veilsidev1

what up guys, well im feeling kinda down, and i need my fellow 8 owners to help me out. Well to make a long story short, a week ago my check engine light turned on, and i immediately noticed a loss of power. I stopped the car, turned it on a fewminutes later and got back on the road, the power seemed to be back, but the engine light remained. I figured id take it to the dealer later. My week was really busy and did not have a chance. Well last friday, all day i slowly noticed a loss of power troughout the day. I was really rushed and didint have time to stop. I checked under the hood and noticed the engine coolant was kinda low so i filled it up. At about 9 pm i went to eat, when im done i come out put it on first, step on the gas and nothin. The rpms would just go up and the car wouldnt budge, i tried all gears and nothin, so i got it towed. I took it to the dealer to get it checked on monday, they call me tuesday to tell me the clutch and transmission are out and the warranty will not cover it under ABUSE, and that it would cost about $7,000 . And this is where i ask you guys your advice. First off, i want you guys to know, then know nothing about the engine light being on for a week, or me noticing loss of power. I just said it gave out.

Is there any way i can get this covered under warranty, who should i contact or complain to. The car has 7,000 miles, its half a year old, the clutch and transmission should not go out like this.

If i cant, where else can i find a transmission and clutch, everyone knows how dealerships are, try to squeeze every penny out of you. I live in chicago, any trusted names i can take it to, so they can check if they can fix the transmission. And install everything.

Im thinking i might as well put an aftermarket clutch, if i cant get it covered under warranty, anyone recommend any good ones.

well guys, i guess that's it, i really want to get this covered under warranty, but il see how it goees, please feel free to post any toughts or suggestions, i really dont know what to do, thanks alot for your help.

Aurelius

I don't see any reason it wouldn't be covered...unless of course you tell them what you just told us.

Moostafa29

$7k is a total rip off dude. Try taking it to another dealership, or fighting it if you want to go through the time and effort. I think sr motorsports sells some good aftermarket clutches, I'm not sure about the entire tranny though. Sorry to hear about your problems, but if it were me I'd fight it. Unless you go launching your car on a regular basis.

chrism

how bad could you have beaten that car to kill the trans?....wouldnt the clutch go before the trans?....seems very fishy for one and two the trans should be covered under the 50k powertrain warantee...what mods do you have on your car??...tons of nos or turbo?

army_rx8

i thought our tranny brand new was 1500. and the clutch and pressure plate is only like 350-400. install is the same price for all three about 5.6 hours at the dealership and at about $78.5 (that's what my dealership charges) that comes to $439.60 plus the clutch and tranny and pressure plate..hell even a $30 throw out bearing that is only $2369.60 that is a ball park worset case. i dn't see where they get the 7000 for. i'm sure if you just rebuild the tranny it'll be even less. just my .02 can someone else more knowledgable chime in?

galleychief

Hey bro', this dealership is attempting to violate you rectally. My neighbor just had his MX-6 clutch and trans replaced due to a pressure plate anomaly which cascaded into other problems. The charges amounted to 3076.00 parts and labor if he had to pay himself. Yeah, it's not an RX8 but you see where I'm going here. . .? Find another dealership!

dos

Sounds like the dealer is screwing you. I'm still not sure how your lost your transmission and clutch at the same time with only 7,000 miles. Is your car seriously modded or abused?

veilsidev1

thanks alot guys, good thing i heard about the ridiculus 7000 dollar price. And no, no mods, and i rarely drive it hard, keep commenting please, this is really helping

beachdog

veilside, I know that you're upset, but your post is kind of stream of consciousness. A little clarity please.

You have a bucket of stuff that probably isn't even related. CEL, low coolant, blown clutch, blown transmission, loss of power. What caused the CEL? What caused the low coolant? Have you been launching hard? Did you just learn to drive stick on this clutch?

As far as the dealer is concerned, try calling MNAO and getting a zone rep to meet you at the dealer.

Sigma

While a blown tranny is doubtful from abuse unless you really abused it and it probably should be covered by Mazda, be aware that the dealer can very easily pull the data from your computer that says preceisely how long and how many miles you drove with the CEL on, as well as what exactly was occuring when the CEL was thrown.

StewC625

I'm thinking this is a PEBSASW problem

Problem
Exists
Between
Seat
And
Steering
Wheel

Manny tranny's don't generally fail without serious abuse.

fizzer

My 8 is currently in the shop for tranny work, should be all covered under warranty. I took it in because reverse was disengaging and it was sometimes hard to get out of neutral. My car has just over 7k miles on it. Search around the forum, there's lots of examples of non-abused transmissions going, it seems like there really is a problem with some of them.

The dealer has told me so far: "there is an updated shift fork that we're going to replace" and "mazda wants us to tear down the tranny to see what else is wrong, everything is covered under warranty". I put the car in on monday and should have it back late this week.

Here's the problems i've noticed:
starting around 5k miles, the tranny began feeling very notchy and got progressively worse.

Soon after, reverse would disengage sometimes, even though i pushed all the way down, to the right, and back with the clutch fully depressed.

Starting last week, reverse was so bad that i couldn't get it to stay unless i held the shifter back and feathered the clutch until i heard a loud 'clunk' and reverse engaged, the shifter didn't move when this happened, but i could let go and it would stay.

For the forward gears, the notchyness continued to worsen, though it did get a little better with the ambient temp above freezing.

To reproduce the shifting problem i had:
-cruise in 5th
-coast & brake
-depress cluch, shift to neutral, release clutch
-continue to coast for a bit
-depress clutch while braking, and blip throttle to match revs (or not, didn't matter)
-attempt to move shifter to left, observe shifter would not budge frome neutral without shaking it violently back and forth.

Another thing, long before this I was listening for sounds the engine made at high revs... I was stopped but had the car in first and the clutch fully depressed, after revving a few times, I noticed a slight burning clutch smell... this of course should be impossible. Looking around the forum, it seems like a symptom of the loose pressure plate bolts issue. A condition which can cause lots of tranny damage if left untreated, so i'm guessing thats what happened to mine, and maybe yours.

Unless you do a lot of clutch-drops, brake-stands, burnouts, and donuts, then thats your fault, but even so 7 grand IS way too much to replace a tranny.

veilsidev1

fizzer, that sounds almost exaclty whats been goin on with my car, i dont abuse the car at all, rarely do clutch drops. Im waiting for word from the dealership and mazda usa

MikeMaj82

if they don't cover it under warranty I guarantee you would get a much better price from a private mechanic.

Mike

fizzer

veilside - if they still give you problems, let me know. I'll see if I can send you a copy of my paperwork once the work is done, it might help *shrug*

downshift

Fizzer:

Good to know that Wellesley Mazda is doing the right thing. Looks like they're on top of the transmission problems and are aware of the MRI here: https://www.rx8club.com/attachment.p...chmentid=45356. I foresee a visit like this sometime in the near future too, and at least I know where I'll be getting good support from.

One thing that I haven't had a chance to check among many threads on the loose pressure plate bolts subject is if this is related to a certain build dates. I remember reading somewhere that it was a batch of cars that didn't had those bolts torqued to spec. If people can post their build dates, we might be able to see if there's a correlation. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that this only concerns the pressure plate bolts; no the shift forks. I remember mine is an early build, but I'll edit this post again when I get a chance to double check it again.

khtm

What's "rarely"? And what RPMs are you doing the drops from?

fizzer

Mine is a 2004 that I bought in october of '04, but IIRC the build date was dec of '03, pretty early. I'm willing to bet it has the ppb problem along with the shift fork. When I reved while in first but with the clutch fully in and smelled clutch, I knew there was something very wrong.