I really don't know much about cars...but i just bought an rx8. Today I had a flashing cel for about 10 seconds and it disappeared i was in 3 rd gear about 7000rpm when this happened. It does feel like it may be misfiring. I keep hearing about compression. How do I know if i have bad compression? Im really not sure what compression is? Sorry to sound stupid but just unsure. What could be wrong with my car. It does seem like it takes more than normal to crank up maybe like 3 seconds. Its an 06 with 62k on it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. And yes I did search before I posted this. Just want to think what you guys think. Is it a misfire or bad compression. Is bad compression fixable? Thanks.

 

first, I think that you need to take a whole day and dedicate it to learning about the car you have!!
That out of the way... Take your car to an Auto zone and get the CEL code read for free. Then, post here with the results.
If your car has low/no compression, you're still under mazda's 100k mile warranty

EDIT: Also, when was the last time your spark plugs/ coils were changed? If you don't know, I'd recommend getting a new set

 

this is a great site understanding how a rotary works
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/rotary-engine.htm

if you go to this page http://auto.howstuffworks.com/rotary-engine4.htm there's a great graphic that breaks down the compression stage, here you can see how truly important adequate compression is to the performance of the engine

 

Spark plug time......