Sure no Prob

Jeez, you can probably now use the clutch pedal as a lifting point for the whole car!

Couple of days back my clutch started squeaking. It broke yesterday while I was waiting in the traffic light! I have around 72K in my car. Anyone knows if I can claim this under powertrain warranty?

^ Nope. It's a "wear and tear" item. But be sure to file the NHTSA form.

That sucks since its going to cost me around $400. I did file it with NHTSA.

Why so much?

Done! Let me know if you want me to do anything to it. I also posted the snapped images to give a perspective of before and after.

Hmm. That welded pedal isn't done right.

Not surprised if you are referring to mine. It was one of the first posted online. Had to start somewhere!

Could you then eventually post pictures of a properly welded pedal?

/\ this is what I did

Attachment 262088

Brettus, looks like it was reinforced with the weld?

not sure what you mean by that . It is reinforced with extra sheetmetal creating a double thickness in the area that fails . It is also welded to the base but that is not where the strength is .

I agree. I must have mixed up Don and Brettus, if Brettus could post his in that linked thread as well that would be beneficial.


Looking good.

I can take mine down if you like. Don't want you to have the wrong images. Just let me know. NP

Not sure how you got us mixed up. His Avatar is a little more interesting than mine. :)

I may leave it there, I can remove it myself if I change my mind, I may start a gallery of snapped clutch pedal brackets haven't decided.

I have no idea either, I cannot keep track of all 2,000 customers..but then again I could be getting old in my age I was mixing up 2tone and bumblebeerx8 the other day as well...lol

Even freaken worst, called the tow truck today, through mazda 24hour roadside assistance. freaken asshole was on the effin phone the whole fucking time. i followed him to the dealership. when he was getting my car off the flat bed. Dumbass forgot to take off the e-brake and put my car in neuatral, asshole left it in first gear. i had to yell at him to stop the fucking truck. i heard some cracking noises in my transmission. i called mazda and told them the problem, they told me any damages they find when they open my transmission he's gonna be liable for it.

I agree and love Brettus' welds. Here we welded around 40 pedals in the last 2 years and none of them broke. The point is that it is a very thin plate and it's very easy to weaken with a wrong wire and current
Adding the side reinforcements for lateral movement as per your advice is an added bonus as well.
I'm all in for welding instead of bracketing where it's possible but the shop must know what to do. If I didn't know my mechanic that well i would have bought a bracket instead.

The Race Roots bracket provides a similar right angle reinforcement plus a lateral brace for those w/o Brett's sheet metal and welding skills.

Okay I don't want to pick on anyone's welding technique, but those welds would never pass muster on an airplane inspection. (Sorry I haven't figured out how to get a pic into the 'text' and not display just as an 'attached thumbnail'). The green arrow in the pic shows closest to what a good weld should look like - the rod adds relatively little material and the two pieces flow into each other. The left red arrow shows an area that airplane builders at least would call "stuck on", and in this case it's hardly even that. See the gap? See how the welded part flowed "onto" the base and not "into" the base? That area has little if any added strength and it's caused by the baseplate not being heated properly, which is hard to do with an electric stick welder. When I was doing welding to aircraft standards, I'd gas weld and heat both of the parts to a cherry red before bringing in the rod which eliminates cold welds like this one. MIG or TIG welding also can solve the problem if set up right, but are expensive. The right-side red arrow shows an area that would probably not be allowed for aircraft either and would be called a stress-riser. Two welds drawn together that closely may cause a high level of built-in stress resulting in reduced fatigue resistance and eventual cracking under vibration.

I only bring this up to say that electric welding thin sheet is tricky and results will vary widely depending on who is doing the work. That's one reason why for the 'average joe', I think the bracket solution is the better one.

While I agree that I probably won't let Brett build my SR-71, we are talking about a component that sees very little real stress.

The main thing is to establish a "box", which is something that the OE assembly does not in its native form.

There are plenty of spots on that pedal that needed to have proper penetration and sections that needed to be welded that are not welded at all. But upholding it to aerospace standards are ridiculous in this application.

