Putting the RX8 back in the shop yet again. I have an '05 with 65,000 miles. I'm having the dreaded "hot start" issue again. Same thing as last summer when they told me the engine was fine and charged me $1800 for new ignition coils, spark plugs, wires, and some sort of vacuum resovoir (can't recall the part of hand). The car runs great when I can get it started. The problem is the car doesn't want to start when I take a trip and shut it off for a short time and then attempt to restart it. And yes the car is at operating temperature when I shut it off. Last time it was in the shop the compression was checked and came back low. The numbers averaged around high 5's low 6's. The head mechanic assured me the compression was within tolerance even though everything that I have read states that the compression should be 6.9 at 250RPM. A year prior I put it in the shop for the same problem and they told me I needed an ECU reflash. At this point its a re-occuring issue and the $1800 I spent 8 months ago accomplished nothing because as soon as the warm weather returned so did the issue. This time I am not taking no for an answer. They better give me a new engine. Low compression + hot start issues = new engine for me.

 

i hope everything works out. im from NJ too, what dealership are you going to?

because 1800 for those parts seems way too high, its 300 for the ignition parts themselves.

 

When you take the car in, make sure that the engine has been well warmed. Then try starting the engine in front of the service writer. If it does start (like mine did when I was having this problem), have the service people drive it around. Even have the service manager take it home for the night to try to replicate the problem.

 

Turnersville NJ. And don't forget I replaced the vaccum resovoir also. Whatever that is.

 

Did you get a new engine? And did the problem only occur during the warmer months?

 

Personally, I don't think I would go back to that dealership. I don't know where Turnersville is, but I would talk to Kevin (tekniks) at Wayne Mazda if you're at all close to them. He's a member here and can be trusted completely. Do you know what the rpm was with your old compression test last year? Your engine may not have qualified for replacement yet, and you may have needed plugs and coils, but your compression is down and that's really the fundamental problem.

 

BTW, $300 for all the ignition parts is right. Also, they should charge you no more than 2 hours of labor for installing all of the ignition parts, although if you're lucky, a dealership may just charge you 1 hour labor. So if a dealership's labor was $85/hr, 2 hours of labor would be $170. Add that up and that's a total of $470.

I don't know what a vacuum reservoir is and I don't know what the labor might be for that, but there's no way it would add up to $1800 minus $470 (or $1330).

 

Wayne is way to far for me. Literally a couple hours away. I have the choice between Maple Shade Mazda and Turnersville Mazda. Both are about the same distance from my house. I had a blow up with the service manager at Maple Shade because frankly I know more about the RX8 then he does. Big suprise there right? Turnersville has a head mechanic that seems to know the car pretty well. I forgot to mention they decarbed the engine for me on my last trip. Last time I took the car in I was a litlle ill prepared. This time I printed out the service bulletins relevant to my loss of power issue and I have also gathered up all my receipts including the ones from my last trip to the dealership. I wanted to show them my compression results from my last visit so they can be compared to the new test results. They did tell me they would run the compression test for free being it has been under 12 months since the last compression test was ran and I am still experiencing the same issues as the last time I dropped off the car. I have only put 1200 miles on the car since last August when the car was last at the dealership. I told them the car is not a dailey driver. I spoke with the head mechanic on the phone yesterday and he did agree that the symptoms sound like a loss of compression issue. I told him I was going to quote him when I spoke to the service manager. The car is currently in the shop getting a body kit installed. It doesn't matter much because the next appointment they had available was next Wed. Hopefully I will be joining the new engine club!

 

If I recall the ignition parts came to around $750 and that included an engine decarb. Big deal right! The vacuum resovoir was like a $500 part. It was just a plastic tank. The service manager handed me all the old parts when I picked up the car on my last visit. I agree it does sound high. Unfortunately I have very few options being there are only 2 local dealerships and the service manager at the one is an idiot. I'm hoping Turnersville will make things right. I have a copy of the last compression test which clearly shows the compression to be low. I believe the test was done at 249 RPM and as I mentioned the results ranged from approximately 5.9 to 6.3. Don't quote me but this is the ballpark for the test results from last Aug.