demon your fine, it happens to us all...trust me dont be afraid

 

So the sound goes away?

 

nope, its just the throw out bearing, cant do much about it...just gotta live with it

 

Update:

47,000 miles. Took her in for motor oil and told them to change the boot and foam insert one last time and that should do it. The smell has calmed down, but there is some residual in the materials.

Tech asked me if it smelled like sulpher (new guy, my previous tech left). I says, ah, yea. He said that "we have a synthetic that we use now that does not smell".

I said "would have come in handy 13,000 miles ago. Anyway they replaced no charge.

Lubromoly 75W-90

http://www.autosportcatalog.com/auto...gear-oil.shtml

Stink seems to be gone, other than the soak in from 13,000 miles of rotten eggs riding around with me. Detailed her (including shampooing the rugs) and so far so good.

That lube look OK to you gents?

Thanks

 

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to add my data to it:

- 2009 model
- 11,000 miles
- bone stock
- dealer performs all service (so far, only oil changes every 2500 miles)

Some days it really stinks. The first time I noticed the smell was after the 3rd service I think. I immediately thought transmission fluid, because I've worked with it in the past. Seems to only occur in stop and go traffic. I checked for leaks but did not find any. Once day after shutting the car down and smelling it, I wafted some of the air in front of the exhaust tips and thought the smell was stronger, so I wrote it off as one of those 'it's just a rotary' things. But this is getting bad, passengers have complained and this is my 5th rotary vehicle - I'm used to the various smells; I've never smelled this before.

C

 

Update:

49,500. No stink. Tell your mechs to use the Lubromoly.

 

may I recommend a Yankee candle air freshener! It will smell worse than the oil

 

i wanted to bump this thread as i am at my wits end with the gear oil smell in my interior.... i am bringing it into the dealer monday but want to make sure i know what i want done as i am 100% sure they will tell me its not a problem or they cant fix it or whatever, the usual dealer stuff....

so basically i want to replace the leather boot and the inner rubber liner, is there anything else that should be replaced? what can i get them to flush the gearbox with? what kind of a degreaser will work best to clean the excess oil off with, simple green?

what about the vent, how do they clean that?

hopefully my dealer has lubromoly, im in toronto and they probably wont have it but there is a local seller so i will get it on my own if i have to....

anything else i am missing? thanks

 

I was experiencing the same problem after I changed my tranny fluid a few months ago. FYI I filled the tranny from under the car, not through the center console. In hot weather with the windows down the smell was pretty bad.

I ended up resealing the bottom gasket around the shift turret with high temp silicone and cleaning the rubber boot with simple green and I haven't had a problem since.

I wish I would have seen this thread when I was troubleshooting the smell though. It took me a while to figure it out

 

i still have not been able to remedy the gear oil smell in the interior.... i replaced the leather boot and the rubber seal and cleaned everything but to no avail, when the car gets warmed up the smell returns....

the smell in the cabin is a little better (due to replaced parts) but still there... but when the car is warmed up, the smell coming thru the vents is gross, especially on the highway and when making fast turns... dealer said it was not overfilled

so i have a couple questions....

can i change the gear and diff oil to the 75-90 lubromoly? or are the weights different for each?

second question, the smell is coming thru the vents moslty while the windows or sunroof is open.... at the risk of sounding vague, how is the smell getting to the vents? when the windows or roof is opened, is it creating some kind of vacuum effect that is pushing air from under the car into the vents? it seems that when i crank the a/c, the smell dissipates almost entirely..... but if the a/c is off, the air that is pushed thru the vents is filled with gear oil smell

 

I just wanted to give you guys some input. I recently changed my trans fluid (through the shifter hole) and I now, as well as before the change, smell gear oil occasionally.

The problem I detected was a worn bushing. NOT the lower most white cap on the shifter, but the larger white upper bushing (the one that has 3 notches). The worn center part (that the shifter passes through) allows small amounts of oil to creep up (evidenced by existing oil in the concaved part of this piece prior to removal) into the upper portion of the shifter.

That's where I think my smell is coming from. And if I can remember, I'll update this post after I install the AFE short shifter.

Good Luck!

 

Going to bump up an old thread and see if anyone else has tried the Lubromoly that rXter mentioned.

I bought a new to me RX-8 Shinka with 48,000 miles and on the 6 hour drive home the gear oil smell would come and go. So glad I found this thread before ripping apart the center console. The transmission appears to be perfectly clean so definately going to try the Lubromoly.

Has anybody tried it in the rear end and is synthetic okay to use in the rear differential?

 

I've never tried the Lubromoly, but (like I said b4) I would check the bushing first.

A synthetic GL-5 like Royal Purple is fine for the diff.
Just make sure you use a GL4 for the trans (and not a GL4 compliant GL5 fluid).

 

Thank yu for answering that so quick. Has the new bushing continued to solve the issue for you? If so that sounds completely logical.

Does anyone know of the part number for the bushing or where a schematic of the gear shift assembly could be found?