MEGAREDS

Well, after yelling for months about how people need to familiarize themselves with page 7-20 of the North American Owners' Manual, "Emergency Starting - Starting a Flooded Engine," I've apparently got some apologies to make. It seems that the magical procedure on page 7-20 doesn't always work.

The long story: The garage door opener my mother-in-law gave me as a Christmas gift was installed today. I called my wife, who was home, to remind her where the key was in case the installer needed to move the car. I neglected to remind her not to move the car and turn it off cold. I remembered to do that around noon, and when I called she said, "Oh no, I forgot!" No big deal, I assured her, "I've read page 7-20 of the North American Owner's Manual!" (Aren't I smart?)

I knew it was probably flooded, but I was really still surprised that the car did not turn over as always when I got home. It looked absolutely fine sitting there in the driveway, but it clearly wasn't. I did as instructed (on page 7-20, NAOM) and put my foot to the floor and cranked the heck out of it, 10 second bursts, giving it some time to rest between bursts. There was a bit of compression one or two times, but nothing sufficient to do anything with. In the end, the battery died, and I was decidedly beaten.

The story gets worse: I called the local dealer and it informs me they are closed tomorrow, and the following day as well for the New Years Holiday. They will reopen the next day, a Friday, but will then be closed again Saturday and Sunday all day. They didn't even sound real sure that my car could be seen on Friday. In fact, I got the distinct impression that they were sorry I called just 30 minutes before they were closing.

I called Mazda Road-Side Assistance and the woman was nice enough but clueless. She recommended that I leave the car sit a few hours and that might help the problem, but I explained that it had been sitting all day. She told me that my best bet was to leave the car sit until Friday, and then have it towed if needed. "It'll be safest in your driveway." She was probably right.

Frustrated, I called Road-Side Assistance again and got someone a bit more helpful. He suggested that not all dealerships would necessarily be closed tomorrow and located other dealerships on the web that might be open in the morning. He gave me a list of six dealerships and said RSA would be happy to tow me to any of them. I found one that opens at 7 a.m. that was still open to take my call. We'll see how this goes.

It's going to be embarrassing when the neighbors see the car being towed away. It also dawns on me that this may be an expensive garage door opener to install. The other dealer suggested it could take a few hours to clear the plugs. Any info on what this might/should cost?

Thanks for listening...

westie

I think it should be free under warranty.......brand new car, won't start........sounds like warranty to me!!!

Good Luck!

WHealy

MEGAREDS,

Could happen to any of us. Sorry it happend to you. Let us know how you come out.

dablues

MEGAREDS- Work will be under warranty and if you sweet talk them they probably will throw in a oil change. This is from a voice of experience.

carnut

Mine was flooded BY my dealer; not a pleasant surprise on the service ticket! If I do it, is it enough to take out the plugs, squirt some oil in the holes, crank the engine a couple of times, and replace the plugs? That's apparently what the dealer did.

RX-GR8

MEG sorry to hear what happened. you'll be back in your 8 in no time.

MEGAREDS

If Mazda does the flood rescue under warranty, I may forgive them for the November Seat Belt Debacle -- which I thought should have been covered. As opposed to grabbing the front latch and trying to use it in the back-seat buckle, which seemed entirely intuitive to both myself and my son (no comments about genetics, pls), this one Mazda gave me fair warning about both before and after I purchased the car. It will certainly help me feel better if I only lose a day of work and the car is put back the way it was before this morning which, BTW, was "damn-near perfect, thank-you-very-much."

My wife feels terrible now, but when she starts feeling better I think the "I told you so's" are gonna start flying -- in both directions. I'm trying to keep it all in perspective and not be upset. As my buddy wisely observed a while back, "It's a Mazda, not a Mazzeratti." I don't want to be Cameron's Father, even if he had a nicer car. You may recall the scene:

CAMERON:
Ferris, my father loves this car more
than life itself. We can't take it out.

