My nightmare in progress...
 

Friday: Drive my 6 week old '04 GT for its first road trip 700 miles to Georgia. ~3500 miles on the odometer. No problems, start of a beautiful Memorial Day weekend.

Monday, 10:00 AM: Return trip from GA. 50 miles into the drive, engine loses power briefly but repeatedly. I drive slowly for a bit, problem seems to correct itself.

Monday, 3:00 PM: 350 miles into the trip, in Kentucky, engine starts losing power again. This time it doesn't recover and I pull off to the side of the interstate and call roadside assistance. No warning lights, plenty of gas, plenty of oil, no idea what the problem is.

Monday, 4:00 PM: Tow truck shows up. Guy almost rips off my front spoiler pulling the car onto the flatbed. Drives me 30 miles to dealership in Louisville, where the service department is closed for the weekend. I'll be staying overnight in a hotel and missing a day of work.

Tuesday, 11 AM: Dealer calls and says the car is fixed. They've reflashed the computer. I can pick up the car and be on my way.

Tuesday, 12PM: Half an hour after leaving the dealership, problem starts happening again. I pull off and into a gas station. Call the Louisville dealership, who steer me to a dealer in Indianna close by. I manage to limp to the next dealership.

Tuesday, 4PM: Indianna dealer tells me they've spoken to Mazda technical assistance, who have indicated that a new engine is probably necessary. There seems to be a problem with oil delivery to the engine, which is causing heat issues, which is causing the engine to cut power. Seems strange since the temperature gauge is reading right where it always does and no codes have been thrown. Mazda advises that the problem will probably only happen at high speeds, so I should be able to get home if I take it slow.

Tuesday, 9 PM: 10 miles from my house, driving 55 mph, problem happens again. Pull over, engine dies, won't restart. Call roadside assistance for another tow.

Tuesday, 10:30 PM: Towtruck shows up, drives me to nearest Mazda dealer, but we find the entire lot locked up, so there's no way to drop the car off. The driver drops the car in front of my house.

Wednesday, 5:30 PM: Call for another tow. While waiting, realize that the driver of the last towtruck winched the car down so hard with the tiedown hooks that he actually bent the threaded hole for the tiedown hook in the rear bumper. I can't get the rear tiedown hook in place.

Wednesday, 7:00 PM: Towtruck shows up. Driver immediately says "That car won't fit on this truck. I knew that when they dispatched me." Tells me it will take another hour to dispatch another truck that won't rip off my front spoiler when the car is loaded. I cancel the tow as the dealership will be closed when I get there and I won't be able to get a rental.

Thursday, 10 AM: Take half a day off work to get the car to the dealer where I bought it, 25 miles away. Car starts fine, so I decide to drive it to the dealership (slowly) avoiding highways. Drop the car off at the dealer and get a rental.

Thursday, 2:30 PM: Service guy at the dealer calls to ask if his tech can take my car home with him overnight. Why? They haven't been able to reproduce the issue and taking the car home will give him more time to drive it. I refuse, as I'm worried about where this guy plans to leave my car overnight and how he plans to drive it while it's in his possession. Dealer doesn't like the idea of driving the car around trying to reproduce the problem, but won't do anything with the car until they see it happen.

I'm very concerned at this point. I've lost a day and a half of work, had an unexpected out-of-pocket hotel expense, and spent 4 hours of my life waiting for tow-trucks, most of that on the edge of a busy interstate highway sitting in a broken down car. Mazda has not done much to make me feel better, I hope this thing is resolved soon. I'll update with news...

Jeez... That's terrible. I really do hope they get this resolved for you. :(

MY WORD! You have a whole story and you have no idea what's up! Looks like you are going to have to drive it around and around the area of your dealer until it gets hot. There goes another day of work! Bummer! :(

Woah... Is this another MOP problem I wonder?? Is this an AT or MT?

Sounds like a fuel delivery problem to me. You may have gotten a bad tank of gas in Georgia which has clogged the fuel filter. Slowing down reduces the fuel requirement and allows the engine to run, which in turn pulls more crap into the filter causing the engine to cut out. Then when the particulates settle to the bottom of the tank, the car will run again for a while.

Good luck with the repair...I doubt the oil pump is the problem.

Gomez.

Fuel delivery - why didn't I think of that. We had a bad batch of fuel get out up here from Conoco/Phillpis - destroyed a butch of fuel injectors around Seattle. Gomez is right I bet. This MOP situation was just a hunch hip shot at best. :)

Many years ago (~76) when I worked at Mazda USA we bought back a RX3 wagon with similar problems. No dealer or the field rep could find the problem. Partialy because it could not be duplicated. After the by back we had one of the office staff drive it back and forth to work. Eventually the problem occured. With the better info from the staff guy we also felt fuel starvation. Since the filter & pump were already changed we dropped the fuel tank. Guess what? A assembly line parts tag was inside the tank! We felt it only sometimes blocked the fuel pick up starving the engine. Put all back together and the staff guy drove it for a few more months. Then liked it so much. and a good deal, bought the car.

Hope they find your problem!

Dont know how long the commute from your home to work is... and how out of the way your dealership is but... If I were you I'd drive the car to work tomorrow. Drive normal, not too slow, not too fast and just wait and see what happens. If the car fails again, pull over right then and there and call the dealership and have one of their service techs come to your location to see the problem.

I'd leave my house way early to give me time to get to work.

I know it sounds like a lot of hassle and you sure dont deserve having to do all of this, but if its what will get your vehicle fixed. After the problem is finally resolved, I'd try to get Mazda to reimburse you for any rental/hotel and missed work costs.

Best of luck :)

Hundreds of cars on a major highway driving by looking at a broken down RX8 on the side of the road....that's plenty more people who won't be buying the car based on reliability.

