I got my car back today!

Now, I did notice a couple things I wanted to ask you all about.

1. The car smells funny, like something's burning from the exhaust. When I first started it up, I noticed a lot of smoke from the exhaust. It's about an hour's drive home, and it still vaguely smelled funny when I got home. But the smoke went away pretty quickly. Do you guys think this was from being flooded?

2. The area on the plastic rear panel behind the wheel that was scratched up still has a couple remnants of scratches. Not really visible, but definitely there. I showed it to the manager of the body shop and he said the scratches will rub out easily, but I need to wait 'til next week and bring it back, after the paint has cured a little. So, uh, why are there scratches still if they primed and repainted the whole panel?

Oh well, I'll see what they can do with it next week. If they can't make it exactly right, they'll have to do it over. But right now, I'm just soooooo pleased to have my car again! :D

I know that feeling

happy for you

1. they (or you) flooded the engine and when you started it , it was burning off the excess fuel.

Thanks, mikeb!

And thanks, zoom44. That's what I figured. I told them about the importance of warming the car up, but I guess they didn't pay any attention. I certainly didn't flood it - haven't had it for 4 weeks.

I got mycar back this week too. It took the body shop a month to finish a job that hsouldnt have beenlonger than 2 weeks. I guessthats what happens when a brandnew car is damaged. I got lucky though and didnt smell anything from my exhaust when I got the carback. I doubt the mechanics warmed up my Rx8 while moving it around or remembered not to turn it off whilethe temp was still at the cold level so I was verysurprised that the car did not seem like it had beenflooded while they had it. Im gonna be extra carefulof all those assholes on the road now!

Glad to hear you got yours back, too, Jerky 8!

Originally posted by loco4rx8


1. The car smells funny, like something's burning from the exhaust. When I first started it up, I noticed a lot of smoke from the exhaust. It's about an hour's drive home, and it still vaguely smelled funny when I got home. But the smoke went away pretty quickly. Do you guys think this was from being flooded?

Another possiblity is they replaced part of the exhaust system. If this is the case than you new muffler may just be "burning in". This is a common on some new cars or exhaust systems.

I can not recall if you mentioned getting your muffler messed up or not, but at least there is hope they didn't flood it.