durrada

This weekend I experienced an electrical problem with my RX-8. While driving, I pressed the "up arrow button" on the steering wheel in order to go to the next song on a CD. After pressing this button, which I have pressed many times before, the stereo and most accessories in the car immediately turned off. Me, being the rocket scientist that I am, decided to pull over, turn the car off and check it out - can you say stupid, drive home first !!

So, here's what had happened. The car blew the 30A ACC fuse under the hood in the fuse box. Cool, hey. Not too weird for a car, though, this happens. However, I didn't have any of those types of fuses as extras. While I don't expect this to be a recurring problem for ev1, I suggest ev1 stop by their local auto store and get a couple of these fuse types for their trunk

To make things even worse, some moron engineer at Mazda decided to wire the ignition into the ACC fuse. Brilliant !! So, if you overload your accessories for whatever reason and you stop the car, guess what, you can't start it !!!! There's a braniac for ya. Sure would hate to wire the ignition to the Ignition fuse - lol.

Anyhoo, long story really long. I managed to jerry rig it, get to an auto store and replace the fuse. The next day I went through 3 30A fuses trying to get it restarted again. The car is now at the dealer as they search for the short - that should be interesting - the blind leading the clueless. That's probably not fair, but will more than likely end up true - lol.

Just thought I'd share this wonderful info with you all. If you wish to test the starting information. Just pull the 30A ACC fuse from your box and try and start the car. Brilliance at work

David

P.S. - Once I find out what the problem was, I'll post it.

durrada

I almost forgot. While this electrical problem sucks, I STILL LOVE my RX-8 and cannot see myself in any other car right now. I expect certain problems to arise when I purchase a 1st year new model, it comes with the territory.

So, once again, I LOVE MY RX-8.

David

downshift

Hah.. how's that for an immobilizer! Just remove the 30A fuse when you're parked and no one can steal the car

durrada

Ok, 4 days later, the winner is...

My "little" electrical problem was a wire running inside the steering column that had slipped out of it's harness. When it came our of the harness a small incision was made in the wire pairs. As the wires heated up they expanded just enough to cause the short which in turn blew the fuse.

So far so good on their fix. We will see how it goes and I'll let you all know if anything else happens. The real pisser to me about the whole thing, is that after 4 days of looking the problem ended up exactly where I told them to look in the first place. Oh well, I got my baby back, so I'm heppy again.

David

rx8cited

Glad to hear you baby's all better. Now ..... how is it that you knew where the problem was ?????? You were doing what in there ????? :D

Mr M

Has your car had the airbag recall? Maybe they routed the wires wrong when they did the recall? I have never heard of this problem before...

Having the IGN on the same fuse as ACC isn't all that silly in my opinion. Where do the accesories get their power from? The Ignition! If you could still drive the car, the alternator would still be charging a battery that may have a direct short to earth somewhere. Even with a separate fuse for ACC, there is still a risk that such a short could affect another system, so to save your PCM and prevent other problems power to the IGN is cut. Better to be on the safe side...

durrada

I was pretty sure where the problem was just based on the behavior of the car when the fuse blew the first time. It's kinda like software programming. When you get an error in an application that I've written, I need to know the set of steps you took leading up to the problem. If you can give them to relatively correctly, I can find the problem real fast. As with the short, the fuse initially blew upon depressing the CD change "up" button on the sterring wheel. My guess would be the short would be in there some where.

As for the recall information. The only service on my 8 prior to this was an oil change. While they were fixing the short, they did the air bag recall and another oil change, as well as rotating the tires.

Still love my girl !