The fuel starvation explanation sounds dead on the money. It would explain why no warning lights are coming on and the temp gauge isn't reading hot. I'm reminded that when the problem happened the first time, my instinct was to look at the gas gauge because it felt like I might be dangerously low. I was at a quarter tank, but I stopped and filled up 10 minutes later. No problems until the tank was about a quarter full.

I left the KY dealership, had the same problem 30 minutes later, pulled into a gas station, filled up, and made it to the IN dealer with no problems. They couldn't make the problem happen when they drove it.

Stopped for food at some point after leaving the IN dealership and filled up again. No problems until I was almost home and the tank was getting lower. This time it happened at lower speed, but the filter was probably so clogged that nothing was getting through. That's why I couldn't start it at all after it died. By this morning the junk had settled and I was able to baby it to the dealer.

The car (a 6-speed to answer somebody's question) is at the dealer tonight, so I'll give them a call in the morning and float the theory to them. They mentioned on the phone today that they had to gas up the car, so that could have contributed to the difficulty they were having getting it to reproduce.

My guess is that they drove it around the block a few times and saw no problems. They decided to take it on the highway, but they got some gas first. Couldn't make it happen on the highway.

If this is indeed the problem, could it have caused any permanent damage to the engine or anything else? What is the likely fix?

Thanks to all of you for your sympathy and advice! The worst part of the whole ordeal so far is that I've got a bare bones rental Altima parked in front of my place that I'll be driving for who knows how long. It's easy to get used to the 8 and forget how crappy most cars on the road are. Hopefully I'll be reunited soon.

I doubt there'll be any permanent damage. If the filter is doing it's job properly then the injectors won't be clogged. It sounds as if it runs ok when it is running, so I'd say they are fine.

The fuel pump and filter are integral inside the tank. The pump and filter are changed as a single unit. It's not cheap, but you have a warranty so no drama's there. They'll have to drop the tank and clean it out. The fuel pump/filter can be replaced by removing the rear seat, but the tank will need to be dropped to get the gunk out of it (if this is indeed the problem!!)

Cheers,
Gomez.

Actually, bad fuel probably won't be covered under warranty....good luck! Check with the gas stations....see if anyone else has had issues.

Gomez.

It was not a nice feeling to know this isolated incident might be giving people a bad impression of the car. It was especially tough when some guy in a previous gen mustang GT gave me a mocking beep of the horn as he drove by :mad:

Luckily, I took lots of nice pictures while in the mountains of Georgia and looking at those makes me remember that there's no car I'd substitute that doesn't cost twice as much money or more.

lemon???

GOSH, sorry to hear about your poor 8! Here goes one of those stories that end up in Consumer Reports....ouch!

GOMEZ...GREAT JOB!!! This website is just great...wow....GREAT JOB!

Fuel delivery sounds right on the money but I hope it's not a lemon either, poor Josche...poor 8...

I hope the best!!!

If it was bad gas, most fuel companies will pay the cost of repair if it is proven that their gas was to blame. Problem is, it has been topped off several times since the original incident, probably at different stations, so I don't know how that would work.

Premature by the better part of a month to call it a lemon. I'd feel like a total dork if I tried to lemon-law a car with a bad tank of gas or a dirty fuel filter.

I did some thinking about this last night and I'm pretty sure I've narrowed it down to which gas station it must have been (if bad fuel is the problem). I bought gas in Kentucky, drove it to nearly empty, then filled in Tennesse before proceeding to my destination. After that, I didn't put more gas in until I started experiencing the problem. If it was the tank I bought in Kentucky, I probably would have seen the problem before I filled up in TN. My guess it was the tank I bought in Tennessee. The problem didn't evidence itself until the fuel level was getting low, which meant a higher concentration of crap in the tank. This makes sense to me, but I don't know if the company whose gas I bought will agree.

I'll be calling the dealer and my insurance company this morning.

Fuel delivery sounds right to me. But in case that's not it, I should mention that a buddy of mine had similar problems with his 8, and eventually they replaced the oil pump, and it's run perfectly ever since. (I guess it kept going into limp-home mode when the oil pump was bad.)

please keep us posted with your results and GOOD LUCK!!!

Let us know what they find.

I thought of another issue related to fuel delivery. The RX8 has a upside down U shaped fuel tank. It uses the excess fuel released by the pressure regulator to make a vacume to draw the fuel from the passanger side of the tank. If the fuel inlet, not the main fuel filter is restricted or the pump itself is poor the presure regulator will not pass as much extra fuel through the venturi and not all the fuel will be drawn from the passenger side. This could be why your problem is more apparent when less than 1/2 tank. If there is dirt in the tank, make sure that all of it is removed. With the special shape that could be hard for a dealer to do.

I called the dealer this morning to float the dirty fuel theory. The service rep said it sounded reasonable and would pass it along to the tech.

The dealer called me at work this afternoon to say that they had again driven the car and been unable to reproduce the problem. He made a call to Mazda and is waiting for them to get back to him before they do anything.

Given the situation, I'm planning on picking up the car tomorrow and driving it until I have the problem again or Mazda figures out what they want to do about it. I'm concerned that the dealer apparently has done nothing but cursory investigation and test driving. They won't do anything further without say-so from Mazda or seeing the problem themselves.

Any thoughts or advice?

Again...

I would just take the car back. There is nothing more frustrating than not having your car, and having it sit at the dealership not being fixed. I had my car at the dealership for 5 days when all it needed was a de-flooding and a possible reflash. A process which takes half a day, but I know they didnt get to it until the 4th day.

Anyway, I'd get your car back... and just agree with the tech that you'll be calling him as soon as the problem comes up. I'd have the tech come to you on site so that he can see. I'm sure that once they get to it, they can fix it within a day or two.

Best of Luck!