Gargos

I've seen several threads on here about how sometimes the car starts up and doesn't run properly in the cold temperatures. My car definitely sputters as I let it warm up, the exhaust sort of disappears after awhile and if I were to rev it, there would usually be some misses associated with it too. When I get into my car about 10 minutes later and it's up to temp internally, there's definitely a different smell in the car and the CEL is blinking on and off. After about a minute or so of running down the streets with the car definitely struggling for RPM's, the car will get itself back together and be running as normal again and in turn, the CEL stops blinking.

Today, however, as I backed out the engine stalled due to not having enough RPM's. I forgot to give it more gas than usual to compensate for the lower rev's in the cold. It took about 3 or 4 seconds at most to start it back up (a slight bit more than usual) and then I made sure to give it gas and got going. The car cleared itself out almost right away again, however, this time the CEL didn't stop blinking. Instead, the CEL is now on steady and didn't go away the entire ride to work. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the car. It ran fine, and I'm always sure to rev it before turning it off. The only thing that happened differently today as opposed to other days is that I had to start the car back up real quick after stalling it.

I guess my question is 2 parts. Is there anything that can be done to help the car not choke when starting in the colder weather? More importantly, does anybody have any ideas as to why my engine light has come on now, most likely due to these startup issues? The car is very nearly brand new with only 3,500 miles on it.

zoom44

whats the cel code?

Gargos

Is there a way to check for a code without a service shop running a computer to it? All I have is the knowledge that the CEL is on.

zoom44

right and you have no idea if its connected to the previous flashing cel or caused by something else. you need to get the codes read.

Marc_GS

Your description of the engine's behaviour when cold doesn't sound normal to me. My car is fine to rev and go right away, even on the coldest days. I usually only give it about 20-30 seconds of warm up before leaving. The only indication I get that the engine is cold is the high idle, and sometimes the odor of unburned fuel coming out of the exhaust. I definitely recommend taking it to a dealer and getting it checked.

crimson-rain

Ditto. My car is doing that this morning. I've started my car in 3 degrees F before and she ran like a champ. My 8 doesn't usually get that much warm up time, normally only 2-5 minutes. But this morning, my car is doing exactly what Gargos' is doing. And she stalled AND she's not starting back up. I don't know. My 8 is definitely up there in miles now; 39K (dang working in DC). I'm a little late with my oil change; thanks to the snow here in VA I couldn't change it this weekend. But I'm almost positive that's not it. Plugs maybe?

Hey Gargos, how many miles is on your 8?

crimson-rain

Took my 8 to the shop yesterday and they said that I need a new starter and a stronger battery. Apparently the '04s need soome starter that will spin up faster and an update to the ECU. Well, it's a good thing that everything is still under warranty.

Gargos, I don't know what year your 8 is, but it's not a flooding or just too cold thing. Take it to the dealer time my man.

Nopstnz

Be careful when you take it to the dealer if you have any aftermarket engine parts as they probably will see if they can blame the problem on it first and void your warranty.

crimson-rain

Got that covered even with my intake and exhaust. I take my car to Arlington Mazda in VA. They are a vendor here. They know there stuff, especially this guy named *****. That dude is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!! He replaced my starter and battery, reflashed the ecu and checked my alignment and cabin filter. Probably more! He gave me a coupon for the alignment and said that I could do the filter replacement on my own (I think there is DIY on here for that) cause it costs $129 for the work for a $38 part. Everything else, covered under warranty, including flatbedding my 8 up there. And the closest Mazda dealership is at Tysons, VA (they suck).

My car sounds different when you start it up now. Starts up VERY quickly also.

If your in VA and got a problem with your 8, go to Arlington Mazda and just ask *****!
... man that sounded like a commercial.

Gargos

Huh, sorry about the late reply. Despite the fact that I'm supposed to be EMailed each time a new response is made since the time I last visited, I just got an EMail now and saw 2 days worth of responses. I should have responded earlier though because my problem has been solved (for the time being).

Sunday the engine was acting funny/misfiring while it was moved to clear the driveway for snow removal.

Monday it was 10-15 degrees outside and I knew it would act the same way when I started it up. Sure enough it did, but this time the engine light stayed on once the engine clear itself and no longer misfired.

Tuesday morning I failed to get an error code at the shop. Their device couldn't communicate with the RX-8's computer. Later Tuesday evening, the engine light finally cleared itself. I knew there wasn't anything wrong with the car, no idea why it took so long to clear itself out though.

The lead mechanic there brought his own machine from home in Wednesday morning. Despite already clearing the light, I decided to stop by just to see if his other device could connect to the RX-8. It worked and by checking the history, it showed the error: "Misfire Detected". Sure enough, that was the reason the light was on.

This problem only happens when it's really cold, like the 10-15 degrees mentioned above. Anything from 20-25 and above and the car is fine when I warm it up in the morning. I guess the RX-8 just isn't designed to be used in extremely cold temperatures. To answer one of the above questions, my car is about 3 months old and only has about 3,500 miles on it.

JonsToy

If you're dealer can pull that misfire code, you could get a new set of spark plugs from him. That could be the cause of the misfire.

Gargos

It's not a Mazda dealer. It's actually my local Jeep/Chrysler dealer who has worked on all my family's cars over the years. Hence why their shop's machine couldn't hook up to my RX-8. The closest dealers to me are 45 minutes to an hour away minimum, and only open when I'm working, so if possible, especially for just simply reading an engine code, I'd very much like to avoid having to go out to a Mazda shop.

Go48

If there are any Ford shops nearby they should be able to read the codes since they use the same WDS equipment. Otherwise, you can purchase a CAN-bus OBDII compatible scanner to read them yourself. The codes are available in this forum.

crimson-rain

Hmmmm, I was thinking the plugs myself when the problem started. I need to get out the sheet again to see if the plugs were replaced too (...where'd I put that service sheet).

Anyway, I'll see what happens with the new starter and battery when it get's cold again here in VA and post what happened. Weird weather here. We just had a foot of snow this past weekend and just yesterday it was 62 degrees!!! AND IT'S SUPPOSED TO SNOW MONDAY AGAIN!!!!

Mistersql

I had a similar problem yesterday morning. It was very cold the night before. The engine took a couple of tries to turn over, once I had it running it did the weird rev thing while I scraped off teh windows. When I started driving, I didn't even make it two blocks when the CEL came on. I didn't know what to do so I pulled U turn and went back home to park it. When I got home last night I started it and the CEL was gone. Runs fine now so I'm not going to take her in the shop.

Gargos

Have you had your car checked for the latest recall issues with the catalytic converter and leading spark plugs? It's been hard to diagnose for myself since the Northeast has been so warm this year. I haven't had sub-zero temps to see if my car still has an issue, but I can say that since last winter, my plugs and catalytic converter have been replaced by Mazda, which were the leading two candidates for what was causing this problem. If you haven't had these issues checked, I'd bring it to the dealer and have them replace them anyway. Back when I had the issue, it only showed itself when I used the car for the first time in the day when the temps were excruciatingly cold, and would go away after several minutes of driving. However, considering these components causing the problems are now under a recall, it would certainly make sense to take care of the problem now before anything might worsen later on. Despite the cold weather going away last winter, my cat. issues never did.

Mistersql

Yeah I had all of the recall work done. It happened again this week on Tuesday so I brought it. They told me that the error message on their computer was a 'neutral' one and turned it off for me. They only offered to rescan if it does it again in the hopes of finding out what's going on.

This is the first year that I drive it in the winter so I'm just not used to the car being so temp-ermental.