FERRIS:
A man with priorities so far out of
whack doesn't deserve such a fine
automobile.

Thanks for your support, guys.

RX-GR8

yea it was a great scene and a great movie.

Rick

That sound like an excuse to buy a battery charger/jumper.

rxse7en

Can you pull the spark plugs and crank it a few times? May help to purge some of the unburnt fuel from the combustion chambers. Will also allow you to see if the plugs are crapped up.

RX-8 friend

If you look at the top of the engine you will see where the brake booster gets vacuum from the plastic intake manifold. You can pull this hose off, and inject a cc or so of oil into the manifold. This will improve the seals ability to pump the fuel out. Much easier than pulling the plugs. Don't worry about the oil being in there - there is fuel/oil "standoff" that soaks this part of the engine in normal operation.

I use a "Statpower Truecharge 20" to charge batteries in the car. It's a well filtered switching power supply charger - expensive but very handy. I installed leads with clips on it as well as a power cord (it's designed for installation on a wall).

Mat

Isn't some way to install a timer? I know some turbo timers exists in order to not shut the engine down hot. (ie: you remove your keys but the engine keeps running for a defined amount of time).

Is it possible to have a similar system installed that would simply make sure the car would run for a minimum of say, 5 minutes, even if the keys aren't in?

MEGAREDS

Thanks for the suggestions, but one of the things on my list to do this summer is figure out how to change my own oil. It's an embarrasing admission to make in this forum, but I'm going to let the dealer handle this one, particularly if there is a chance it's going to be a warranty issue.

That is, I'm going to let the dealership handle it if I can ever get their attention... when did New Years Day become an American High Holiday? I called five dealerships this morning; most have no one to do service today or tomorrow. One had a guy doing oil changes only. Another had a mechanic, but no "Mazda-techs" available. As I said earlier, I'm doing my best not to overreact -- I've had 2,000 trouble-free miles and have been getting 18-19 mpg; it was almost time for an oil change anyway and the tow will be free. Maybe I'll use this opportunity to paint the engine bay and interior blue, like WHealy did to his car...

WHealy

Hang in there MEGAREDS. The holiday wil be over soon and you'll be back in the saddle.

Senseny

Mat, nice suggestion but for some reason a lot of people will argue with you that since turbo timers are useless in turbo cars (in their opinion) they also are useless to prevent flooding. Of course I completely disagree.
Megareds, my wife did the same thing a month and a half ago, but luckily the car didn't flood. I did fight with my wife about it though. Good luck.

labrat1123

Had mine in last week for an oil change and my dealer service rep was nice enough to warn me about this "flooding" issue. (Apparently several owners in this area have had theirs towed in.)

It seems that the car is not flooding, but since the rotary is in essence a two stroke (burns oil), if the engine is not allowed to run long enough to heat the oil (when starting in cold weather), the oil congeals on the plugs and fouls them. The fouled plugs are preventing the engine from starting, but prolonged cranking in this condition would certainly lead to a flooded condition.

One of the previous posts mentioned the dealer pulled the plugs, squirted oil in the chamber, and then the engine started. Do you know if the original plugs went back in, and if so, did they have to clean them at all?

Tim

MEGAREDS

Tim:
I don't know if the fouled plugs are ok to put back in, but I don't see why not.

As far as cranking making it worse, my understanding is that putting the pedal to the floor and holding it there engages the ECU's "no gas" function, and that this is a new feature of the RENESIS engine designed to mimic what many RX-7 owners used to do when they flooded -- pull the fuse on the fuel pump.

Before I had my experience on Tuesday, I was under the impression that if I didn't give it any gas and carefully followed the manual, it would start with a great deal of black smoke. Perhaps it is the cooler weather, perhaps my wife gave it a lot of gas when starting the car (she says not) or perhaps I misread the manual. I'm disappointed it didn't work for me, though.

i3man

Has anyone tried kick starting a car when it gets flooded? Give it a push then pop the clutch?

