Thank you in advance for any help or guidance.

I have a 2004 rx8 GTE 6 spd manual transmission with 48k miles on it. I bought it in 08/2009 with 34k miles on it. Car was in perfect condition and had it inspected by a mazda dealership to confirm.

I have never had any transmission issues with the car.

On 4/15 at 12:30 pm I took the car in for service. I had a check engine light on for a rear 02 sensor that needed to be replaced and I was going to have the tranny flushed just as preventitive maintaince. Dealership also informed me that i qualified for a MSP 16 lack of power recall.

All work was completed and I received a phone call at 3:30 on 4/15 that service was completed and I could pick up the car.

ON 4/15 at 4:40 I picked up the car, all ther service representatives were busy and the cashier picked up my info and I paid and left. Drove home and didnt notice anything.

On 4/16 8am I was backing out of my driveway and noticed when i shifted into reverse, the tranny made a strange metallic noise again from reverse to 1st gear.

ON the drive to work i noticed this problem from 1st-3rd gear and it is not noticable in the higher gears. Also when the car is below 4th gear, with the gear in drive but my foot off the gas the tranny makes a noticable sound like its struggling (like when you are jumping another car and you make the connection the engine on the charging car changes sound like its under duress).

ON 4/16 I drove it again at lunch 12pm and still noticed the issue.

on 4/16 at 2pm I called the dealership and explained that i noticed an issue with the tranny. The service rep applogized for not talking to me when i picked up the car and said that a tech had notice that the car had difficulty shifting into first and noticed the noise. He also said when they did the tranny flush that they noticed metalic peices in the fluid. He said there might be a bigger issue going on and scheduled for me to bring it in on 4/19.

on 4/19 at 12pm I brought the car back to the dealership. I spoke with the service manager and wanted to know why they noticed a problem and didnt alert me about it. She mentioned that the tech noticed a problem, but then I pointed to my service bill and on it, it states "Test drove all ok." She said that they should have contacted me that they noticed something and asked if i wanted an estimate on it. I told her that i was suprised that a dealer would work on a suspect part knowing something could be wrong with it. she applogized for not informing me of the problem. I told her that it was very sketch that they would only admit that something was wrong after i called back and complained of a problem. She said they would inspect the car and would call me back later to tell me what they found.

on 4/19 I got a call back from the dealership, they said the problem was with the earlier gears 1-3 and didnt notice the problem on the higher gears 4-6. She then said they couldnt know exactly what was wrong with it unless they dropped the tranny and took it appart and quoted me a price of 285-300 bucks for the labor. She thought the problem was with the Shiftfork and said it was from not shifting properly or from rough shifting.

I spoke to my dad who has a good understanding of cars and he did some research as well and thought it was just a bad tranny and had read of them having issues around 40k miles due to cheap shift linkage parts. He said it was absured that they dealer would accuse the problem being due to customer usage.

on 4/19 I called the service manager back and asked her to speak to Mazda regarding this issue. She said my powertrain warranty expired on 8/10/08 but since i was below the 60k miles they might be able to do something to help me. She then told me that i might have to get my records to show that i had it serviced at 30k miles. I will have to look through what the previous owner had given me to make sure it was done.

It appears that the dealership is looking for a hole in my story to remove liability from them. I just graduated college and dont have a ton of money to be making repairs on a car that has been kept in perfect condition that has only averaged 8k miles per year.

I know a little about cars but often have to talk to my dad regarding the technical aspects.

I love my rx8 (best car i have ever had!!!!) but am worried that the dealership will take advantage of my lack of knowledge and screw me.

Any advice for this situation would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

4/19 talked to the service manager today at 4:00. She said she spoke to the Mazda rep and since my warranty is more then 2 years old they would not offer any type of assistance unless they took the tranny appart and find out the exact issue. She said they would charge me 300 dollars for this and that the rep would not guarantee they would help depending on the cause. She also said that if they took the tranny appart and found that they needed to replace with a rebuilt, the 300 dollars would not go towards the cost of the
rebuilt tranny.

I told them that I would call in the morning and make a decision.

It seems like they are trying to charge me just to tell me that it needs replaced. She said in her experience Mazda would not cover the entire amount and would maybe contribute a portion.

Again I feel like they are trying to take advantage of me, I know that there have been issues with the manual 6 speed, does anyone know anything offical from Mazda????

 

were you having this issue before taking it in? How many miles were put on the test drive?

 

I was not having any issues before. I dont know how long the test drive they took it on was. nothing was listed on the sales receipt and i didnt check the milage before i took it in.

 

If it were me, I'd be having the dealership pay for the tranny, sounds as though the tech got rowdy and messed it up.

 

I am going that route, but do you know a good place in Indy that works on RX 8's? If they have lied to me this much I dont trust them to do the work correctly.

 

Not off the top of my head. Check indyrx8club.com for a recommendation.

Usually most people buy a remanned tranny to drop in rather than a rebuild on the existing. Most times it cheaper.

 

Thank you very much!

 

ON 4/19 I took the car back for Mazda to determine what was wrong with it. As I explained above they noticed a problem but were unable to determine the exact issue without taking the tranny apart.

I picked up the car on 4/20 and now notice that when I step on the clutch I am getting similiar metallic noises, but this did not exist on after my first visit. It seems like when I took it back in they attempted to correct what ever went wrong in the first place.

Dealership seems to be trying to get Mazda to take care of this, but if its determined that it was poor service then Mazda wont pay...

Any ideas?