Triangul-8

Took my wife’s RX 8 AT in to the dealer on Thursday for the checking of the OP gauge (read previous thread listed below to get up to speed). Car had no oil pressure reading all the way to the dealership. Grabbed the head tech upon arriving at the dealership to show him the proof of no needle reading. I then proceeded to the service writer and indicated the problem (436 miles on the clock) and wished for a loaner car while in the shop. I ended up with a $500 mold and smoke infested rattletrap to drive in the mean time. I was late for work or I would have hit the fan with the sales manager when he finally woke and arrived at the lot. No time gotta go, already wasted 1 hr getting logged in.
Anyway, no word on Thursday and I called mid-afternoon on Friday to check progress if the cluster was needed or a loose connection was found. The head tech indicated that the oil pressure switch was in need of replacement according to the manual. I scratched my head as I remember telling the tech that you could tap on the dash and the pressure needle would jump in 16th inch increments and then shut down the car and restart and it would resume normal or even go to max pressure, or nothing at all. I am thinking how the heck could taping on the dash have any affect on the oil pressure switch, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt and let him proceed without scolding. I was notified 10 till 5 that the car was ready for p/u and the sales crew would have the keys for a late p/u to suit my schedule. Perfect I thought, maybe I was wrong, so I make my way there to find oil pressure as the book indicates (albeit not truly an OP gauge, but it was working nonetheless). I take 8 straight home to clean it from sitting around the dealership. Started it up again after the cleanup, and I nearly went right through the sunroof! NO OIL PRESSURE!!!!!!! I was furious with anger. So Monday I will be waiting for the Owner and Sales Manager to indicate my disapproving loaner car and demand a comparable loaner, or order the parts for our 8 while it sits safely in our garage and I'll return with it to supervise the install.

We have successfully owned and operated a Japanese Motorcycle franchise for 28 years and I have come to recognize that a careful observing owner is a more valuable tool in describing the problem with their particular machine than any number of years in a tech school simulating failures and posing situations can benefit in analization. I said describing, not always right in repairing, but not many realize the scope of repair work, as we have come to know it.
So the saga continues.

The earlier thread for the no oil pressure / max oil pressure:
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...threadid=25060

Haze

Well, it's your choice to hit the roof if you want, but remember that they aren't trying to **** you off. They haven't seen this before. It's a new car. The tech line was useless as was the manual.

In this case, their failure to fix it is far more understandable than the trouble that they gave you in getting the loaner and getting out of the dealership. That's the big problem. If you tell them to chase the gauge again, they will do it, but they did do the normal thing.

When repairing a car, it is often the best idea, if you have to resort to part replacing, to start with the cheapest easiest thing first. If I recall you didn't like the idea of them getting into your gauge package in the first place, and they figured, well, we'll try the sender since it's easy in comparison and cheap, and we'll see if that will work. You yourself said that it was working when you picked it up. Think about it from the mechanic's point of view. He put the part in, fired it up, and perfect function! He figured that he got it.

I know that you're hot, but I'm suggesting giving them one more chance. They really tried and thought that they got it from my stand point. Now, if they can't fix it the second time then hit the roof because all that's left is the gauge.

And I know that you told them that tapping on the gauge made it move, and I know that leads one to believe that it's the gauge, but he was trying to do this the easy way for him, cheapest for Mazda, and least intrusive for you, and it did work when delivered.

If you want to T off on somebody, go off about that 1 hour wait. There is no excuse for making you late for work.

It's just an opinion, but that is how I see it.

Rotary Nut

I agree with you 100% about the "careful observing owner" but it is my careful observation that most techs rarely even go by what the owner observed in the first place.

Case in point. My old Passat W8 had a niggling problem whereas the display in the center of the instrument cluster would continously indicate that the hood was open. Normaly this would not be a problem but the image displayed was about four inches square. A major distraction if you ask me!

Well I have been an aircraft electrician longer than some of these techs have been alive. I know about basic electrical troubleshooting including the use of a multimeter! My service writer knows this. When I bring the car in I explained to Dave (the SW) that I pulled the plug at the hood latch and tested the switch. The switch was working as designed. I tested the operation of the micro switch by itself and with the latch actuating the switch, all was working OK.

Well five hours later I get the car back. And guess what? They ordered the switch because that is what the VW tech line told them to do! WTF! He didn't even see that I already told them that the switch was not the problem. Well as I had expected the switch came in and was installed and that did not fix the problem. They then replaced the latch and that did not fix it either.

After replacing the instrument cluster, the comfort control module, It was finally diagnosed to be the Stereo HU (the HU provides most of the processing power to the CANBus and it was found to have a short in the system)! It wound up having me take the car back to the shop about eight times to get this friggin' problem resolved! Totaly unacceptable service if you ask me!

Techs nowadays for the most part do not have any basic electrical system troubleshooting experience and will rely heavily on the computer to do the troubleshooting for them and if that comes up empty handed then they call the help line for guidance instead of using a little self reliance to try to narrow down the problem.

This is why I won't buy another VW product because most of the problems I had, nessecitated the return of the car to the dealership 5-7 times for every issue I experienced. The dealership I used to take my car to was the only shop around for 30-40 miles and I could not afford the time off from work to deal with the 2-3 hour round trip to the other dealerships in Virginia beach.