i drive the hell out of my car even though its an auto, so i expected this kinda stuff to happen. might as well have it break down now than after the warranty expires.

 

I was kind to my car. I took very good care of it, no different from my other cars thru the years. Just changing the fluid doesn't change the problem. If it's low thats 1 thing but just replacing the fluid isn't a fix all. It was something internal.

 

By not babying itIm saying I was havingfun w/this engine. Not necessarily flooring it everychance I got - but definitely little spurts here and there. On average Id say I was hitting redline about 5 times a day - somedays more than that and somedays less. Howeverwhen driving on the highway - which was usually just on weekends - I hit 7500 RPM a lot more thanks to the additional open road. Took itin for service every 3000 miles.

Overall Im assuming I drove my automatic harder than the average automatic owner does but Im prettysure there are atleast a handful of automatic owners out there driving in a similar fashion.

EDIT -- See? mmmdowning didnt even drive theway I did andyet still had the problem. LikeI said before hopefully -- for Mazdas sake -- our cases are rare otherwisethats going to be one bitch of a recall.

 

sohcpunk - I thinkI misread what youwere talking about above. You saidthat youre feeling some vibration in reverse or drive that goes away once you give it gas. Thats actually a different problem - not the same as this - and a lotof people are having that idle vibration problem (both automatic and manual owners).

The problemI wastalking about is whenever I put it into D theres actually a delay - you can feel that the gear doesnt instantly catch and move the car forward. Another thing I could do inorder to prove the tranny slipping was to downshift from 4th to 2nd at around 50 - 60 mph. Back when I firsthad the car there it would smoothly shift and this was almost unnoticeable. Now the tranny was not only taking a couple seconds to down shift - but when it finally did drop into 2nd it would violently ram the car forward and the DSC lights would flash. This felt almost like being rear ended or likeI just activated some boost.

Basically the problem youre looking for is whether theres a delay in the cars movement after you shift into drive. With mine almost 3 or 4 seconds would pass before it finally moved forward from drive.

 

It's really weird because I only get the vibration when i depress the brake and either shift it into D or R. If I were to leave it in N. I would not get that vibration. That is why I think there is something wrong with the transmission.

 

When you brake-torque the car (which you are doing while idling in drive or reverse with your foot on the brake), you are putting a torque on the drivetrain. While in neutral, the drivetrain is not loaded at all. This means that you cannot directly compare the NVH characteristics of the car in both conditions. All cars will have more vibration while brake-torquing as opposed to the unloaded condition that exists in neutral.

Try this to help diagnose the problem: while in park, put your LEFT foot on the brake pedal. Shift into drive (or reverse) while keeping your left foot on the brake pedal. Use your right foot to apply VERY light throttle to slowly ramp the engine speed up to about 2000 RPM. Try to find ranges of engine speed where the noise and vibration in the cabin increases substantially. If what you hear and feel is similar to the vibration you are describing in your previous posts, you have nothing to worry about. The powertrain excitation is simply setting off various resonances in the vehicle, which could include exhaust modes, body structural modes, acoustic resonances of the cabin, etc. This phenomenon exists in every car, some worse than others.

Note: don't brake-torque the car for an extended period of time as you could overheat the transmission fluid!

 

I drive an automatic 8 and I have had it Jerk on me when quickly doing a three point turn. (forward, reverse, forward shift) I'm guesing this is because of the delay the transmission needs to change the gears and I am already pressing the gas. So when the gear finally engages I get jerked. Don't know what to do or think about this. I am planning on having this car for the LONG haul. ~10 years if I can get to it. I hope the tranny has that kind of life in it! Interesting thread!

 

oka, okay - after reading all the posts, it seems my AT is doing the exact same thing. Could this not be how our tranmissions perform? I have got myself into the habit of waiting a few seconds ( after the vibration ) before switching back to drive. I have 16K miles on the car ( purchased in July 03 ) so could this also be a problem with earlier RX-8's?

This thread should be a sticky if more owners complain.

