cliffkemp

My rx8 is not wanting to do anything. It used to be just a bad response if you hit the throttle fast and a slightly leaking radiator (never ran hot). Under warranty, many years ago, the fuse box was replaced and the motor was replaced at around 70k miles.

Now, the car sits in my yard and has not moved in months. Here are the issues.

The accelerator pedal and/or the throttle-body is not working correctly so, it used to be hard to start at times and was throwing codes for random things like 02 sensors and things of that nature.

Now, it will not even turn over. (may be the ignition switch but, is weird how all this happened at once)

The overhead lights are not working when you open the door.

The key functions are not working but the light flashes and tried the least used key and nothing, no open, no trunk, no panic, and no locking.

The radio or anything in the display comes on, nothing. The display does not even come on. The lighter does not work and the room fuse is good as, the gauges work. The fuel is at 1/4 tank.

The battery is good as I used it to start another car today. The connection is good. The fuses are good as I pulled them all today and check them in another known working car.

The relays are good as, I checked that 12 volts are getting to the fuses and relays by pulling them all and using a multimeter. All are getting nearly 12.5v and good. I, even, swapped some of the relays and tried starting the car again and nothing.

The car does not even turn over. It does not do anything at all. Every fuse and relay, that I can see and know about, are all working.

When you turn the ignition key, the first slot does the accessories but, as above, no radio and all. The gauge needles sweep right then back to left (never did before).

Before all this, the car started but not easy due to the throttle body/accelerator pedal not working correctly. I know this because when you have the hoses off, you can push the pedal down and the butterfly would not start to open til you pushed it about 20% or so down and explains the hesitation when it was running.

Is there anything I am missing to try to get the car to turn over?

Is this being caused by the door switch? I cannot reprogram my key. Both of my keys are good but, will not do anything.

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

So you checked all fuses. Main fuse too? It's the 120 amp one on the side of the fuse panel

Checked relays

Definitely sounds like an electrical issue

Once you get the power issue figured out the throttle issue sounds like our could be an OMP limp mode issue

Is your immobilizer light flashing?

Nisaja

The gauges sweeping all the way to the right and back is a classic case of "dead battery". Are you SURE the battery has a good charge? Maybe try jump starting it with another car battery?

Leaking radiator but never ran hot? Unless you didn't drive if for more than 30 mins at a time, that's impossible. Why didn't you get it fixed as soon as you saw it man? Maybe that lead to this.

cliffkemp

I am not sure of that. I will check later today if not raining. The car ran well, once warmed up and would go to 9000+ rpms as long as you did not hit the pedal quickly. If you pushed it semi slowly, it would act fine. I have a reader and the OMP never came up and I use 2 stroke at around an ounce per gallon or so for insurance in case the OMP is clogged a little. I do the same on my 7 as I unhooked the OMP and run 1 oz per gallon every tank full so I can use synthetic oil and not have to worry about the level. I am religious of this.

The main fuse was getting the full 12.5 or so volts as well. It was the first one I checked. I will check the light and see if the 'key' light is blinking and post later.

cliffkemp

That battery started up my other car easily and is how I checked it. It will not even do anything with a brand new 1000 amp battery that I have in another car. I have tried 3 batteries that start the cars, they are in, and not even a starter click (bendix). The starter relay clicks but, that is it.

The radiator is not leaking bad and only when hot (under pressure, it drips slightly) I have barely driven it except to keep it running and fluids were changed out every 3k or so for oil, 30k for EVERY other fluid every time. It has never ran hot and never been flooded and have owned it since brand new, so you know the history on it. I have taken it to a reputable rotary shop since new for all major service. Motor was replaced at about 70k miles and has 131k on it now. The car ran just fine before this happened and never drained the radiator fill tank. It has never ran hot. If it will just engage the starter and ignition, it will start up unless something else went out. New coils, plugs, and wires, as well.

04Green

iTrader: (1)

If it were me, I would start looking at the copper path from the battery to the fuse box. Look at the battery terminals, take them apart, clean them, replace if necessary. Look at any connectors between the battery and the fuse box, clean them as well. I seem to recall there are 2. It seems you good battery power is not making it into the car.

Next, clean and check the ground side, make sure that path to ground is clean as well. The ground cable runs down to a point on the cross member that needs to be clean as well, with good metal on metal contact. You have to pull the air box to get to this connector, but you can check it by running a jumper cable from the negative battery terminal to the alternator bracket.

