gmillonida

Hello. To start things off lets start with my car. It is a 2005 Mazda RX-8 in Titanium Grey. I bought the car after my first deployment to Iraq in January of 2005. All recalls were done along with regularly scheduled routine maintenance. The car has 96K miles on it.

Since owning it the car has flooded twice in which I had to tow it to the dealership. Since the first time it flooded, its had somewhat of a hard start. When I took the car in to get an oil change, upon leaving i asked the tech guy if they noticed the hard start and he said, "Yes thats normal" and talked about the whole before you turn off the ignition you want to rev it up real high then shut it off. Being the uneducated man that I am in regards to mechanical things I just took his word. After a while I got tired of the whole car and the "high maintenance it was to keep it, ie, if you go get gas you gotta let the car cool down before trying to turn it on again otherwise, it just keeps cranking and cranking and cranking and doesnt start. I found a new job in Stockton and I was getting ready to get a new car but my mom said no ill get your car fixed as a congratulations towards finally getting another decent job. So she brought it in with the complaint of a hard start. It even says on the paperwork that the car was brought in with complaints of a hard start and all they did was change the spark plugs out and removed some oily substance. No compression test was made. The hard start was still there. After my mom got the car back and the hard start was still there I went back to what that guy told me and said see I told you the guy i talked to said it was normal.

I did not want to sell the car but I just couldn't keep up with it and just didnt want to deal with it anymore. So I decided sell the car. Alot of people liked it and looked at it but was wondering about that hard start which turned them off completely. There was a gentleman who wanted to buy my car. He was looking at 4 others that same day and he liked mine the best due to the cleanliness of it and the shine the paint still had. But, like the others interested in my car, he turned away due to the hard start. The following sunday I decided maybe I really did need to get that looked at. I decided this time to stay away from the dealership and went with a private rotary specialist mechanic shop. Finding that place is what got me on this forum. Apparently a compression test must be done whenever a customer brings in a car with a complaint about start up issues.

Now the issue at hand is because the warranty expired January 31, 2013 they will not cover the motor swap. Even tho I have proof that compression tests weren't done on the car. The Mazda representative that I talked to said Mazda will do nothing to work with you and that any gripes I had would have to be dealt with between you and the dealership that did the service on your vehicle. My last issue with the dealership was at 92K miles and it is currently at 96K miles which is only 4K more miles than before. The 92K service was done in 2011. I don't know what to do anymore. I did not even know about this whole extended warranty thing until it was too late.

Should I just bite the bullet and pony up the cash for a swap? Should i sue the dealership that set me up for failure? Any tips or advice would help greatly.

Thank You

kevinande

In my opinion it would be a waste of time to attempt to sue the dealership because they did not perform a compression test. It is up to you as the owner to request one if you feel you need it. Any Service advisor worth half his weight would have recommended one, but that is mute at this point. The money you would most likely waste on an attourney would be better served towards another engine for your 8 or towards a down payment on a new vehicle.

They are right I. The fact that a warrant is effective for a certain length of time or a certain mileage. Once it's done it's done. You can explain the situation to Mazda and maybe they will accommodate you, but I doubt it. The worse that can happen is they say no. The problem with suing is that you would have to prove that the dealership attempted to mislead you on purpose, which is not easy to do. You can believe they already have attorneys in place for situations such as these. I'm sure there are lawyers that will happily take your money, but as I said, I think it's a waste. Good luck with whichever you decide.

simonmd

If only youd simply Googled something like "RX8 wont start when warm", you would have found a TON of hits from RX8 stes all around the world telling you exactly what the problem was. The 'hot start' issue is one of the most widely recognised symptoms of an engine with very poor compression. This is simply because once warm, like when you heat any substance, the entire engine housings, etc. expand, reducing the compression to a point where it wont fire. Once cold, it contracts to a point where you can just get it going.

Unfortunately, I have a sneaky feeling that the Mazda mechanics MUST have recognised this but saw that your car was only a couple of thousand miles and a month or two away from warrenty expiry so decided to fob you off, no doubt under instructions from management, knowing soon it would be your problem. This is just MY take on why they did what they did what they did but its a simple fact that a car that wont start when hot is 90% certain to have compression issues.

Unfortunately, now you have no proof that it was low before the warranty expired, youre on your own.

ken-x8

It's a 2005 that you bought in 2005. Are you the original owner? Did you ever get the notice of the extended engine warranty?

Lawyers will generally provide an initial consultation for free, so if you have the time it's worth talking to one. (As a veteran, are you entitled to any kind of legal aid? Or is that just for active duty?) If you don't have the extended warranty and related service bulletins, they are on this site. I presume you have the dated dealer receipts from when you brought your car in with the hard start symptoms, and the paperwork showing when you bought the car. Gather all of that, then see if a lawyer thinks you have something to work with. If he/she does, and will take this on a contingency, go ahead. If he/she says forget it, or offers to work on an hourly basis, then bite the bullet and get it fixed on your own.

Ken

gmillonida

Thanks for the advice guys. I don't remember getting a notice that they did extend the warranty. But I do have all the paperwork with symptoms. I'll gather everything up and see what Happens.

gmillonida

Update:
I got mazda to cover the engine. I have to cover the labor and other miscellaneous parts that comes with the swap. I would say good deal. Total labor and extra parts is going to come out to about 2400. Does that sound about right?

j9fd3s

yep, its 10-14 hours of labor, at whatever rate, plus a clutch, spark plugs, coils, and other misc stuff.