Not having much fun with this car at the moment. A week after having the gearbox rebuilt I have had to have a new motor put in. Under warranty but I am still mighty pissed off with the lack of reliability I am having at the moment. Took the car back to the dealership complaining that it was hard to start first thing. They told me that it could be the spark plugs as I am nearing the 50k mark where they are changed anyway. They ended up changing the throttle position sensor and rang me and told me it was ready to go. About an hour later they must have moved the car and it was hard to start again so they rang me and told me that they would investigate furhter. So they checked the spark plugs and when one of them was removed they found that the end of it was damaged. (I also heard the word "missing"). They contacted MA and they said to do a compression test and low and behold it failed. Hence the hard to start in the morning. MA then told them to replace the motor under warranty and they had to send the old one back to MA. They weren't allowed to pull it down themselves and they have said that it is fairly unlikely that they will find out what the real problem was. Dealership has been really good throughout the ordeal, but the smile that this car normally gives me is just starting to turn upside down. As it is a new motor I now have to run it in again and I cant even go and enjoy some 'spirited' driving to put that smile back on my face.

 

Not good news engine replacement at 40,000 km

cheers
michael

 

Bad luck, eh, but think of it this way...mechanically, it's new...and it'll be nicely run in by October for the National meet (ducks quickly)

 

would love to have 'enjoyed' the new motor at the nationals but I cant fit the pram and overnight gear in the boot all at once.

 

Here is a plug that's done 32000km's. Note the wear of the centre electrode as well as the ground electrode. This plug is pretty well knackered and this wear would have been what your service dept was referring to when you overheard them say "missing". I don't think the plug has fallen apart and destroyed your engine.

How hard do you drive the car, lexic? I ask because engines in the US are showing low compression if they aren't getting a good rev occasionally. This is becoming prevalent in automatic RX-8's over there.

 

Wow...bad luck!

You gotta stop cutting off those gypsy wagons at the lights!

 

Bad luck Steve

at least you have a new motor now... sweat - it is essentially a brand new car again..

Taka

 

The best thing I take from that is that you had a Hymee exhaust fitted, and they didn't use that as a lame exuse to refuse a new motor.

I wonder if they inspected the oil from an oil change? Phil uses the term "panning for gold". I watched as he pulled a club car's engine sump off one night, and immediately exclaimed "this looks bad". In retrospect, that was a bearing failure, not an apex seal gone.

Question: Did it rev / perform properly once it got started? Oh - that is right, it failed the compression test.

BTW - Perhaps don't baby the new one as much

Cheers,
Hymee.

 

Ouch! Gomez, that plug looks completely knackered! 32000 km you say. Mine is reaching 30000 km! I'll have a look at my plugs at the earliest opportunity!

Fabrice

 

dont worry mate, my engine went at 1300kms! (big thing in the forums - first reported ever) I've done 50k in my new car now and cant wait to see it pass the next service =) its quite "different" to start/revs very low at startup like almost struggles for a second. We'll see.

I think these cars wre just thrashed coming off the docks.

Same situation with me tho, they took the old engine out and sent it back to MA for inspection.

 

Yeah Fabrice, that plug was MazdaManiacs plug and he pulled them 'cos he had a new set lying around. It was still firing ok.

The following is from www.spark-plugs.co.uk

As a rotary has a high rev range it's more like a motorcycle engine as far as the above paragraph is concerned. IMO, we need to change our plugs more frequently than the 60,000km the service schedule dictates.

Gomez.

 

I touch on the evil side of 9k nearly every trip (once it is warm and has been showing operating temperature for atleast 10mins). I love to hear that hymee roar!!

Hymee they never mentioned anything about the exhaust or the bmc replacement air filter I have. As far as revving and performing properly once started, it seemed almost perfect. Once warm I didnt think anything was wrong with the car, it idled a little rougher than usual when cold. Only noticed it when I heard different noises to usual coming from the garage while I ate breakfast. (Bread goes in toaster, go to garage and start car, return to kitchen and eat brekky, drive car!!)
BTW Hymee there are photo's floating around this forum of how much I 'baby' the car. My motto is "I bought a damn sports car and gunna bloody drive it like a sports car!!" :D


I was also thinking that this should make my next service a hell of a lot cheaper as they dont have to do as much! Believe it when I see it.

 

I will show you mine at 23000km on Saturday.

Same in my case, I have a new set lying around for a while.

 

Way to go. :D Amen to that!
I was just joshing ya', mate!

Cheers,
Hymee.

 

Lexic, your post raises an interesting question as I have noticed that my car has progressively become more difficult to start, havng to turnover it over longer and longer to get it to go first thing in the morning.... I noticed at the snow this year it took 3 or 4 attempts...

I have done 16k in a 2004 rx8, is this my early warning sign that this is happening to me, or have other people noticed this problem as well?

 

xsfer, maybe your battery voltage is a bit low. I regularly charge mine because I spend a deal of the time in the car testing sCANalyser without the engine running. I've noticed a huge difference in starting when the battery is fully charged versus when it hasn't been charged for a while.

They're replacing the batteries in US cars with higher capacity ones to improve starter crank speed. When it comes time to change mine I'll be doing the same.