First, I just searched around for quite a while (19 pages of the tranny faq down...) and couldn't find too much information to help.

I have a 04 rx-8 that has been grinding when upshifting to 4th (from higher rpms, 5,000+) for a while now. I've been busy and was finally able to get it in last week with a total of 60,000 miles on it.

Service guy called me the day after, said they were able to replicate the problem, definitely the 4th gear synchro, and quoted me the price to rebuild or replace the tranny. Told him that it was still under powertrain, he said he'd talk to his manager and call me back. Called me back 20 minutes later "Yeah, got the ok, it's all covered".

Got a call today... same guy says that the tranny was out and their Mazda Rep was there and he took a look at the tranny. Mazda Rep told him to deny the claim because it was "abused" stating bent shift folks and something vague about loose bearings. The service guy said the Rep also denied it because it was on the verge of warranty expiration.

Car is stock (except for a K&N filter which they were fine with), this is my 6th MT car so I'm not exactly a novice when it comes to shifting correctly...

Luckily I have a relative that is in charge of warranty work for a Mazda dealership in another state, I called her up and she was upset at the situation since the service worker told me it was covered. The question at hand though is: Are the synchros covered under the 60,000 mile powertrain warranty?


Little upset with the situation because I've had similar synchro problems with Acura and Mitsubishi and they both covered it without asking a question.

 

Yes, synchros are covered.

They took my "highly modified" 8 in with no problems for a tranny rebuild after 5 and 6 started to go

 

don't see why they wouldn't be covered. any way you can get the car to your relative so it can be taken care of?

 

please keep us updated. i'm having trouble getting my dealer to believe me!

thank you!

 

It's about 350 miles away but I should have just taken it there in retrospect.

http://www.mazdausa.com/MusaWeb/disp...ermsPowertrain

that makes it appear as though it should be definitely covered.

How can they deny a claim to abuse? I'm not the first owner but the tranny has been shifting fine in every other regard and I'm fairly certain I'd be noticing some other issues if it had been hard launched at every stoplight... It's still on the original (smooth shifting) clutch!

 

Dealership is giving you the run around. Talk to the shop manager, then to the dealership manager. Tell them if they don't do the work you'll go to mazda corporate yourself and see what they think about the problem. If the tranny lasted 60k, it was not being abused.

 

took mine too...but my trans was completely blown...i believe the bent shift forks are a tsb issue as well...

 

I had my tranny go bad at around 25k. they "tried" to tell me that I was abusing the car but I headed them off at the pass. i rarely drove the car so i wasn't about to have someone telling me i'm abusing it. yours has lasted much longer. there is no way you could have abused it. keep going up in the management chain until you get it done.

 

My 4th gear has been doing the excat same thing. Im doing a tranny fluid change first to see if it will smooth things out, if not I'm taking it to Mazda. It doesnt do it 100% of the time so I think with RP fluid in the tranny it might go away.

Good to know its covered if not though. Hope they dont give me guff for my ACT flywheel, but then again that has nothing to do with the gearbox, soooo...

 

my grinding got worse with each time I changed the transmission fluid with rp. I use rp for engine oil, but have no plans to use it again in my transmission. If anything, by the 4th transmission fluid change, the grinding was bad enough for the dealership to easily replicate it. Earlier they claimed they couldn't reproduce the problem.

 

I'm having this same problem and am going to take it in pretty soon. Any idea how long it will take to get fixed?

 

they rebuilt mine twice under warranty and it STILL went out and they replaced it all under warranty

 

I thought powertrain warranty runs out at 60k. I do agree that the dealership wants a cut of your paycheck, any way they can.

 

I had a whole bunch of synchros replaced under warranty. Funny thing is, the grinding also started after I swapped some RP in. It's not the first I've heard of that happening either. Of course, I'm loath to assign causality, but still...

I'm going to wait for the winter to finish before I swap back in the Redline I had in there before. This OEM stuff is too notchy.

 

How do you know when your tranny is going? Cant shift? Grinding? This is my first MT

 

Wait, the rep also said to deny it because your warranty is about to expire? Someone should slap him/her.

 

had my whole tranny replaced and reverse shifting fork and mazda payed 2 months payment for me because I was an a**hole to the ppl till they did something.....keeep in mind car only had 18k miles on it......it should def b covered

 

Just these 2 reasons alone, especially the latter one. can you get a *Brand new* transmission.

Thats why Mazda's service rating is all the way in the bottom of the list.

Tell them to put Everything they've said in writing, oh also tell them straight up that you need it because "My lawyer friend wants to see it"

watch their reaction.

 

Ask for the name and phone # of the rep who denied your claim. I have a hunch they will say they can't do that, or some other BS.