I think we should go with Submarine standards and X-ray every weld, 'cause given all the rain this year one never knows. ;)

These simple standards apply to Piper Cubs as well - perhaps even more than something running with a relatively vibrationless turbine engine. I did not say that what was shown will not work, it most likely will. However, since the discussion about the stock clutch mount includes the fact that it also has a safety impact, it also behooves one to get the job done 'right'. The point is that right now, when 58 guys get the thing welded, it gets welded 58 different ways. I suspect some of those ways will work and some will not. Does that induce confidence? Not for me. The RR bracket reinforcement goes on one way. The experience of these 58 guys in the field can be a predictor of the experience of the next 58 and so on.

Ah well, that was apparently wishful thinking on my part, as my clutch pedal bracket just snapped :(

62,000 miles or so. Manual transmission. See pictures. Is this what's happened to everyone else? I don't know what it's supposed to look like, but I somehow doubt that piece of accordian'd metal is supposed to look like that, lol.

I can't wait to do a search and see what this will cost me... :(

Good grief. This is getting ridiculous.

Well now I'm wondering, is it supposed to look like that? The accordian'd flap that is?

My pedal is still attached, and I can still shift. But just barely. What happened was when I pushed it down, I heard a snap, and suddenly the pedal is only engaging in the very last bit of travel when it's pushed down. But it's not like the whole pedal fell off or anything as I think people ar reporting. It just goes almost to the floor before barely engaging.

Nevermind, I looked again, I see what happened. Forget the accorian'd metal, maybe that's normal, I dunno, doesn't matter.

What happened is the left bracket or whatever snapped off the firewall, so the right side is all that's holding it in place now. So I can shift it - barely - but it flexes so much with the left bracket lifting away when I push the pedal down that it only catches in the very last bit of travel.

Probably get it towed to the dealer, as even though I can shift, if the other side snaps too... that'd be bad.

So yes, same problem as everyone else I guess. Woo hoo! I feel so special joining the club ;)

God help me, but I still love this car. Even with the zillion TSBs and recalls and... I still adore it. Best car I'll ever own.

Sorry for the gazillion posts, but just wanted to post a pic of the actual problem now that I looked closer. You can see where the bracket is no longer welded(?) to that plate thing. Step on the clutch and it just pulls apart there now :(

complaints are popping up all over mycarstats.com

report them. see my first post.

My turn
 

Clutch pedal snapped yesterday. Thankfully, I was still able to drive. And also thankfully, no injuries, considering I had two kids in the car. Will get the new one welded before install. That's still the best way I guess?

Forgot
 

Just for the record, I have an '04 with about 56K.

So, have you guys seen this
 

On the NHTSA website. it looks recent. Does this mean Mazda has put the pedal under an 8 year, 100,000 mile warranty?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NHTSA Action Number: N/A
NHTSA Recall Campaign Number: PE09045</SPAN> N/A Make: MAZDA Model: RX-8 Manufacturer : MAZDA MOTOR CORP Year : 2004Component :
POWER TRAIN:CLUTCH ASSEMBLY:PEDAL/LINKAGE
POWER TRAIN:MANUAL TRANSMISSION
Date Investigation Opened : September 23, 2009Date Investigation Closed : August 19, 2010 Summary:
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/images/spacer.gif On September 23, 2009, the Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened a Preliminary Evaluation to investigate allegations of the clutch pedal bracket failures in MY 2004 - 2006 Mazda RX8 vehicles. In response to an information request letter sent by ODI, Mazda stated that the failure mechanism may be related to an improper fastener attachment sequence to the body. The improper sequence may create a distortion of the pedal bracket and create a stress amplitude during pedal usage that may go beyond the wear out limit of the bracket. Mazda stated that the percentages of vehicles experiencing the defect is low at approximately 1% of the vehicle population projected to 10 years in service based on analysis of warranty claim data that best represented the alleged defect. In terms of risk to motor vehicle safety, Mazda stated that the failure is progressive with warning manifested in noise and difficulty in shifting gears prior to complete failure of the bracket. Mazda also stated that when a bracket fracture occurs the clutch pedal may lean towards the brake pedal however gear shifting becomes impossible prior to any contact of the clutch pedal to the brake pedal. ODI is not aware of any crashes associated with a clutch pedal bracket failure in the subject vehicles. ODI's analysis of warranty claim data provided by Mazda yielded failure rates of approximately 3% projected over 10 years in service. ODI's analysis of Vehicle Owner Questionnaire (VOQ) data complaint indicates that approximately 5% of the VOQ complainants allege they were unable to get out of the roadway as a result of a clutch pedal bracket failure. None of these incidents occurred on a highway. Approximately 7% of the complainants alleged a contact condition after a clutch pedal bracket failure of the clutch pedal to the brake pedal. None of these complaints noted difficulty in getting the vehicle stopped. Mazda has informed ODI that it will conducted an Owner Notification of an extended warranty coverage program increasing the clutch pedal assembly warranty to 8 years and limited at 100K miles for model years 2004 through 2009 RX8 vehicles. A safety-related defect trend has not been identified at this time and further use of agency resources does not appear to be warranted. Accordingly, this investigation is closed. The closing of this investigation does not constitute a finding by NHTSA that a safety-related defect does not exist. The agency will continue to monitor this issue and will take further action if warranted by the circumstances.

