Oh, and by the way, the 2004 4-cyl. Camry has been recalled twice and the 2000 Honda S2000 thrice.

"Recall" isn't the end of the world. Granted, not all recalls are created equal, but the word seems to prompt the worst fears.

 

.....Honda and Toyota don't give out Rotor Tables either. Be glad you've bought a Mazda. Thank's Mr Mazda-San!!

 

Hey zoom44, just curious -- how's your car doing? I admit I don't read every post on this forum, but I never see you talk about it. I don't even know if you have an RX-8. lol You spend all your time helping us out and providing info, so I was just wondering what kind of experience you've had with your car?

 

Charlie lives in a nice valley with views of Mt Hood, lovely towering trees all around. He whittled his RX-8 out of a fallen branch over a period of five weeks late in 2003.

It gets great fuel economy.....he uses the Hymee sCanalyser to keep it in tune. It runs a bit rough in the fall.......

 

i wonder if the usual bolt on mods will have any negative effect on this. Say I get a rebuilt engine--i would want my light flywheel etc back on!
What kind of symptoms does the engines in question show? Low power etc?
Once I found to use pre mix, change to new coils, grounding kit, heavier weight oil, change spark plugs about every 5K miles, keep the oil out of the intake and learn to not overheat the car it runs great and consistant.
Follow with interest---
olddragger

 

Does idling produce insufficient lubrication under current flash? I sometimes idle a lot, but then I redline the car twice to four times a day, so I'm sure all the carbon buildup is gone.

 

The more I think about this, the more I think that this is not the behavior of a company that is about to abandon the technology in question.

If Mazda had decided that the rotary just wasn't worth the trouble long-term, why wouldn't they just do a reflash recall, and leave it to the dealer's discretion whether to test, fix, and/or replace engines? That's pretty much what they've been doing up till now.

But now they've said publicly that they intend to replace every engine that has this problem. So, if they are ready to throw the rotary under the bus, while this is the best thing to do for customers who are having problems, it's also a really bad PR hit, and it's really expensive.

If, on the other hand, they are looking at a long-term strategy for the rotary, this is exactly the right thing to do. Bring them all in, take them all apart, find out exactly what's been going wrong internally for the past two years, solve the problem for the existing customers, and make sure you solve it forever.

 

Exploratory surgery. LOL

 

Agreed. We should be lucky that Mazda is being so proactive in solving our problems. Sure the car isn't a 1990 Corolla in terms of reliability, but considering the story of the rotary and how Ford almost killed it, it's amazing that the RX-8 is what we have today.

 

I would agree with that in general, but there's are quite a few horror stories of dealers just flat out refusing to fix a problem that is clearly due to a design/manufacturing problem. They just throw out the "abuse" scapegoat and owners are screwed over.

Problematic car + difficult dealer = terrible ownership experience.

 

^ That is definitely true.

 

I'm actually pretty pissed.

My car has 6,800 miles on it.

The last thing in the world I want is a remanufactured engine that may have 3x the mileage as my current one.

What Mazda should do, if they truly wanted to take the true 'we care about our customers' approach, is offer a 100,000 mile (or greater) warranty on the Renesis, regardless of months in service, that would also be transferrable to subsequent purchasers.

That would bring far more relief than what they are currently (apparently) proposing.

Toyota did this with their sludge-prone 3.0 liter engines, I do believe.


Are you listening, Mazda?

 

Quick question for those of us that bought used Rx-8s.. when the recall comes out, should we call mazda to see where we would fall in terms of when to bring the car into the dealership as in the thread, it mentioned the recall possibly being a roll out event... i personally dont have any problems so far on my 8, but just wondering.

 

Well if they're doing this by last names, I'm pretty screwed. My last names starts with Z. Then again, as long as I don't need a new engine (and I don't think I will) then it'll be fine.

 

Would be nice to see an extended warranty to only the engine.

Who knows what will pop up next.

You get a 36,000 mile warranty on a new engine? But only 10,000 if they replace it......

For most people, I dont think they have seen failures until after 10K.

 

You will be contacted via mail. Just because you bought used doesn't disqualify for being included in the recall. They know you own the 8 if it is licensesd and registered to your state DMV, that is a record of your VIN number to.

 

Maybe you should get pissed AFTER they tell you you need a new engine. I don't think this will really affect that many cars.

 

agreed.. remeber the recall for melting gas caps? that didnt effect EVERYone.. but enough people were complaining that they should do it.. i think this has blown way outta proportion and prolly 80 percent of the people wont need a new engine..

 

Im thinking greater than 80%.

 

I bought a new car with a new engine. Now my engine isn't "new" anymore, it has 22k miles on it, but I put everyone of those miles on it and I know what abuse its been subjected to. I can't say that about a reman'd engine. My experience in life is that a reman'd anything isn't as good as a new one. I'd be happy if they just wrote me a check for a reman'd engine plus the labor they would normally pay and I can have my own mechanic rebuilt it. But, that's not going to happen, plus who knows what kind of internal changes they are doing to fix the problem.

 

heavier rotor and ceramic seals?
OD

 

Oh boy. I sure hope you read the manual b4 posting this massive jack.

 

other than the vaccum test, can you tell if the engine is leaking? I would imagine oil on the ground when you park would be a clue. I have an 04 8 and had it serviced this week. Dealer replaced the starter, battery, trailing plugs and reprogrammed. 2nd time I complained about occassional slow starts. First time I took it in the said the tech could not repeat. They also replaced the front brake pads. This is the 3rd time they have done break work on my car.

 

If you sent in the change-of-owner form in your manual you should receive notification in the mail. If not, when you hear the recall is out on this forum, you should be able to call your dealer and have them look up in their database whether the recall applies to your VIN (which it most likely does).

Remember, the recall is BOTH the vacume test and the PCM update, so even if you have no problems you still want it done (if it applies to your car).

 

Mazmart should rebuild these for the customer as an option IMO.