Q121825

ROTFL (about the wife that is). Damn. That's a long time, but it is the holidaze.


Heh. I don't mind doing it on a test drive just to see how they react. But I'm not even going to tempt fate with my own...

rotarygod

That still leaves 20% who have. That is significant. Would you take a medicine that had a 20% chance of hurting you? No. what percentage of other cars have 20% of the owners experiencing flooding issues? If yours hasn't flooded feel lucky. It's just a matter of time. It will at least once someday.

jonalan

You're right, that is significant. However, my point is, I personally can't complain to Mazda about a flooding issue, because my car has never flooded. The only statistics (and I use that term lightly, because we're only suppose to believe half of what we hear on the internet) I have, is what I read on this forum.

jonalan

Bad analogy, flooding an engine won't hurt anyone.

Gee, thanks! I'm sorry you feel that way, but I hope not.

AF-RX8

I just test drove an RX8 and here is what I did . . .the salesman asked me to pull the car around front while he went into the dealer for a few minutes so I had some time to play

I started the car, pulled it about 50 feet and then after about 1 minute (when I remembered to test the car for flooding :D ) I turned the car off.

I then waited a minute and then started the car and it started right up, then after that I shut it off again almost right away and then tried to start the car and again it started right up . . .

The temp was about 48 degree's . . .

I might be test driving another car soon so if I do, next time I'll start it and not even wait a minute, I'll just shut it off right away and then I'll report back here.

MEGAREDS

Once the car reaches temperature, it apparently won't flood. It stays warm for several hours. The small size of the RENESIS makes it heat quickly.

rotarygod

True the analogy was bad but the point was made. I've had several RX-7's over the years and my 2 closest friends have also. We have all had flooding issues. Some are worse than others but every car I've had has experienced it at some time or another. That is just something that the rotary is more prone to. I know why they flood easily and know what to do to remedy it. Mazda doesn't though and that is the issue. The Renesis is even more prone to flooding than the RX-7's for several very big reasons. feel lucky. I hope yours never floods but if it does one day, don't be surprised. It may be a week or it may be 2 years but at some point in time it will flood at least once.

jonalan

When your engine did flood, was it something that could have been avoided, or did it happen for no apparent reason (other than it's a rotary)?

rotarygod

Usually on the older cars you are suffering from issues like leaky fuel injectors and other little problems. Sometimes though I would just flood them even when there were no mechanical problems. The easiest way to flood it is to crank it over and then let off the key just before the engine catches. There is usually fuel in the engine by now but the engine has stopped rotating and it is just sitting there. Even the older rotaries are easy to flood when cold. The key is warm shutdown in regards to this. I have had that happen on all 3 generation RX-7's. Typically if you are careful and pay attention it won't flood. It still happens to me every once in a while though. Even when it does now, I almost never have to push it. That is a rare case. The Renesis ignition system is the culprit. The more I think about it the more I feel that the side exhaust port location doesn't hurt as bad as everyone thinks in regards to excess fuel expulsion. It took a while but I just had to learn the behavior of my cars. Other people can flood my cars much easier than I can. I just know how to treat them.

Cap'n Brad

I recently experienced the dreaded no start (flooded) problem. After having the car towed to the dealer, they sent for new plugs from Mazda. It's my understanding that these new plugs are slotted to reduce the tendency to flood. Has anyone else had this "fix" done to their car?

ndsind1

Does flooding only happen in colder temps, or can it happen when it's in the 65+ outside? Has anyone in S. Florida or SoCal had flooding issues? I haven't flooded my engine yet and i sometimes only travel 1/2 a mile to the tech building (at my school). I try to idle a minute or 2 but sometimes i'm late and have to shut it off cold. However, i've never shut if off cold when it was less than 55 degrees. No problems yet, but i'm probably jinxing it...

Supercharger

Peripheral Exhaust Port (RX-7):
• poor emissions
• easy to unflood

Side Exhaust Port (RX-8):
• good emissions
• difficult to unflood (excess liquid fuel is trapped)


Mazda may have to redesign the Renesis to solve both problems.

rotarygod

I wish I didn't have to keep typing this every other post. It's the ignition system! The trailing plugs fire before the leading plugs at startup. That is what causes the engine to flood easier not the side ports. The lack of wasted spark doesn't help either. While they may contribute a little something to the issue, the side ports are not the main problem. I wrote the damn flooding article. It's the ignition system.

HIX8

I'd like to see top quality posts repeated in the FAQ section.

drseid

Here is a real-life experience situation as to how *I* found out about the flooding issue....

I don't own an RX-8 yet, but I found out about the flooding issue a couple weeks back right *before* a test drive...

I had requested a test drive of an AT RX-8, and the salesman had to go back and bring it around front...

Well, to make a long story short, about 10 minutes had gone by (I though he took the drive solo for a moment) and finally the salesman came back and said there might be a problem...

As it turns out, they only had one AT on the lot (they had 26 MTs as they are obviously by far the more popular choice), and they could not get it to start.

He then explained to me about the flooding issue, and that someone must have quickly moved the car without properly running it a few minutes before shutting it off again... Obviously, he was quite embarrased about the situation, but I viewed it as a lesson learned to prevent me from making the mistake myself later on.