Wayne

 

Thatsthe whole point. The automatic transmission SHOULDNT have any friggin delay to change gears especially when theyre this new. I wasjust in an automatic rental Protege whilethe dealership was waiting for the tranny on my Rx8 and that Protege had well over 35000 miles on it and no delays at all. I dontknow why people are tryingto pass this off as normal b/c its morethan evident that its not supposed to behavelike this.

 

i think i see a bigger issue here than just the rx8 automatic tranny. If i am not mistaken, the 4 speed auto tranny is a ford-drop-in. The ford explorer, which would likely use a beefed up version of this 4 speed auto, has the exact same problem. In fact, there was a news report on TV about it. There is a class action lawsuit being filed about this problem. It would be really terrible if every car equiped with a ford 4-speed auto had this problem. Also, this problem seems to only be happening in certain build times in 2004.

i doubt this is just a little coencidence.

 

It doesn't sound normal to me. I think you guys should get it fixed. It doesn't do any good to let Mazda get away with providing crappy customer service. You have to complain, you have to be persistent, and hopefully you're making it easier for the next person who comes along with the same problem.

 

Wow, finally... I found others with this same problem. My AT is now at about 15k miles, and its been doing this for almost 7k miles. I've got most of the problems listed above (jerky shifting, hesitant going into gear and such). I always thought my K&N intake was to blame, so i was gonna take it out this weekend. What should i do? I've mentioned this before to the dealer and he just dismissed it. I love my car and i dont want to get rid of it, but it looks like the problem is getting worse.


oh yea...first post...................woo hoo

 

i am guessing this jerking problem has to do with all the 4AT on mazda cars... i drove my cousins Mazda3 and i was parrallel parking... this requires shifting into reverse and forware a few times depening on ur skills... welll i notice the jerking too.... specially shifting from forward to reverse and gas it... the car vibs and jerks a little... weird... and i THOUGHT i scrwed up my cousin's new car......

 

I did what you said. I depressed the brake pedal with my left foot and engaged it into D, the virbration starts. I then give it a little gas to 2k and it goes away, then i let off the gas and the vibration comes back on. What could this be?? I have 20k on my car and I am getting this heavy vibration for the past 2k

 

No, the current generation Explorer/Moutaineer has the 5R55S 5-speed automatic transmission. This is NOT the transmission used in the 2004 RX-8. I'm not sure what the 2005 RX-8 uses, however.

As I said before, this is a common problem with some automatic transmissions. I'm not saying it's acceptable, just that a certain percentage of transmissions will develop the problem. The problem mentioned about the 5R55S transmissions in the Explorer/Mountaineer is related to the wrong transmission fluid being used at the assembly plant, according to the articles I read. Other causes of this problem could be bad pressure control solenoids or damaged clutches.

 

Unfortunately, I would need sit in the car myself to get an idea of what the problem might be. I think it's a good sign that the vibration goes away when you apply more throttle. That suggests to me that it's probably just a rough idle that's transmitting energy to the body through the engine and transmission mounts and through the exhaust hangers. The mounts might have become bound up during the assembly process, which would effectively increase their stiffness.

Here is what I suggest: try to sit in another auto RX-8 and see if it has the same problem. If so, it's likely that you are just unsatisfied with the idle NVH characteristics of the vehicle and there's nothing much you can do. If the other RX-8 feels better to you, you should ask the dealer to service your car. There is probably a service procedure to neutralize the mounts, which might help improve idle NVH. This type of work would be covered under warranty.

 

After the M Flash, my auto tranny does not jerk anymore. It is smooth but I noticed that the 2nd gear does not shift to 3rd gear until about 6000 RPM most of the time when engine is still warmin up. Maybe it's learnt my driving habit of driving the car hard to milk low end torque. Anyway, when the engine warms up, the auto tranny shifts more smoothly. I'm at 2100 miles and no tranny delays yet ... I hope delays dont happen to my tranny. Good luck to all of you in fixin this bug.

