Hi, need help figuring out what's wrong with my 8. Had this problem about 4 times in total. I live in Switzerland and it's pretty cold right now, 0 - 5C in the morning. So I start the engine and it starts just fine. After the few seconds of hi rev it goes down just under 1500 rot. The after another 20-30s or so (i'm not touching anything) the "Check Engine" light starts to blink (it doesn't stay on), the engine noise becomes lower, the engine revs up and down between under 1500 rot. to above 1500 rot. and there are vibrations coming from the engine compartment.

This can continue for 2-3 minutes if I don't touch anything. The blinking CEL goes away for a few seconds then comes back for a few seconds and so on. When trying to drive the car I noticed lack of power and that the engine doesn't rev up when I press the gas pedal while the blinking light is on. There are intervals of maybe 10 seconds when the CEL goes away and the engine makes normal power, then the CEL is back and the engine is not making power again. This all takes about 5 minutes or so until the engine is warmed up and then the CEL goes away and everything is back to normal.

Second time it happened it was about 1 month after the first. I took the car to a non-Mazda garage and they put it through a diagnose computer and said no error codes had been recorded. Third time was yesterday, about 3 weeks after the second time. I drove to a Mazda dealership which is like 8-10 minutes from where I live but their computer was busy and couldn't check immediately. The light was gone by the time I got there.

Fourth time was this morning, it never happened two days in a row before. I drove straight to the Mazda dealership, didn't turn off the car and asked them to check. They run a diagnose immediately and they told me I should make an appointment and leave the car over night so they can check again when they cold start the engine the next day. I asked if the machine read something and they said yes but it was inconsistent. I don't have the exact code but they said they got an ignition related error code, but that the ignition seems to work fine.

So any idea? Rotaries are not very popular around here and my guess is that this dealership is not very experienced with this car. I don't want to be charged a lot for something that may not even work if they are just guessing. Thanks.

 

Would have been nice to know what that code was.
"Ignition related" could be spark plugs, plug wires, or coils.... which can cause that kind of activity.
Have you had any of these items replaced?
What year and how many miles do you have on the car?

 

Hi Jon,

The car had a small service at Mazda at the end of August 2008. Not sure what they changed exactly, other than the cat which was burnt. Nothing changed outside the service. The car is from September 2005, it's got 24 000 km (15 000 mi) now, it had 18 000 km (11 250 mi) when the service was done

 

With your low mileage I wouldn't think its bad coils or plug wires.
Spark plugs can usually go double the miles you've put on the car.

When you start the car can you hear any quick ticking sounds?
Similar symptoms have occurred when a spark plug wire boot came loose (its usually the front, can't recall if its the leading or trailing).
I would start with the basics and check the spark plug wires and make sure they are secured on either end.

 

Hi Jon. No abnormal sounds from what I can tell. I will check the the wires. I called the garage to ask about the code and they couldn't remember the numbers as they didn't open a service sheet yet. However they remembered that the description was "missed" or "misfire" (I'm translating from French so not sure) "cylinder number 2". Wish that my AP would work so that I can visualize the codes myself Does that help?

 

"Random Misfire on rotor/cylinder #2" ???

sCANalyser Live would be handy right now

And in more ways than one!

Cheers,
Hymee.