That's the way I read it.

what a shock
 

Well, my dealer said he hadn't heard about the extended clutch warranty so I called the national Mazda #. Guess what? They claim they don't know anything about it either. So, did they tell an outright lie to the NHTSA about the extended warranty? I guess wishful thinking would be that it takes time to put this into place, and maybe the people I talked to hadn't got the memo yet. I called the NHTSA about it and they directed me to the FTC (Fair Trade Commission). They took all of my info, and also advised me to contact the BBB.
I swear, if there was another car out there right now that I liked, I would sell and move on. As much as I love the look of the RX8, it's ridiculous the shoddy design and workmanship of sooo many mechanical aspects of the car.

so those of us who had clutch failure and had to pay for this out of pocket might be able to file a claim with Mazda???

Bullshit!! Fixed :)

The whole time they're telling the owner that nothing is wrong... When it fails then the story changes to, "the owner should have noticed the warning signs"

New math?

dark brew, I believe this is what you're looking for:

:bsflag: :bsmeter:

Heh . Only just saw this .
While I don't disagree that the welds you pointed out were not good . What you and many others don't seem to realise is that the thin piece (where those welds are)at the bottom of the bkt. is not a structural part of the bracket . I would bet that the only functions it performs is to hold the actuation rod horizontal while the bracket is installed and to hold the bulkhead spacers the right distance apart for the bolts to go through. It provides zero strength to the bracket itself - and that is why Mazda only spot welded it on in the first place .....

Wow..............that's just a f*&^ed up story! Jeez!

Well, should we call this a Win for us poor Rx-8 owners ?

I mean seriously, Mazda needs to stop being cheap about certain parts of the car ... I mean the body is great, handling is good and stuff but ... Clutch bracket's designation life is ONLY 10 years? Come the f------ on !

^ In this particular case I of course concur nycgps, but if they designed every part to withstand heavy abuse then we'd be complaining about the weight & cost of the vehicle. It's a fine line balancing act.

Do you have the link to that notice?

Ken

Ken, I updated the first post with Link to the web site.

n00b ! :lol:

well, but at least don't fail at 50K miles or less ... cuz thats clearly "not the way it supposed to be"

Thank you, NYCGPS for all of your hard work in getting this issue covered! You, with the help of others who shared their experiences, have made a difference in our community. That's awesome.

You can keep saying this till you're blue in the face, but people will still focus on that broken spot weld and direct their repair efforts to beefing it up.

Now Mazda officially hates me.

Im so gonna get "warranty denial" every time I go there :(

Anyone wanting to view the document
 

www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov

Under green box labled "Defect Investigations", click "Search Our Investigations Database"

In "NHTSA Action Number" box, type PE09045.

I've been all over the Mazda site and I swear, I don't think they provide an email address...