To me, it is an inconvenience of sorts, but even though my salesman probably thinks he lost a sale... I found it a bit comforting that he *knew* what he was talking about, and was honest about the situation... So I am still strongly leaning towards buying, despite the potential "fault".

---Dave S

Haus

How about complaining to the Better business bureau. I think it's www.BBB.org
With many people complaining about the flooding issue, Mazda might issue a recall. For a 30k car, we should never have to be worried about flooding issues. By making Mazda do a recall, they might actually have a real fix and not just hotter plugs.

MEGAREDS

I've been without my car for five days now as it waits at the dealership to be deflooded, and I don't view this as a BBB problem. The BBB handles unfair business practices. Although my holiday-time service has been poor, the dealership is hardly cheating anyone.

My advice is that we keep posting our experiences. They're listening... I'm sure of it, because the issue is causing them to lose sales. My neighbors watched the car being towed away, the guy in the tow truck asked me what happened, and everyone at work heard about why I had to take Friday off.

FirstSpin

I have no idea if the guy knows what he's talking about but there's a "consumer advocate" radio show that's run by a guy named Tom Martino. The show's out of Denver but it's syndicated. He maintains that if you have a Corporate Level issue with a Japanese/Korean car manufacturer, forget it!! He said it's like a "loss of face" thing or something but that you'll never get the Corporate people to admit that there's a problem.

Obviously this is not entirely true since Mazda, Toyota, etc., all do recalls when they have to. However, I wonder if they might not be a bit slower to admit "a fault" such as the firing sequence problem on start-up. Take country of origin out of the picture and you've still got Corporate reputation on the line when you're dealing with an issue like this one. I mean for them to admit it's a design flaw on a crucial part (the engine) which they discovered after the fact is asking them to admit one hell of a lot.

I suspect they'll always downplay the flooding issue by burying it in the manual and I suspect that they'll continue handling issues such as replacement plugs via "normal channels" rather than through formal dealer-notifications.

I've not flooded my car and I never mind jammin' to the stereo for a couple of minutes when it's cold-idling but I am a bit concerned about the day when I have to leave it somewhere long enough for it to entirely cool down for service of some type. I've got my doubts about a non-8-owner caring enough (or understanding enough) to let the engine heat up a bit before killing it (or risking having it die.)

zoom44

why do you think that mazda did not find this a problem during all the testing that was done leading up to production cars? why was it not reported as an issue by any one of the many reporters who drove the car for testing prior to launch, say at laguna seca? since these were also pre-production cars, one answer could be that the problem didn't happen in pre-production cars. so then what changed? to find an answer to that we could ask if there is a flooding issue in the JDM cars. if there is not than perhaps the ignition system works just fine with the original tuning, but with the (coining a phrase here) "cat-longevity tune" the extra fuel dumped into the mix for cooling combined with the ignition setup is the culprit. something along the lines of canzoomer's leaner tune may help alleviate the flooding issue as a side benefit to it's intended purpose.

Haus

I'm sorry I should have been more precise with my post. When I went on the BBB site, there was a link to automobile recalls. Here, it will post all official recalls for every car manufacturer and it also allows you to post a complaint. This site is run by the government and the more complaints they receive regarding the RX8 then Mazda might actually have to answer to the govt. The site is www.recalls.gov and click on motor vehicle recalls. Check it out it has lots of good information.

MEGAREDS

I don't believe the flooding issue would qualify as a recallable issue with the feds, even if they receive many complaints. Just for kicks, I went through the complaint process. When you get to the "detail" section, you get asked for the following information:

Incident Date :
Was there a Fire :
Number of Fatalities:
Was there a Crash :
Number of Failures:
Property Damage :
Number of Persons Injured:

My guess is that complaints by RX-8 owners about the inconvenience caused by "flooding" are going no where on this site. They're likely to urge you to contact an attorney. A better bet would be the State lemon laws or consumer fraud laws ... but I wouldn't hold my breath on those either, particularly if Mazda is handling the flooding complaints under warranty. In Illinois, as I recall (no pun intended), you need to be without use of the car for 30 business days within the first year on four separate repair incidents before the dealer has to buy back the car -- good luck on that one. (BTW, I'm currently at 3 days, 2 incidents.)

Still, if you feel so inclined, I think the place to start is with the State Attorneys General. They pretty much all have a consumer fraud division, and "consumer fraud" is loosley defined. It would be interesting to know what they have to say.

Addendum:
After a bit more digging, I actually found many investigations on this site of "engine stalling" problems. Hmmm. Maybe the man makes a point.

Habeeb

Zoom 44, I concur with your idea that Mazda should have caught this problem. As for testing and reporters driving at Leguna, the cars were probably warmed up fully and the problem didn't show it's head. Have we heard from many Japanese owners and do they have the same problem? There has to be more short drive cycles and possible cold shut down in Tokyo. .. Wondering if it is more prone to US market or worldwide. Rotarygod.. if there was a fuel delay on initial cranking, as well as a higher speed starter, it could offer a partial fix. Your posts are quite well written and insightful..

rotarygod

Thanks. I try to give some possible easy solutions. I think the problems are fairly obvious but for the life of me I just don't know what Mazda was thinking when they went to this system.

MEGAREDS

Where can we buy Canzoomer stock?

rotarygod

Too bad Canzoomer only leans out above 5000 rpm. Imagine a starter that could get there!