MEGAREDS

I've read that doing that always works, but I decided to buy the "high torque" engine that comes
without a clutch.

RX-8 friend

I don't think you want to install a turbo timer. You have a "chip in key" security system. The ECM will not allow the engine to run unless the chip is within about 1 ft. of the key cylinder. To use a turbo timer, you would have to hide a key close to it. Same for remote start systems. Not something -I'd- want to do.

As far as the fuel cutoff when you press the gas pedal to the floor when starting, RX-7s have had this too since 1989.

Senseny

Rx8 friend, the reason the tt fix would still work is because I am not suggesting the tt as a device where you should walk away from the car and leave it running (its real use in a turbo car). It is only to remind you in case of a cold turnoff to leave the car running, disable it at all other times. I know it is an expensive device just to remind you of something, but a day or morning away from work arranging tows, picking up car at the dealership or whatever can be expensive as well.

MEGAREDS

I certainly realize that there may be times, in an emergency, when the most important thing is to get the engine turned off, but a five second buzzer might be nice. A red light over the key that turns green when the engine reaches temperature? No doubt the decision was deliberately made that the best way to handle the problem was simply to warn drivers not to do it, but it is very counter-intuitive not to shut the car off when it gets to where it needs to be. If my wife hadn't done it, I'd very likely have done so sooner or later. As I said, I was under the impression that the "Emergency Start" procedure would simply work - it didn't.

Anyone know why there is this patch of oily stuff behind my car - it's only on the left side:

jtdwab

Sorry to here about your troubles. I had the same thing about 1 month ago. I stopped trying to crank the car when the lights starting getting dim. Mazda towed it to the dealer and they handled it the next day. Didn't cost a thing. While it was their I got the tires rotated because the milage met maintenance schedule. They said the pulled the plugs and cleaned them and spayed something in the chambers. I don't know what but they got it running. Hope everything works out well for you.

idle0ne

well..... This thread answers my question about the remote car starter i was interested in getting for my soon to come 8. I wouldnt want to leave a key anywhere in my car lol that just yells i'm easy to steal.

are there a lot of problems with the 8's starting under cold weather conditions? i live in southern vt and it gets very cold here.... sometimes below 0. My 8 will be stored outside during the winter under a cover obviously but i was wondering about the problems i may run into. Even if i got an offsite storage unit to store the car in, they are not heated and we do not have a garage here.

8_wannabe

Megareds, I'm in exactly the same situation this fine New Years Day. Got my flooded '8 sitting in my garage. A coupla strange wrinkles to my story. First, on Dec 30th I drove 500 miles from Sunnyvale to San Diego without incident. Parked the car in my garage and went to bed. It was 40 degrees outside that night.

Next morning, got in and cranked it: Nothing! Only heard the starter churning, but the engine didn't even try to catch. did the 10 sec/10 sec thing with the throttle about 10 times over with no results. Took my wife's car to run errands.

Now here's the most frustrating part. I called Roadside Service at noon. They called AAA, and they called a local towing company. I specified flatbed (this is necessary, right?) 90 minutes later, here comes a tow truck, not a flatbed. I sent it back, the driver called his company, I called AAA and roadside service. An hour later, nothing. Another hour, nothing. About 4:00 pm they say they are 10 minutes away (they've been 10 minutes away for about an hour.) I called and cancelled the tow, and took off for a New Years celebration with the wife.

Today, the dealer is closed. It'll get in Friday and including the oil pan change, a/c TSB, and 10K checkup and they will keep it overnight. That means I won't get my car till Monday cuz they're closed weekends. This is for flooding that occurred Weds, 5 freakin' days without my baby. I can unequivocally say the frustration of dealing with the tow service is worse than the actual flooding. I shoulda had my car today if the truck had come ontime. I heard someone else gripe about this once. Has anyone else had trouble getting prompt tow service from RSA?