Do you have any more detail on why the dealer replaced the fuse box? That is an odd repair.

Loki

iTrader: (1)

As someone said, needle sweeping left and right is a current problem. The voltage is there, but not enough amperage to run anything. I know that's not a scientific explanation, but that's what mine does when the battery is near flat.

The random errors you were getting before are consistent with a current condition slowly getting worse, different systems failing as they compete for current draw.

+1 to Green's recommendations. Electrical problems suck, but you can beat them by being methodical, starting with elements common to all the affected systems - battery straps and grounding points.

Careful that you don't inadvertently become part of the circuit when playing with grounds, disconnect both battery posts.

The dripping radiator... if it's dripping near the overflow it could be as simple as a bad rad cap or cracked overflow tank. A cracked radiator tends to become a larger leak with time as the system is under pressure. You would have noticed.

Curious how you get on, this is definitely an unusual set of symptoms.

cliffkemp

The immobilizer is not flashing at all. The battery is good and starts another car with zero issue.

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

try and jump the starter solenoid...see if it works

cliffkemp

I checked the main fuse and the battery terminals and cleaned the battery terminals and the connectors on the inside with the little terminal cleaner brush. My old neons had that problem if there was even a little corrosion. All is clean and good. I have not check the ground yet.

The fuse box was replaced due to a wire that was rubbing on the metal part of the intake and ground out when the wire became exposed. The fuses that it kept blowing then were the cpu fuses, the 2 10 amp fuses on the right row at the bottom 3rd to last and 2nd to last fuses, if you are looking from the front toward the back of the car with cover off... about a week after that wire was fixed, it died again and, they told me they had to replace the whole fuse box but, I never asked if they replaced any wires or anything like that. It was all done under warranty.

For a living, I work at Southwire and see wire every day. I will say that, I am fairly new to electrical circuits and learning much but, the wire itself, that I can see and test easily, at this point, has been good. Anything you all suggest, I will try to do and will update you on the progress. Please bare with me as, I work 14 hour days and only get 1 day a week off. Very tiring!!!

cliffkemp

I was thinking that, actually just to see if it would do anything at all. Since it is in the yard and raining some. I will have to wait for a better day.

cliffkemp

I am going to check some of the wiring under the car, when I can. My daughter may have run over something and pulled something loose or explosed some wires that should not be. I am going to try to get it into the garage so that weather will not be a factor.

As far as the radiator goes, I believe that it is either a cracked top, cracked reservoir, or cap as you stated and will deal with that after I can get it started.

I do want to say that, all this happened in the matter of about 5 starts to try to get the car to start after figuring out the throttle issue. The battery, at the time, was weak and, I put a red top in and had jumper cables on it from a running car and it tried to start and then, all this happened in about 5 tries to start the car.

At first, it thought it was a fuel issue with the hard start and after checking the fuel pump, it was not the issue, after checking the throttle body, figured out the hard starts as, it was starting up fine after getting warmed up when it did run. The alarm went off a couple of times while trying to start it the last several times and now, it will do nothing so, I am thinking the cpu may be an issue, too but, I have never seen a car act this way. It is very strange and happened very quickly.

It used to give several codes and to reset them, I had to pull all the fuses and let it set for about 1 minute while pulling the connector for the TB, pump, and a smaller connector on the intake (not sure what it went to at the moment)

After doing the above, and pulling the room fuse, it would reset all the codes (before I got a reader) and would start right up and run with no issues for a while (about 30k miles) it got to the point that the reader would not reset it permanently but, pulling the fuses would and would start. The throttle body issue started about 500 miles ago and now, it is just dead. The gauges come on, sweep but, no radio and no blinking light for the immobilizer when the car is off.

What ever all is going on, it is fairly bad and seems to be a combo of things as the codes it threw were not always the same except 4 or 5 that I posted on another thread a while back.

I will try to get a video of the car so you all can see what is working and what is not, if I can figure that out. Sorry, not good with computers anymore... I am behind the times and my phone is an envy 3.... I am cheap, I know.

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

Is the starter solenoid wire connected to the starter solenoid?

I had that fall off once...and the car would do everything but actually turn over and start. It is just a spade terminal and mine fell off when i went grass surfing at the track