Cursing Mazda...
 

Alright so I love my 8, but recently the engine tested for low compression, whatever few days in the shop all covered under warranty. No big deal. I also want to point out the dealership I go to is a great dealership(Oakland Mazda) great customer service, the service rep always keeps me up to date, etc.

My problem is on Mazda and Mazda alone, not this dealership. So I had to wait 2 weeks for a reman engine to get to the dealership but that was fine because I was able to keep my car until it came in. This is what really got me. 3 days later when the engine was installed John from the dealership gave me a call to tell me the block they got from mazda, was dead. It had almost no compression, could sort of idle cold, but stalled once it warmed up. And this engine is so bad that I can't get my car back while I wait another 2 weeks for one.

So god damnit is all I have to say, has this happened to anyone else?
and take a look at the pictures of the new engine.. I swear those are new houseings...

https://picasaweb.google.com/gisbest...31888833915074

Shit man, that sucks. my new engine just got here today after 2 weeks of waiting. The mechanic kept my car the entire 2 weeks too, he didnt want me to cause any more damage. I hope this does not happen to me.

So do you get a rental ?

I know that Mazda dealership your talking about. It's in Broadway near Lake Merritt. I used to live in Oakland years ago.

That sucks on what happened.

It appears the much talked about revamped reman program in Richmond is not living up to expectations, which is about what I figured would happen.

What I don't get is that by my own admission, rotaries are not all that hard to build if you have the work area and tools/materials available to do it, so why does the reman program fail so frequently? I think they are just lazy in inspection of the parts they reuse, because I could spend an afternoon with most anyone on this forum showing you what's what with the internals, and you could successfully build a good running rotary engine by that night.

No, and I talked about it today with john and he said he'd make some calls but he really has no say in much. Mazda forces everything to be sent through central it's crazy. They aren't allowed to do anything without phoning Mazda first. But I should have some days of free rentals on my insurance so we'll see.

Did you have a good experience with them? As I said before, through my observations they themselves are good, but they are really brought down by Mazda.

There's a rebuild center in richmond? Given the 2 week wait period I would assume they were coming strait over from japan.

Until about a year or so ago, mazda contracted out the reman program to a vendor in NC/SC. They were doing a SHITTY job so mazda built their own plant in Richmond to do it themselves. They hired and trained their own people, had a dude from japan showing them how to build engines apparently. There was a guy who was not a rotary owner, but was employed at the new plant, who became a member here and posted about the plant so we'd know what was up.

The way it works is, when mazda replaces an engine under warranty, they keep the old one. If they sell a reman block "out the door" to a customer who is otherwise out of warranty, they charge them an extra $1000 if they don't return the old core, so mazda also gets those cores usually.

These cores are all sent to the reman program for teardown. They keep the reusable parts to put back into more remans, to lower the cost of the reman program vs. using all new parts.

When you get a reman you never know which parts are used or new, but there are ways a builder like myself could tell usually.

When the reman program runs out of reusable core parts, it's been said that they will pull some brand new, all new part blocks from japan and release them into the reman program until the core part stash catches back up sufficiently. Unfortunately there is no way to know whether you have one of these or a used part reman built by the local yokels in the US, nor is there a way to specify that you want one of the new part engines when you order. You get whatever they wind up sending you, luck of the draw.

Having torn apart tens of (rx7) reman blocks done by williams tech (or from the days when the program had two facilities, one in florida and one in california), much of their problem lies in how they apparently treat the used parts that eventually get put back into the engines. I've seen evidence of rough handling on many of these parts that would only occur while they were individual components and not an entire block that may have been mishandled during loading or transport or something.

Also they tend to put WAY too much sealant on and put it in places that sealant has no place. Sometimes excess sealant from the oil pan clogs up the oil strainer pickup tube in the oil pan. Usually it is just messy and makes it difficult for me to tear the engines apart and clean them, there is so much sealant everywhere.

^ That about covers it.

my reman works fine. *knock on wood*

at least it "seems" to work fine. I was gonna check it so I got myself a compression tester.

