Got My Letter: Flooding Covered Under Warranty!
 

Because I've posted two prior threads on my flooding experience, I wanted to wrap up my story, just in case anyone had followed the prior threads but later elected to tune it out.

The Short Story: My car flooded; the Emergency Start Procedure didn't work; it was towed after the battery died; it took six days to fix over New Years Holiday; the dealer said it wasn't covered under the car's warranty and would be around $150 to repair; I complained to Mazda NA and was told I was covered -- but when I checked my dealer invoice it said I had been given a "one time goodwill fix per Mazda" and that future floods would not be covered; I wrote a letter to Mazda asking what the official policy was on multiple repairs of flooded vehicles.

It took three weeks, but I received a letter in the mail yesterday. The interesting part of the response is with regard to my question, "Am I covered for future flooding repairs or not?" The Customer Assistance Specialist responded as follows:

"In regards to your question, any incidence of RX-8 flooding, whether it be dealer service or towing, will be covered uner Mazda New Vehicle Warranty (48months/50,000 miles). I apologize for any miscommunication between you and the dealer as dealers have been educated that the repair will always be covered by Mazda."

My greatest fear was that Mazda was going to cut off repairing the 8 after a year and treat the repairs that have been done to date as "service adjustments" under the warranty ("service adjustments" are only covered for 1 year). My other concern was that we were going to lose our road-side assistance coverage after a year or so, or that Mazda would adopt a one-time-only policy as suggested by my invoice.

I know many people are sick of reading about flooding, and I apologize for sucking up so much bandwidth. I felt it was important to get Mazda's attention on this and I really believe this forum was a factor in Mazda adopting the above policy -- which I take to be very generous for those who, like me, understood the car was prone to flooding before making the purchase.

At one point I posted a message that I could not recommend the car to a prospective buyer until Mazda clarified its policy. Several of you wrote me that your cars had been repaired under warranty, but I also received a few messages that raised my concern that Mazda wasn't really viewing the repairs that way. As far as I'm concerned, they've now confirmed their intention to continue working on the issue and I can be enthusiastic in recommending the RX-8 again. I have a few dealership issues (which I hope to eventually iron out), and I'm not happy about the way Mazda's covered the flooding topic in their literature, but this is Model Year 1... as with the HP issue, it looks like Mazda's going to try to keep us happy over the long haul, and I take that as very good news.

Thanks again to everyone who offered support and advice. As I said after my initial post, rx8club.com is the best.

Thanks for the info for future purposes. If this ever happens to me I can always look this up!

How did you flood your car again? I am too lazy to look it up

FWIW, I still would be careful about recommending the 8 to people until Mazda gets the flooding situation worked out once and for all.

If the car became hard to start because someone had brain fade and shut it off after moving it from the garage to driveway to wash it, that's one thing; having it require a tow to a dealer where it may sit for three or four days until the service dept. can get around to it is, alas, quite another... :(

I also won't beat the "stall when cold starting it" issue any further except to briefly mention it here. ;)

I haven't flooded yet, but this is very good to know anyway. So don't feel like your taking up space. Sorry you had to go thru this. Great info.

Again, a lot of this goes to the unique rules that apply to a rotary engine. Should I not recommend a piston-engine car to friends, since if they forget to have the timing belt changed at 60,000 miles it could break and destroy the engine? No.

Cars aren't idiot-proof, as much as manufacturers try to make them so. You have to keep the tires at the right pressure, the oil changed, etc. Flooding and the rotary is simply another rule, and it's not that tricky to follow.

Yeah, it may flood, but if you mis-shift into 2nd gear at 100mph you don't blow the valvetrain through the head :). Yes, I have accidentally had a rotary to over 10,000 RPM and it couldn't care less. Try that with a piston engine.

Dale

Please.

The things you state are somewhat normal issues that anyone who's owned a car does or at least should know.

Having to run an engine for five minutes every time you start it is completely non-intuitive for most, and it's not even in the silly owner's manual, it's only in the "Quick Start" guide (which also doesn't mention that you may need have your car towed to the dealer if you ignore the procedure.)

As I've said before, if NHTSA forces auto recalls for faulty fuel tank senders, I'm at a loss to see why cars that may not start if shut off cold (read: stalled) won't cause them to take action.

It may be behavior unique to the rotary, and that right there may be enough to kill the rotary in the eyes of the general buying public. You generally have to beat the snot out of a normal piston-equipped engine to cause a problem that would require a tow; shutting off your brand new $30K+ car without running the engine for five minutes first just doesn't fall into that category...

MEGAREDS,

Good information. Thanks for posting.

Well, I AM going to beat the flooding issue to death ;) . The Nissan Maxima also has a flooding problem. It's in the "VQ" engine, used in the Altima, Maxima, Pathfinder, Murano, and Infini vehicles as well. So there. It's not just the rotary! Issue dead.

you've said this on several occasions despite the fact that there is a procedure for starting a flooded engine. not every car that floods needs to be towed. some have but not all.

Thanks for the update!

Re: Got My Letter: Flooding Covered Under Warranty!
 

And more so because members like you take the time to address these issues in a constructive way. Thanks for the info and persistence.

I've been concentrating on the floods that require tows. More than a few here have had their cars flood and they did not start by following the flooded engine start procedure.

In short, if the engine floods, that's bad, but if it's recoverable using the flooded engine start procedure, great. It's the floods that require tows to the dealer that bother me, and there have been several.

Since they've been good about such things, I sent an email to Mazda NA explicitly asking about whether a tow-required flood can occur if I accidentally stall the car when it's cold or if it requires time (e.g. move the car a short distance and then let it sit.)

I'll let you all know if I hear back and if so what they have to say...

I am kind of confused on this topic, does this pertain to all 8's or just manuals, or just automatics, I wish ppl in the forum would write the specs of the car when posting a problem they had, it would be interesting to see if there are trends with the problems and the transmission you have...

Flooding when shutting off after a cold start is a potential failure mode of the engine itself, so it's common to either transmission.

Obviously the worry about stalling the car while the engine is cold is not an issue with an automatic...

But . . .

It seems the large majority of 8s that have flooded have been autos.

This was also part of what I asked Mazda, since I actually followed the manual procedure as soon as I recognized the car was flooded, which means that I only cranked the key once, then immediately began with the "foot to the floor" procedure set out on page 7-20 of the manual. Their reply:

"In reference to your complaint about the emergency start procedures listed in the owner's manual not working, this procedure has proven to work in some cases, but may not work in every unique situation." (Emphasis in original.)

MEGAReDS,

Good stuff, thanks for posting this info..

Check out this thread: .Yet another twist on the flooding issue! As of today, it shows that of AT owners reporting, 57% say they've flooded. Of MT owners, the number is only 13%. Personally, I think the fact that the AT has less air ports is the cause, but somone mentioned another interesting theory... that AT owners typically aren't the only persons driving the car. That makes sense to me - I bought my AT, in part, so my wife could drive it, and sure enough, she's the one who flooded it.

14,000 miles. No flooding. But I am sure my GF could do it in the first drive. By the way, I did get her to drive it once.... we bucked more than we drove. hehe