 

I have a quickquestion slightly off topic. Now that I have my car back w/the new tranny my memory aboutthe interior is a little sketchy since I havent had the car for upwards of 2weeks . Whenyou turn on the headlights and the interior lights up -- did anythingever light up downby middle panel around the shifter (like maybe the red M and + and - signs) or was it always dark down there? I just wantto be sure that the dealership didnt forget to connect anything b/c lasttime I hadsomething big done at a dealership they disconnected a fuse below the steering wheel that my amp was using to turn on

 

The P,R,N,D and the M light up. The "-" and "+" are painted on the housing.

 

so for the for all you up there having problems with your AT trannys what year and month is your car and have you had the "M" flash???

 

****! Iknew something didnt look right.

zoom zoom- I got my car at the end of August 2003 and yes itwas also M flashed but the problemstarted to occur way before the M flash was even out

 

Mine was bought in October 13, 2003. Yes it had the M flash done.

 

My tranny seems to be doing the same thing as the previous replys when it comes to taking a moment to shift from drive to reverse and such. One thing that the got my concern this morning was that after I left the house I got my car up to about 35mph (please keep in mind that my engine had not yet warmed up) and let off the gas to coast down a hill and at the time my indicator was reading 2nd gear but as soon as I let off the gas the tranmission shifted quickly to 4th. When I pressed the gas to accelerate it started bucking like a bronco and would not downshift until a let off and pressed the pedal again. Has anyone else experienced this? Also after the engine is warm and I am just cruising down the road and no matter what speed I am going as long as it is above 35 the transmission will shift to 4th when it should stay in 2nd or maybe even 3rd? I do not worry so much about it when I am doing 60mhp or so but most of my driving is all stop and go and I rarely get to drive above 50mph when commuting to and from work. In my opinion a sports car should not behave worse than a pinto when it comes to transmissions.

 

An update since I sold the RX8. I just recieved a questionaire from Mazda on the Towing of the car. I laughed. Some poor soul that bought the car had troubles.

Then just last week I recieved a questionaire on the quality of the car, the features, styling, etc....

But never a single question about the dealerships service or about HQ and there inability to do the right thing.

 

I had a service manager at a multi-line dealer flat out in anger argue with me about not having time to address a technical service bulletin. I asked that the SB be addressed on several trips to the local dealer that I purchased the car from, but he fired off at me when I called him on why he didn't perform the SB that clearly stated to update the EPROM when the automobile was in for regular maintenance or warranty work. He said and I quote " I don't have time to address every SB that come into the dealership since we have multiple brands, I don't have time to look into them". I then replied as to the requirement of the SB and highlighted the paper prior to arriving at the dealership and showed the text to him. He said "if I address every problem someone printed off of the internet he would never get done". I replied very angrily, you are required to perform this mod as per Mazda instruction, and I was hot and in his face at that point for flat out arguing the point of not having the time to look into a question that I had posed and not gotten a straight answer to after several visits and time off from work to have addressed. I headed straight to find the owner of the company who I know would not have his senior manager yelling and screaming at customers when in fact he hadn't even looked into the SB ever and said he left it up to the techs to make the call. I then questioned the tech I had known for yeans and he said the SM (same guy) wouldn't let him perform the SB. I was in the roof I was so mad at this guy. The owner out of the company at this point, I went to gather my auto and come back later with a well written complaint, was stopped by the SM and he had a print out of the required recalls on my car, which by the way were none, and said "see there isn't any thing on here about the need for your car to have this SB". I then reintroduced the SB printed from the Mazda SB page and indicated that every car manufactured prior to this date or SN required this update, REGARDLESS! He was miffed and muttled off instructing the tech to update the car and sheepishly apologized as he knew I was hot and wasn't going back down from my fight, when I knew he was wrong.
The thing that pissed me off the most, He was willing to argue a point, flat out get into a yelling contest right there in front of the technicians, about something that he knew nothing about, had not even investigated to see the validity of my claim, but was willing to alienate a customer right there. Professional manager material, I think not, not even close to being a leader of techs.

Happy to say we have never experienced the hard starting many have, but we only have about 2000 miles on our car after nearly a year. Just a fun car for us not a daily driver.