thing to his 300M and had to have the whole engine and tranny replaced.