Hard 8

Last November or so, my buddy bought his RX-8 "new" from the dealer, but it was a demonstrator, I guess, because it had maybe 400 miles on it. Before he got the M flash last week, he had had a lot of stalling problems with it, and one true (pre-M flash availability) flooding incident, where the dealer had to clean the plugs.

He got the M flash last Friday, but had even more problems this weekend. Here are the symptoms, in his words:

A pre- M flash incident:

"The 8 did the "stall" thing again. Seems that when I get home, change for the gym and try to go again (about a five minute stop) the [car] stalls. I back out of the driveway, shift into first, clutch out start to go and than tach drops to zip and stalls. Can't get the [car] going.....have to coast down the hill backward into the driveway. Start up, keep engine going about 3 minutes.....in first, clutch out....stall. Repeat/same. Let it sit over night and o.k."

A post-M flash incident:

"this time able to drive it at 20 mph but wouldn't go over. Let it sit for an hour an it started up. Same fact pattern. Drive car for a while...shut it down for short errand....hot weather....in reverse out of parking spot and put into first and trouble. Like car had a governor on it at 20/25 mph....shifted into second and same limit. "

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Hard 8

I should add that this stalling problem seems to occur when (1) the engine is warm and he's been driving for a long time, (2) he then shuts it down for a few minutes, (3) he backs up, then (4) he starts driving.

RotorWheeee

I've read on this forum that several people have found simalar things which turned out to be relating to the coils . You may want to do a search for that.

stangmatt66

Sounds like your car is going into a safety or "limp" mode when it set the governor at 25mph. Can't help more than that. Consult your service center.

Haze

Yup, in my opinion his plugs are horribly fouled and he needs new ones.

I had a similar thing but not nearly as bad. He is now flashed to M. Do you know if he had previously flashed to L, or was his car running K or J prior to the M flash? J or K run so rich that they can load up the plugs to the point that they are useless in around 5-7 thousand miles.

I had a similar problem when I got flashed to L. My symptoms weren't nearly as extreme, but this is my story. I bought the car with 4 miles on it. I drove the car about 4,000 miles on K, and my mileage started going down, then the power went down, then it started having trouble starting. It would be fine starting cold, but if I ran it up to operating temperature, and tried to start the car it would either crank and crank with no effect or start and then stop. It would get going after that and run OK, but it was definitely having trouble.

I then got flashed to L, and the car started running stronger, but the car still wouldn't start warm and it was mis-firing (kind of a popping sound out of the tail pipe). I took it to another dealer when my dealer refused to check the plugs, and the new dealer found very fouled plugs. They replaced the plugs, and all has been fine since. The thing here is that I don't think that Mazd is replacing plugs for free any more, and they are dead expensive. It is however what he needs.

No matter what, he should take the car back to the dealer and complain, and he should ask for two things, which are a semi-combined diagnosis anyway. He should get his plugs checked for fouling, and he should have them compression test the engine to make sure that something more serious isn't happening because the car could have been damaged prior to his buying it. However, I am really betting that it's just fouled plugs, and at this point, he needs new ones.

All the best - Haze

Hard 8

Thanks, guys, and esp. Haze. I have passed this on to my friend. I have to say that the coil pack theory does not seem applicable here. My search seems to suggest that bad coils usually manifest themselves with one or more of these symptoms: Burned electrical smell, loss of low-end power, CEL and smoke. He has none of those problems. Also, I'm not sure the coil problems are intermittent, like his problem, or cause stalling.

I like the fouled plug theory right now, but if anyone else has any other ideas, please chime in. Thanks.

WHealy

Haven't I read that most plug switches have a Cat replacement as well? Or would that not have a bearing here?