After all the wait time I was about to get the Compression tester ship from Japan but then the earth quake hits ... no ETA when its gonna come :(

sucks you are forced to wait another 2+ weeks. i'm hoping the dealer is supplying you with a rental car. it seems though that the dealership is doing their best to take care of the issue. keep us posted on how this turns out!

No rental.. My life would be loads easier if there was.

RotaryResurrection, I was under the impression they painted old rotor housing's silver to cover all the soaked in oil. But maybe not.

Although I'm glad to hear I don't need to rely on japan for this to get done now that they are all shaken up.

I'm suppose to get a call from John today to get an ETA on the engine..
Fingers crossed, I'll let you guys know.

That's correct...but the average person can't tell the difference between silver paint and new bare cast aluminum just from a visual inspection once the engine is installed.

Hopefully I don't have to deal with this for a while, but at first sign of low compression, I'm planning on doing a bespoke rebuild with you, Mazmart, or someone else who knows what he's doing, rather than getting a whatever engine from Mazda. By rebuilding a little early, I'd hope to avoid the catastrophic damage of broken pieces grinding away inside and be able to reuse still in-spec parts. Depending on circumstances, I might even consider bribing one of you guys to show me how, then doing the rebuild myself for the learning experience. (Just not for a while pretty please ... )

You know, if I didnt have a wife, kid, and fairly busy business here at home taking all my time, I would outfit a truck/trailer with all the basics needed and travel around the country doing on-site remove/rebuild/install jobs, doing exactly what you describe. But I doubt many people would pay the necessary charge for such a service (to cover my truck, trailer, tools/equipment, gas, time, etc.), and I'd have no home life so I can't justify it that way.

This is what scares me most about owning this car. If the engine fails I have heard little good about Mazda's remanufactured engines. Some who have tore down these engines reports a mix of quality from OK condition to parts that should have never been reused and sloppy workmenship. I think Mazda's QA is pretty poor in their remanufacturing plants and they have no real incentive to make it any better just do it cheap.

Yay.....I am now a member of the rebuild club, ugh. Been waiting two weeks now and the mazda stealership.....I mean, dealership has no estimate as to when the motor shall arrive. I don't get a rental car either. Fun times!

Dunno, but you might find enough interested people to host a day or so rebuild seminar at your place. After a DGRR perhaps? :)

Isn't that what Charles Hill does? No truck, but there are posts recounting him flying to a customer's home and doing the rebuild in the garage.

On the Richmond rebuild shop and Sleepy-z. I always wondered what his motivation was to post all that inside information here...and had non-charitable thoughts that he might be doing it at Mazda's bidding, to build their image as caring. I was disappointed with one post where he bragged about building an engine in record tiime.

Ken

Intersting to hear that info about the remans, im expecting mine to come in about 2 weeks from now. Keeping my fingers crossed I get a good one. exactly 95k on original engine.

Are you volunteering your car as a platform? :naughty:

To do a remove/rebuild/install would take some advance planning and I'd have to start thursday at noon to have it back together saturday night so the owner could head home sunday.

Such an owner would also have to pay for all their own parts.

Originally Posted by StreetGT

Did you have a good experience with them? As I said before, through my observations they themselves are good, but they are really brought down by Mazda.


^ I just know the area your talking about. I don't even have an RX8 before when i used to live there.

Oh, I was thinking more along the lines of watching you rebuild one already on your bench. It could range from satisfying curiosity and a few tips to a real training session with handouts, parts lists, and so on where the participants leave semi- qualified to do an overhaul on their own. The Experimental Aircraft Association hosts things like this on all topics aviation, as an example.

^That's not a bad idea. I'd for sure participate. If it was in distance which would be unlikely...

Engine Update: John called me today(they work Saturdays :P) and told me I am near the top of the priority list for engine handouts? Anyone ever hear of this? I can only assume they are gonna hustle on my engine but who knows, could be arbitrary. I'll get a slightly more definitive answer on monday and let you guys know.

they was gonna fired him if he post more stuff.

Sleepy-z seemed to be a straight up guy. The engines coming from that location seemed to be better from the previous rebuilds or even early ones from Hiroshima. While his posts seemed to be a positive for Mazda, his managers didn't want him posting here anymore. Corporations like to massage the information that gets released, so the only want it to come from their PR people.