reckless4fun

I've posted a bit on the status of my car. Instead of having you look around for the posts I thought I would summarize here.

Bought a blue RX8 on 9/13 - 6 speed GT. I had to leave (soccer game) before everything was cleaned up so my wife got to drive the car home from Desert Mazda in Cathedral City, CA. The Check Engine light was on but she thought it was nothing since no one noticed it.

When I got back from soccer, I took a look at the car and noticed the light and called the dealer. Their take, reseat the gas cap. I did it and the light went out.

Sunday (9/14) I drove the car to a friends and on the way back the CEL came on again but it flashed for a bit before going solid. Called Dealer again, they said to bring it in. I took it to another dealer (Redlands Mazda -- because it is closer to me) to have them check it out. Its been there ever since.

They checked out the CEL and found a backfire and rear rotor fault. Mazda Tech thought that it needed different plugs so they tried that -- no luck. They then determined it needed a new engine (!?!?!). Even though they shipped the engine quickly, it is still als ow process since Mazda wants to check everything as it is disconnected. My feeling is let Corp take the car, dismantel it in their clean room and give me a new car.

I am not a happy camper I want an RX8 but not this one. Still working with Customer Service but they are not responsive. At this rate, they will have the car fixed and I will still be fighting Coporate.

Bummer huh?

Hercules

It's one of those unlucky things... even happens with piston engined cars. Hopefully the QC has been good with Mazda thus far and aside from the oil light, most of us here haven't had problems yet. Hope to see your problem resolved!

Magnesium

bummer.

Lock & Load

One of the OZ forum members has also had his motor replaced he post under the name KAS in the oz forum .

8_wannabe

Total bummer. Do you think the Lemon Law might apply? There are two ways you can get this: Repeated attempts to fix the same problem or too long with your car in the shop. If I added right, seems like they've had your car for two weeks; I'm not sure how long they need to keep it before the lemon law kicks in. This really, really sux.

mikeb

I'm sorry to hear that

reckless4fun

I need to look up the lemon law on this. I emailed KAS to get what happened to him. The thread is closed and there are no details anymore :-(

The dealer repairing the car is doing a great job helping me. They are working as fast as they can (with one certified RX8 tech). They just can't perform fast enough and that might be to my benefit on the lemon law if there is a time limit. Their tech is in class right now and is talking about my car so that might even help me.

The selling dealer is a bunch of jerks in my opinion. They actually were very rude to me today when I did a follow up call. On Friday, they promised to call Mazda and that I should give them a call this afternoon (Monday). The guy that was doing the calling is off the the next 2 days!?! This co-hort is the one that was rude (used the F word infact) and I ended up reporting him to Mazda Customer Service.

I found out today that the RX8 buy-back/$500 + free service had a cut off that I needed to purchase the car before Aug 23. So, that avenue is out for me.

I am working on getting the Mazda District Rep involved to see where that takes me. The bummer is I want a RX8, I did not care about the HP issue. I like the car, I want it -- just not the one that was originally sold to me.

Is that too much to ask? Mazda Customer Service thinks so (they refered me to the warrantee supplement which is in the car!). The repairing dealer thinks it is a reasonable request since it only has 168 miles. Stay tuned as the story unfolds. Mazda? Are you listening?

reckless4fun

Thought I would give another followup on this.

Mazda will not give me a new car but they did provide some nice concessions. The new engine apparantly came off the assembly line and was complete (wiring harnass, radiator overflow tank, alternator, etc.) and came in a crate. Never seen a complete engine like this.

I should be picking up the car tonight. Just waiting for the call. Then I get to see how clean they were in the install.

:D

1 BAD TIB

So what happend or did you make a nother post?

RX8-TX

He is either having too much fun test driving his brand new 'engine'd car, or he is still waiting for the call (Reckless, I hope its my first guess!)

8_wannabe

This is way cool. I agree a whole new car woulda been better but at least you didn't end up as the class project where a bunch of novices rebuilt your old engine. Good luck and keep posting.

Quick_lude

Should have insisted on a JDM spec ECU.. :P

reckless4fun

A Jspec would have been nice!

I picked up the car late on Friday. This weekend was busy getting it cleaned up. Dealers never do the job we'd do on our own cars...

