Just got my first RX8 and have a coolant level alarm, but coolant is full?

 

relatively common. sensor going bad

 

what year and how many miles? may be fixed under warenty

 

is the sensor in the bottom of the water tank ? if so can it be cleaned from the filler cap, with say a tooth brush?

 

well if you would tell me how many miles then maybe Mazda will replace it for free

 

sorrry. 41K 55 plate. over 3 years old.

 

bumper to bumper warrant is 4yrs 48,000 miles so it should b covered as for cleaning that's a big no the whole tank must b replaced!

 

The sensor is integrated into the tank. There is no way to repair it. You can either have mazda replace it under warranty, or unplug the sensor from the tank and just keep an eye on the coolant from then on.

 

When you say coolant "alarm" do you mean the little red light icon?????

 

Before you jump to the conclusion that the sensor is bad, just add a few ounces of coolant and see what happens, thats what fixed my light.

 

i've noticed my light would come on when i started the car and it was extremely cold outside. Once the car was running for about 30 seconds or so, it would shut off no problem.

Does your light go out within a minute? Is it below zero where you are?

 

Good point. If the coolant is around the min mark on the tank, hard driving could set it off. It happened to me on I-5 halfway between SF and LA. Dealer topped off the coolant and no problems since.

 

not undermining your case whatsoever. just telling my case

I experienced coolant level sensor failure a year or two ago. It started as very rare,very random coolant light under hard driving conditions(hidh rpm). Every time i noticed it getting a bit more frequent, i added just a touch of water and it went away, just like the above stories.
This continued until i had to have the coolant WAY overfilled to keep the light off. i wasnt ok with that so i removed the excess fluid. it got progressively worse until the point that i could not even cruise at RPM's above 3,500 or so without the light coming on.

i disconnected the sensor. its molded into the tank, so no replacing a sensor, you'll be replacing the tank. and no real way to clean it other than spraying contact cleaner in there once removed(which was tried).

 

thanks to you all. So its a new bottle then. where is the sensor disconection?