Car cuts power from engine.
 

I drive a manuall 2004 RX8.

A week ago I was driving my car on the highway when the engine check light came on, the light that indicate wheel slip started flashing, and the car cut all power from the engine. When this is happening the car is slowed to a crawl and the rpms wont go higher than 2 thousand. When I pulled over I shut the car off, waited a couple of minutes, and started the engine again. The engine light was still on and the car's power was back to normal. The wheel slip light was not on any more. Yesterday the same problem happened three more times.

I posted the same problem earlyer tonight, but it was in the S2 thread by mistake.

Go to your local autozone or other parts store and get the code read. that should tell you what the problem is.

I went to a nearby O'Reilys but the code reader was gone. Ill be going to Autozone tomorow. The only thing I'm woried about is that the engine check light will go off like it did after the first two times the problem happened.

Thanks for the help though.

The code will still be stored even if the light is off.

Please give us some more info... What mods have you got?...How long have you had it? How many miles? Have you checked your battery connections? Give us any info you can add...

I do not have any mods to the car. It is completely stock. I'v had the car since November of 2009. Battery connections seem good, and the car has around 77,000 miles on it. I took the car to Autozone to have the code read, but they could not help me much. The code reader gave several posibilities ranging from a short to a valve on one of the components being stuck in the open or closed position. When I first got the car it did have some issues. The first was that the climate controll switch was deffective. The second was that if I took the rpms up to around 7,500 the would be a cut in egnition power for a split second and then the engine power would come back very violently and the rpms will go put to around 9 thousand in an instant. I took the car to a dealer December 2009 to have the car fixed. They replaced the climate controll switch and tested to engine. At first they thought the car might have the same engine problem as many of the other RX8 of that year model. If it did have the same problem then Mazda would replace the engine under warrenty. The dealer ship kept having to redo the tests as Mazda requested. For some reason they were not satisfied with the results and wanted to be absolutely sure. In the end the dealer found that it was a faulty solonoid that was causing the issue. My car was with the dealer for almost two months. The final bill was around $2,500, $600 being for the solonoid and the climate control switch and the rest for the labor. I was not very happy about the labor bill due to the fact that most of these hours was due to the dealer and Mazda not being able to decide on the issue.

Did they provide you the code number they pulled? If you have the number you can look it up on this forum and see what it means in RX8 speak. It could be one of your intake track valves getting stuck or it could be faulty coils or a bad O2 sensor, or a bad MAF sensor, or your crank angle sensor. We need the code number to find out.

I found out today that the dealer ordered a cat converter and a new computer for the car. The good news is that is should be covered under warrenty. I will let all of you know on any extra info I get on the subject.

1.) You have a federally mandated warranty on the CAT for 8 years or 80k miles, so that will be free.

2.) Why does the dealer think you need a new computer? You will have to pay for that(and it's not cheap!), so I wanna know why they think so. :suspect:

3.) What's your maintenance history on this car?
Last plug change?
Last coil change?
etc.

+1. I think a new computer is red herring.

I contacted the dealer again to make sure about the parts and whether or not they will be covered under warrenty. I was told that the computer will also be covered under warrenty due to the amount of miles on the car. At the moment the car is at around 77,000 miles.

Well.......if they really say it's covered and no expense to you at all(nada).....then i guess, what the hell..............let'em do it.

Well it has now been more than a week. They finally got the parts on Monday, on Teusday they had some problems programing the PCM sot they got locked out and they had to try again today. So at this time they have replaced the cat and the computer, but the problem still persists. I did manage to get the code from them, it is P2106. I looked up the code but I could not gain any ideas of what the problem might be. I'll appreciate any advice on the matter. At this moment the dealership tech is talking with Mazda engineers to try and find the problem. According to Mazda and/or the dealer it is a rare problem that does not happen often.

Sometimes the connector at the throttle body looks all the way connected but its not. Give it a good push to make sure it is connected and secure. Could be the throttle body or the TPS sensor in it. I would also think the pedal could have have something to do with it. I have had this happen once when I removed the throttle body.

Oh, and where in Texas are you?

Imagine that. The computers frying on these cars is a very rare occurance. :squint:


Here's a related thread with the same problem. There are some screenshots from the service manual on the diagnostic steps in case you need to read them to your dealer. :)

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...ighlight=P2106

Maybe a bad throttle body? Which is a much more common problem...

I'm at Amarillo, TX.

Did you try what I said?

Its been in the shop so I have not been able to. Im calling them today. I saw some copies of the repair manuall online and it instructs you to check that conector on the second step of the troubleshooting process. Replacing the computer like what the dealer did is the last step, so if they went straight to the computer I dont thing their tech should be in a shop in the first place.
I work as a part time mechanic and in my mind replacing something as major as a computer is the last step. The only reason its in the shop is because I'v only had the car for a year and I'm still unfamiliar with it. The car I had before the 8 was a 1987 Mazda 626, there is a huge difference between the two.

if you do need a throttle body shoot me a pm, ive got one in my garage. gl, let us know what you figure out

Ok thanx. I'll keep u guys posted.

Unfortunately, replacing parts until a problem is fixed rather than actually troubleshooting is common at dealers. The connector issue took me a minute to figure but it would not surprise me if it was overlooked because it looks connected and the clip was even on all the way but when i gave it and extra push you heard a another click and then the problem disappeared after I reset the ECU and cleared the codes.

When you can, try what 9krpmrx8 suggests above, but of all things...........I believe I just located two old threads that implied this was P2106 code was apparently caused by the MAF somehow........on what appears to be two occasions, on two separate cars.
How..........I'll never know, if things get desperate, might be worth a shot????? :dunno:

Ok thanks. They have an engine harness coming in. Hopefully this will work. The dealer tells us that the harness should also be warranty. My patience with this dealer is wearing thin with this dealer mainly due to the way they work and their lack of good customer service. But who knows maybe if I'm patient enough they'll end up replacing most of the car under warranty by the time they find the cause of the problem. If this harness does not fix the problem then I'll probably start asking them what all they have checked so far. I feel that two weeks is too long to wait since they are having issues with proper trouble shooting. Checking the wiring which they have now ordered is one of the first things their repair manuall suggests to check, and the computer which they replaced (that did not fix the problem) is that last thing the repair manual suggest might be the cause of the problem. They jump to conclusions and then struggle their asses off trying to find the actual cause that ends up being something simple.

Geesh, replacing the main harness is a bit of a chore. It doesn't surprise me that they are working in this fashion though. But hey, if they want to replace super expensive parts under warranty then let them. My main harness is pretty rough after 120,000 miles in the Texas heat, I sure would like a new one for free :lol:

That is the only good coming from this deal. New parts under warranty. The bad part is I dont have my car. Hopefully by this weekend they'll finish.