Haze

Well, the plug replacement that I am talking about is just because the engine was running rich for so long that the spark plugs become fouled with carbon and no longer function properly. I am actually suggesting replacing the plugs with the same heat range of plug in this case. I actually had my plugs changed to the hotter heat range, but it's really getting clean plugs that make the difference here. I'm not entirely sure why spark plugs ought to be changed because of a Cat Convert blow out. The cat converts have been burning out, from what I can glean from various threads, because the car was running rich with solidly hard driving and the excess of gas burnt in the cat destroying the lattice element. The fix there really ought to be the reflash to M to eliminate the too rich condition. There could also be a spark plug replacement in that case because those plugs would be fouled as well since all of this comes from the same initial problem, the lousy CPU map that they sold the car with. Anyway, that's what I'm thinking. You have something different because I would be interested? All the best - H

Hard 8

Maybe it is the plugs, I don't know, but now my buddy's 8 won't go over 2,500 RPMs. It takes him like 2 hours to get from point A to point B, with cars honking at him all the way. Turns out the sweet deal he got on the car was not so sweet: The build date was 05/03, which was, I think, maybe the first set of cars off the line. (???) Maybe Mazda will have to give him a new engine as they've done with others; maybe it's just the plugs. I don't know, but he's got it at the dealer now, waiting for some word.

All I know is, my car has never given me even one instant of trouble. (I just feel bad because I was the one who convinced him to get his car.)

Slickvic

Well you should only feel bad if you convinced him to buy a demo with 400 miles on it. After hearing all these "test drive horror stories" I would not wish a demo model on my worst enemy.

Hard 8

Thanks. Actually, that does make me feel a bit better. I paid maybe $2,000 more for an identical model, but mine runs like a g*damn top. Never flooded; never stalled; never let me down. (Touch wood.)

nosubstitutec4s

um....hunh?

Elara

As in "knock on wood"- trying not to invoke Murphy, etc.

Hard 8

Yup. As I understand it, "touch wood" is the British expression; "knock on wood" is American. Same thing, though. It's a way of invoking good luck or avoiding bad luck, as the case may be.

See this article, from which I quote under the fair use doctrine:

Q] “What is the origin and true meaning of knock on wood or touch wood?”

[A] "To touch wood is a superstition action to ward off any evil consequences, say of untimely boasting; it can also be a charm to bring good luck. The origin is quite unknown, though some writers have pointed to pre-Christian rituals involving the spirits of sacred trees such as the oak, ash, holly or hawthorn. There is, I’m told, an old Irish belief that you should knock on wood to let the little people know that you are thanking them for a bit of good luck. Others have sought a meaning in which the wood symbolises the timber of the cross, but this may be a Christianisation of an older ritual. The children’s game of tag in which you are only safe so long as you are touching wood is not likely to be connected (an indicator of this may be that at times iron was substituted for wood if there was no wood handy). The phrase itself seems to be modern, as the oldest citation for touch wood in the Oxford English Dictionary dates only from 1908; my searches haven’t turned up anything earlier. (Incidentally, that work doesn’t have a single example of knock on wood, which is the American version of the British touch wood.)"

Haze

Well, please post what the eventual diagnosis is because this sounds terrible. A build date of 5/03 is definitely early. I will keep my fingers crossed that it gets fixed soon. - H

Hard 8

Thanks, mon. I'll definitely post the epilogue. I fear the car is ruined for my friend. He says, regardless of what happens, it's like finding out your wife's been cheating on you; you can never trust her/it again.

(I think it's not that bad; when I fix a problem, and I know it's fixed, I forget about it pretty quickly.)

Haze

I hope that that isn't true. It is sad that a bad service department can ruin an otherwise perfectly good car for someone just because they don't want to put the effort into diagnosing and repairing the thing. Again, my fingers are crossed for him that this gets repaired quickly and well! All the best - haze

Hard 8

Update: I got back from vacation to learn that my buddy has his car back again, and he says it's running perfectly now. I haven't seen the repair order, but he believes that the only thing they did was replace the oil pump. Go figure. Maybe the car went into limp-home mode when the ECU noticed that oil pressure was low? Maybe this was a separate oil pump for injecting oil into the "combustion chamber"? (Is that what to call it?)

I dunno. Anyway, he's much happier with it now, which is nice. I think he'll keep it unless it craps out on him again.