Here is the continuing saga of my RX8 experience:

As you all may recall, on my return trip from Santa Barbara, at 1000 miles, the oil light came on, which prompted two trips to the dealer before they discovered the oil pan problem at 2000 miles, about which I posted here.

Another 450 miles later, no oil light. Hooray!

HOWEVER, I decided to take the car for a drive last Friday, after letting it set for a few days. I get in, start it up, and try to throw the six-speed into reverse...I missed, and then missed again. "OK, it's only been a week" I think, I couldn't have forgotten how to drive this thing that quickly. Another attempt yields reverse, and I am out on the road and driving away.

A short time later, while driving down the freeway, I make the shift from fifth to sixth...and miss, and miss again. "OK" I think, "Let's go back to fifth." No go. Meanwhile the car is slowing, and people are starting to honk as they go by. Finally, I find fourth, and am getting very frustrated with myself for acting like an amateur.

A short time later, I'm sitting at a light. The light turns green, and the car WILL NOT go into first gear! Pumping the clutch a couple of times finally yields the gear, but UH OH, I now know that I have a serious problem.

Immediatley, I limped the car home, called Mazda service, and and had them bring a flatbed to take the car to the dealership, 90 miles away.

The service center investigates, and LOW AND BEHOLD, the pressure plate bolts have backed their way out of the flywheel!

Now I have never heard of this before, and apparently, neither had Mazda, because the report by the dealership prompted a visit by two engineers from the RX8 factory. After pouring over the car for a few hours and taking notes, the engineers left, telling the dealership to replace the entire clutch assembly, clutch, pressure plate, flywheel, everything.

The clutch assembly on the RX8 is apparently assembled by a machine at the factory, so this instance is very bewildering and disturbing to the engineers at Mazda. SOOOO, all you six-speed drivers, keep an eye on your clutch pedals, and I'll keep you all posted if I hear anything else on this.

Dean Rudenauer

that freking sucks...

is it possible that one of the people that did the service on your car accidentaly loosened the bolts and forgot to tighten them back in?
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Let me get this right: two engineers from the Hiroshima factory flew over to see your car? Is that correct?

You don't accidentally mess with the pressure plate bolts - you typically would have to pull the tranny to get to them :).

Couple of potential reasons to the problem -

1. They were undertorqued at the factory.

2. They didn't use a thread locking compound, or didn't use the right thread locking compound on the bolts.

Hopefully the '8s transmission is like the 3rd gen RX-7's - you can access the pressure plate bolts by removing an access panel at the bottom of the transmission. If this is a production line problem, and they need to recall, that's VERY easy to fix. Put car on lift, remove inspection plate, remove old bolts, dope new ones with thread locking compound, torque to spec, done. That would be a 10 minute job, and could be done during an oil change.

Let's hope this doesn't turn into a bigger problem than it sounds!

I'm glad Mazda flew out some techs to look at the problem first hand - that shows they're really focusing on the car. Much better than having some dumbass answer from the dealer!

Dale

Isn't it kind of believed that a replaced clutch will never be as good (as far as longevity goes) as a factory installed clutch? I know I've heard this but don't know if there is any validity to it. I think at this point I would be asking for a new car or some sort of reciprication.

Ike

Originally posted by Lensman
Let me get this right: two engineers from the Hiroshima factory flew over to see your car? Is that correct? no they were from mazda in irvine california. they are from japan originally buth they are 4 rx8 experts in irvine that go to dealers when there is a major problem. we had all 4 of them here for 2 days looking at a car we had here. i couldnt understand a word they said they only talk japanese. it was probably the same guys though.

Ibfubar do you know the prob that they were looking at when they were at your place?

Talking about bad lucks, guess they come in packages -- one follow another. Hope everything work out fine.

Rudenauer thanks for keeping us informed ,sorry to hear about your problems with your car i hope you get your ride back soon .

I believe the early s2000 also had a problem with the clutch and a lot of them were replaced , i suppose thats the price some of us will have to pay for being the 1st owners of the rx8 .

Originally posted by zoom44
Ibfubar do you know the prob that they were looking at when they were at your place? yeah. it was for rough idle/missing

tried to post this before...comp timed out or something...
anyway...

rude, how many miles did you say you have on your 8?
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I put a lot of miles on this car right up front. I'm hoping to keep them down in the future. I'd like to have the wife drive it to work (3 miles round trip) during the week, but being new to manuals, she is afraid to drive it, until all the kinks are worked out.

Frankly, I'm glad she thinks like this. Because, if it had been my wife and not me driving the car when the latest incident happened on the freeway, I might have been out one wife and one new car (but the wife said that at least I'd be set for life, "not the point" said I...she says she loves me...)

Anyway, if I can get 2000 trouble-free miles out of it, I want her to start driving it.

Originally posted by Rudenauer

because the report by the dealership prompted a visit by two engineers from the RX8 factory.


The RX-8 is entirely engineered and assembled in Japan and imported to the U.S.. Are you saying they have factories here in the US that assemble RX-8's??

Originally posted by ibfubar2000
no they were from mazda in irvine california. they are from japan originally buth they are 4 rx8 experts in irvine that go to dealers when there is a major problem. we had all 4 of them here for 2 days looking at a car we had here. i couldnt understand a word they said they only talk japanese. it was probably the same guys though.


Honestly, I didn't know whether they came from Japan or what, until I saw Ibfubar's post above.

It's not that surprising that Mazda would fly in engineers from Japan to look at the car.

I work for a company that develops products in the US and then ships the volume manufacturing oversees. If the oversees plant ran into a serious problem, we would send people who developed the manufacturing process across the world to help solve the issue.

Originally posted by ibfubar2000
yeah. it was for rough idle/missing

Any details on what they did to fix this problem?? I took my Rx-8 in for the same problem and they came back and told me that it had fouled up plugs because I wasn't warming it up properly (I believe I was) so I started making absolutly sure I warmed it up properly and then some when I moved it "short distances" and the CEL has come back on twice since then. I would like to go back to the dealership with the best weapon in hand....... INFORMATION :D

Thanx in advance ibfubar,
IGoZmZm

There's no reason I can think of that a stock factory-installed clutch is better than an aftermarket-installed clutch. A clutch is a VERY simple device - as long as the friction material is of good quality, and the pressure plate is a sound design, it will be just fine. It's not like they're replacing it with a bobo parts store clutch or anything!

Dale