Flooded engine. Dealership charge legitimate??
 

my 8 got flooded and now mazda wants to charge me 600 buck to replace starter , battery, and plugs. does this sound legit?

04 51000 miles.

not sure about the starter but you could easily change the battery and plugs by yourself for cheaper than mazda will charge you.

plugs are like 30-35 a peice and you can get a decent battery for < 100 dollars. both shouldn't take more that 30 to 60 minutes to change out.

At $100/hr + dealership labor plus parts $600 is not that out of line. But as stated you can do it yourself for much less.

tried the troubleshooting steps for a flooded engine but no dice.

its already towed there so, i think imma have to eat this one because of the starter. hopefully they wont have to change it..... isnt the original starter on 04 models shady anyway??? from my research 04's are really a pain.

I think the starter lists for something like $300 to $400. Add $100 for a battery and $100 to $200 (dealer retail) for a set of plugs and it looks like they're giving you a fair deal.

Yes - the '04 starters were weak, and if you flooded while under the B to B warranty they would have replaced it for free. Looks like they're following the fix in the flooding TSB. Too bad it didn't happen two years and 3000 miles ago, when it would have been on them.

Ken

i have like 20 or 30 replacements on my 8 b4 my b2b ran out

lol i still remember when they change my engine out they were like whoa. u had a lot of problems didnt ya? lol

It's really a shame that original '04 and early '05 owners didn't take advantage of the free starter & battery upgrade when it was available. I guess there really are a lot of clueless owners out there.

That should be "unaware," not "clueless." Unless you hang around in a forum like this, there really isn't a way for a car owner to know what the issues and service bulletins are.

Also, it's not like you could just walk into a dealer and request a new starter and battery. I gather from posts here that some people were able to do that, with a tiny bit of social engineering, but in general the car had to be flooded.

Ken

The price is not out of line.

for your reference, here is the TSB for the plugs but as said, the starter and battery were not part of it:

http://www.finishlineperformance.com...5-08-1883f.pdf

This refers to the 100K engine warranty a couple of times...so dealer de-flooding is a freebie for the first 8 years? Worth keeping a copy of this TSB handy.

Ken

correct. which is good b/c the first and only time i flooded it, i was beyond the original bumper to bumper warranty but put this down on the desk when they tried to charge me for the plugs and their service. they said they "would be nice" and take care of the charge this time

I'm happy to hear that the 8yr/100k warranty covers a flooded engine. My 8 is sitting in the driveway, flooded but good. First time it's happened and I was concerned about how much the dealer was going to charge me to fix it.

Guess I'll be calling a tow truck tomorrow...

Print out the TSB...and maybe highlight the warranty coverage part. :)

Ken

i should double check but i believe the mazda roadside assistance is included with the extended warranty if the tow is due to a covered item (e.g. flooded engine or other engine issues).

I stand by clueless. I track TSB's for all my vehicles. Case in point, my Jeep Patriot has developed a door speaker rattle and voila there's an in-warranty TSB for it. Knowledge is power.

but i'd also argue that a lot of people one here are not the norm. this is the first forum i had been on for a car and really only b/c it's not an average car. the average person won't think to look up a forum for their car and find out about all of the TSBs available.

if your starter and battery worked at the time, why would you think to look to see if there was a better one? unless you went into the dealership and they were a good enough one to know about it or look it up voluntarily, they wouldn't get the upgrade. now that people have issues with it (and are probably second or third owners of '04s), the period for the warranty/TSB has come and gone.

i'd agree it's more unaware than clueless.