8XR RAC

Hello, I have an '07 with 43K miles, no mods, regular Mazda service and oil changes.
Recently the car began stalling out at stops and occasionally would be extremely slow to accelerate. I took it to the dealer thinking it would be a simple fix and they told me I needed to replace the coils, plugs, and wires, replace the throttle body, and replace the coolant bottle. Overall they wanted $2,600. Any ideas as to what could have caused all this damage when the car only has 43k miles on it? The dealer acted as if this were normal maintenance. I apologize in advance if this has been covered on another thread. I searched for quite a while and couldn't find anything quite the same.

Footman

iTrader: (2)

if it had regular servicing, it would have had its spark plugs changed at 56,000km.

Probably do coils and wires and run a bottle of seafoam into your car.

No reason to change throttle body.

8XR RAC

Thanks a lot. I'll check out the DIY for the coils and the wires and see if it's something I can do on my own.

dirkyd3rk

Before you spend all that money for coils, plugs etc maybe you should stop by mazda and get a compression test; Its like $100 at my dealer, just to be on the safe side. Then again 43k sounds about right when coils/plugs need to be changed (based on what I read around here). That is typical service prices at dealer for rx8's man. I owned my car since 2009 and walking in to pay over 1500 is normal to them lol. Luckily if you get really cool with a service rep they try to put everything on warranty (if you still have one) some kid of way. My service rep at the dealer figured out how to put my coils on warranty twice already and that 1600 service ended up around 400. Good luck

8XR RAC

Unfortunately I don't have a warranty on the car. No way I can afford to pay the dealer that much regularly. I'm going to have to either figure out how to fix it myself or give up on it. Thanks for the advice.

shazy

how the hell does that all come out to 2600$...
coils are 100$ total
same for plugs
coolant bottle not more than like 80$
and wires are like 60$
seriously, go buy them all yourself and just get a local garage to do it.
you can do it if you want it's pretty simple.
Btw, check to see if your CAT is glowing after a long drive.
it's right under the car if you don't know wat it is lol

shazy

the catalytic converter can cause slow acceleration and could might cause the stalling but I'm not sure on that one.
you need to do the maintenance and I really have no idea how they could come with such a huge number... but stop going to that dealer lmao
stealerships ftl

monchie

I'm having the same issue as well, specially when the temperature hits above 100 degrees. It runs fine when the temperature is under 100 degrees. Anyway, i was planning to change my coils, plugs, and wires soon.

lycanthrope

i think this is covered somewhere else but it can be hard to find sometimes. i had something like this happen to me around a month ago. after an autocross at a particularly harsh lot the car ran like crap then started stalling. long story short the stock wires were getting old and one had come loose enough to not make a good connection. i could fix it by pushing it back on the plug but they needed to be changed. i did all the plugs coils and wires myself for pretty cheap. the car runs great now. keep in mind my car threw a misfire cel and i dont think i remember you saying if yours did. hope everything works out well for you.

ShinkaEvo

iTrader: (3)

Starts from replacing coils, plugs, and wires and seaform the engine, then go from there.
I had similar issue before I seaform my engine, it was around 45k miles.
After cleaning it, it runs fine, but don't do it at your garage with compact neighbors, find an open space if you can. :p

coils, plus and wires should be less than 500, even without looking for good deals, or u can just upgrade to BHR kit. :P Seaform is about $10.

8XR RAC

Any idea why the dealership wanted to replace the throttle body? From everything I've read, this seems completely unnecessary.

monchie

Seems like they always want you to believe on whatever they say. Anyway, ask them why, and is it necessary? See what they say.

8XR RAC

The dealer said that, "the throttle body is in internal failure and is not opening and closing as designed." I couldn't find anyone with a similar problem on the forum.

iRX-8

Might want to check some of the threads from Vyndictive. I believe he had issues with his throttle body and was able to take it apart and fix it. The job looked rather involved so I have never attempted it myself.

RIP IT!

Where are you located? If you let us know there are many good rotary shops around the country who can help you and not rip off your arms and beat you with them like the dealership is trying to pull off.

> MAO <

Mazurfer

Probably if at all, the throttle butterfly(?) valve is sticky. It can be cleaned. When you take the accordian tube off, see it it looks a little gummy/dirty. If so clean it.

I would also recommend you clean the ESS(just wipe it down) and clean the MAF(with MAF cleaner), these are two easy things you can do, but yes..........it's probably time for coils/plugs/wires.

Here's the ESS, you can actually just wipe it off with a rag if you can reach it, or unplug/bolt it and clean it with brake cleaner and or contact cleaner. It's magnetic, so you can hurt it by touching it.
Be careful with the MAF though, don't touch it, just spray it down real good with contact cleaner or MAF cleaner ONLY, let it dry and re-install.
DO NOT use brake cleaner on the MAF!!!!!

Probably will want to do the 20 brake pedal reset after this. Turn the car to "on", but don't start it. Pump the brake pedal lightly but very fast until the oil gauge needle sweeps right and then left. turn the car off and wait a good 10 seconds. Then start as normal. This resets the ESS profile.







Oh..............Try this site as one example if you want to stay OEM for coils/plugs/wires.

http://www.mazmart.com/ItemDetail.aspx?id=1903

8XR RAC

Thanks again for all the replies. Bought the coils, wires, and plugs and replaced them myself. The plugs were kind of a pain to get to, but the whole job took me under an hour and I saved thousands by doing it myself. CEL is gone and the car is running well. Still getting some vibration at idle, but I'll try Mazurfer's recommendations and see if that helps. I really appreciate all the help, the DIYs on the forum are very helpful.

Mazurfer

Good deal!
Did you go through the wheel well? That's really the easiest way, just take the damn wheel off.
Still like to see you clean the ESS and MAF, but see above for that..............Don't use brake cleaner on the MAF, buy a can of MAF cleaner, you will need it sooner or later.

Also, you might wanna search for motor mounts, if you are idling rough after the above two things. Bad motor mounts can cause vibration at idle. Search and you will see some pics of where they are and how to look for cracks in them.



But......................glad it's running better!!!!!