The end result is they gave me a full max factory warrantee, paid several months of payments and gave me some options that the dealer did not have at the time of purchase. Am I happy? Sure, at the end of the day, you can't tell there is a new engine and I did not have to pay higher vehicle licenses fees that kicked back into CA on Oct 1.

I met the tech that did the work. Very nice guy. Been doing rotarys for 20+ years. Told me all about his class last week. He talked all about my car to the class. Everyone was interested from a repair stand point. They didn't like the fact that Mazda wasn't giving me a new car straight away. Oh well.

I can attach a picture if someone shows me how. I did the "Attach File" but it did not show up in the post. To I need to upload them an then use the image tag?

mikeb

congrats on the 8

Slice

WOW! Sure is nice to have the 'baby' back, eh?

My early RX-7 broke the oil line and all my oil ran out of the engine. It was 2am on a Sat night.... What an aweful smell! Anyway, had to replace the engine with a re-built one. The car was never the same. I'll never do that again.

Enjoy your reunion!

miata2rx8

so how long was from when you took the car in to when you had your new engine installed? I am in the same boat...

reckless4fun

Ouch -- for me, it took just under 3 weeks total time.

Word to the wise, get the dealer pressured into contacting Mazda Corp ASAP. I had problems at the start because Mazda Customer Service (which never helped), told me to work through the dealer. The selling dealer said I needed to deal with Mazda. See the circle here?

Things moved quickly when I called Mazda and reported the lack of satisfaction I was having at the dealer and filed a complaint. At the same time, my wife who is cooler headed called the GM, at the selling dealer and complained, telling him all the details. We were lucky that the GM was responsive and I was cussed at by one of his employees. He figured out we could make things real bad.

The repairing dealer was stuck in the middle UNTIL the district rep was brought in. The service manager at the reparing dealer was a big help getting the district rep involved.

It might help that you can refer to a guy in So. Cal. that just had a motor replaced...

BTW, How many mile are on you car and what happened exactly?

For me, it was an immediate problem. In fact, my wife who drove the car off the lot, said the light was ON when she left. From what I know now, that is a huge no no and I could press on that fact. At this point, I'm done. Have the car and am driving it.

--Brad

miata2rx8

CEL never came on. 3600 miles. One day it wouldnt start- figured it was a flooding issue, towed it to the dealer, engineers from corporate came to look, and decided they wanted my engine to analyse- bad compression in #1 rotor.

Good news is my dealer is contacting the district guy already on Monday.

Three weeks is a long long time- they put you in a rental or let you drive another rx8?

reckless4fun

The first rental was a basement Toyota Echo (had 2 options: Am/FM radio and AC). Did not think they rented cars without power windows and manual locks...

In my case, the CEL was for backfire and rear rotor fault. They changed the plugs, which did not help and then came the new motor. The car was hard to start -- the day I had to bring it to the dealer.

mikeb

mines come on twice
and I had the computer reset

reckless4fun

Did they tell you why the CEL came on the 2 times? Just like some are interested in mileage I wonder if there is some sort of correlation with ship date/ECU reflash/etc. When I first brought the car in, they wanted to change the plugs. I've heard on this list, there is a service bulletin on it now. At the time it was a brand new idea Mazda Tech was looking into. Something about running a hotter plug. I never thought to ask if the new engine has the new oil pan and different plugs… Guess something to ask ‘next time’.

When I picked up the car, the service tech that just got back from Mazda training said they talked about making sure the engine is warmed up before shutting it down. And, if for some reason you can't wait long enough to get it warm, to run it at 3000 r's for 30 seconds for the chamber to get hot.

--Brad

zoom44

that part is in the owners manual and the quick tips booklet that came with the car.

mikeb

no they didn't tell me why cel came on
they said they just reset the ecu and it went away
they also said they checked for leaks and found nothing wrong
SUCKS

reckless4fun

Leaks???? Did they tell you they were worried about leaks?


BTW, I finally figured out this aviatar thing. I took your (mikeb) idea and twisted it with a picture of the engine out of my car.

mikeb

the tech didnt know why cel came on
so they checked vaccum lines and exhaust for leaks or thats what they told me
IN the end they just reset ecu and cel stayed off