I was going to install the K&N intake today, and as I was pulling out the stock intake, I noticed something start to leak out of the intake manifold. I looked inside the manifold (the stock tubing leading into the actual intake), and I saw a substantial puddle of engine oil INSIDE the manifold! Needless to say, I freaked and called my dealer's Service center immediately. My 8's being kept overnight as they run some tests - I should hear back from them tomorrow morning with the results. It would make me feel better if people have had this problem before. Any advice, comments, suggestions? Like I said, there was a puddle of engine oil inside the air intake manifold. I have 4000 miles on my car, and I do not abuse her. I wonder if it's a defect? Worried...worried...worried...

 

I hope this helps, here's what a quick search turned up. I'm going out right now to check mine, now I'm worried.
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...=oil+in+airbox

 

and here is anotherclick

 

Yes, as the threads posted above indicate you're not alone. We're all very curious as to what Mazda has to say... I've talked to a few techs on the phone and none of them knew what this might be. I have an appointment for Monday for the airbag recall and to show them my oily filter and pics of the mess I took before I cleaned it up.

I'm curious- was your oil black/brown in color, like your motor oil, or did it have a distinctive red color? Any chance you smelled it?

Thanks, and please post what your service guys have to say about this...

-Sean

 

I just checked, and yea. I've got oil.

Lovely.

Caling dealerships in the morning. Whaaaa!

 

I'm relieved that this problem has been observed by other owners! Not to spread misfortune of course...

<G8rboy>, I didn't notice the engine oil in the intake manifold being an unusual shade of color; nor did it have a particularly offensive odor. Truth be told, it looked and smelled like un-used engine oil.

<doccable>, sorry to hear that you have the same problem. I wonder how many of us 8 owners actually do have this problem. I'm assuming that the average driver isn't going to be taking out their stock intake, so how would one know? I'd be interested to see how many cases of this "engine oil flooding" there actually are. If you are going to take your 8 in to get it serviced as well, I'd like to hear back from you on what they did to alleviate the problem; sort of as a dealership comparison test. Please post your results.

Regardless, my car's in the shop overnight. Hopefully the service techs will be able to fix whatever is wrong with it. I'll keep everyone posted on what they have to tell me. This better be covered under warranty, because if it isn't, they're going to charge $80 for merely running a diagnostic!

 

Thanks for the feedback... the 'smell' issue was big to me since the oil in the engine has a distinct gas smell to it, and mine did not. Not to mention mine is red. Now it makes me wonder if those of us with oil 'issue' got it in there while the car was be shipped over on the boat, or at a weird angle on a truck.

Hopefully we'll have some answers soon... I'm not too concerned, since my RX8 is running like a dream, consuming a normal amount of oil (just under a quart so far at 2200 miles) and I haven't heard of anyone with this oil issue complaining about performance issues... yet.

Keep us updated

 

Davis, after reading the other threads on this, and talking it over with Omicron, (who had the problem with the cooler lines), I have determined that it probably is the PCV valve. I'm schedule for the recall service on March 16th, so I'll just have everything - the heat shield & airbag recalls, an oil change, (3k miles already!), and the PCV problem, along with anything else I can think of, done at that time. I'm one of the fortunate ones who doesn't have to rely on my 8 for daily transport, and own/mod/drive strictly for fun. But, yea, I will post what happens and how it goes.
Good luck with the fix on yours!
Doccable

 

DavisRx8:

I see you left your 8 overnight on the 24th. Did you happen to hear from your dealer today? Any word on the oil issue? Just curious as I'm bringing mine in tomorrow to be checked out...

Thanks..

 

Ok, I got my car back from the dealer today. The verdict...they essentially had no idea what was wrong with it. This is what the labor synopsis stated:

"Checked and found oil in the intake boot - cleaned it out. Checked and found no oil control problems. Scaned for codes and found o2 sensor and air flow meter slow to respond - found fouled by oil. Cleaned out o2 and air flow meter. Re-tested, good now. Ran car - no oil enter the intake. No check engine light on. "

This is incredibly frustrating to me! I left the car overnight, and this is the best they can do? All they did was clean out the oil from the intake, o2 and air flow meter! They couldn't even tell me where the oil came from, how to prevent it from happening etc...

Regardless, I decided to go ahead and install the K&N intake - this at the least made me feel better. I'm very satisfied with how it sounds - very throaty and vibrant - although there doesn't seem to be a noticeable power increase. I'm going to keep a close eye on the intake and check to see if the oil deposit comes back...

<God of Thunder>, I didn't notice any oil stains on my stock filter.

I hope the rest of you have more luck than I did with the dealer. The service people's ambiguousness and lack of substantial action just means that I'll probably have to go back to them in the near future with the same problem. Please let me know if you had better luck with your service techs.

 

Well that sucks... thanks for updating us. I think there's a few more going in the shop this week- hopefully one of the service departments will figure this out. If not, we need to escalate to MNAO so they can start to correlate these occurances and figure this out.