DreamWarrior

I'm so frustrated...this car (2004 RX-8 MT) has been giving me a lot of problems lately. Most recently it went into the dealer service department for the airbag light being on. I looked at the "blink codes" and it seemed there was a problem w/ the driver's side resistance being too high. They concurred and replaced the airbag harness.

I just picked up the car today, and now two more things are broken that were working just fine when I brought the car in; the radio and the auto-leveling headlight system.

Firstly, the radio is no longer working. The head unit powers on, tunes stations, etc, but there is no sound. This is inclusive of the "beep" sounds when you press the buttons (and yes, I checked, the beep is turned on). I have an aftermarket amp that powers the front speakers and it doesn't turn on. I believe it is wired to the same remote switch as the factory Bose amplifier, which remains in the vehicle controlling the rear speakers, which also produces no sound. My quick diagnosis makes me believe that they tweaked something in the remote trigger system such that neither amplifier powers on now.

The second new issue is that the dash indicator for the auto-leveling headlights is now on, telling me there is a malfunction in that system. This was also not the case when I brought the vehicle in. To be honest, I've never even seen the light before and had to look it up in the manual to determine what the heck it was.

The dealer is "looking into it", but I get the distinct feeling they are going to come back and say, "we didn't do anything that would cause these issues, you want them fixed, pay up." However, they must have, because both things were working without issue when I brought the car in. I don't think it's an unreasonable expectation that when I bring a car in for service, everything that was working prior, continues to bloody work!

That said, can anyone here help me make my case? Maybe proving the airbag harness runs proximate to anything that could control the amplifier power and/or the headlight leveling would help? If I could show they are in/around the same spots, then maybe my case that in replacing the harness they could have damaged/disconnected something else would be stronger. I shouldn't have to do this, of course, but I don't know that they'll be honest with me at this point.

I hope they do the right thing and acknowledge that they broke these items, but I want to be prepared in case they don't. Already they've told me that they don't feel there's any way they could have broken these things while fixing the harness. They are setting me up to believe that -- basically calling me a liar, trying to tell me these things were broken before the car came in. Awesome service! Especially since I was listening to the radio pretty loudly when I pulled in, lol.

Also, I spoke to the service manager and he said they will "be checking the computer to see when the autoleveling malfuction first appeared." I said, "go right ahead, I've never seen it before, the computer will agree with me." However, I'm not sure if he's blowing smoke up my butt; maybe it's not even possible to see when that light first came on. However, I'd like to be prepared here, too, in case he attempts to claim it's been on for quite some time now. Which would be a complete lie! However, at least if I knew there was no way to read it, or that there was a way and I could double-check his claims, it'd be good to know.

Thanks in advance for anyone who may be able to assist. I much appreciate it! Like I said, I hope I don't need the information and they do the right thing, but better to be armed and ready if needed.

speedracer2169

in terms of the radio it sounds like a fuse. I think there are two fuses but I had the same problem radio works but no sound. replaced the fuse and radio works fine. as far as the headlight level thing I just resetted the ecu and it never came back on again. It turned on when I was replacing my coilovers but it seemed to have corrected itself so I reall don't know much about that one

DreamWarrior

I hope it's that simple, but given they (according to the service tech) ripped out most of the driver's side interior to fix this, I can only imagine what else they messed up. But, if they claim they didn't break it, at least that's something simple I can check before getting more bent out of shape than I already am .

DreamWarrior

Well, the dealer fixed the radio, gave me some story about the oil leak messing up the auto-leveling sensor (convenient) and told me they wouldn't do anything for that. Whatever -- good riddance, car has been traded to the local Porsche dealership for a Cayman S and I'll never have to deal with the Mazda service again, and that is a blessing because they've sucked! I'll miss the car, but I think that'll subside quickly when the Cayman hits the dealer.