i go the check engine light a 5 or 6 days after my new flash and now my computer is being sent to japan or where ever the car is being built to be torn apart by them and they are sending me a new one. dont know when but the car has been there since monday and they said sometime next week. god i hope they are there before new years. cause if i dont get my car back it looks like the dealership will be making my next car payment seeing that i have had the car since nov 6 and would have been in to be service almost 3 entire weeks now. BULLLLLLSHIIITTTTTTTT
robert

 

rx8cited, yes that is the exact same issue. I guess corporate must have gotten a lot of calls about the flash and must have wanted to start examining the chips. His dealer probably just reflashed without calling (or ignoring) corporate.

Apparently, this is not an isolated incident. 3 people in the last couple days.

BrilliantBlack8, I got the same story too. They say they want the engineers to examine the chip, and they do not want to reflash a new chip because the flash apparently has an issue.

At least is seems to be consistant. And I feel a little better about the dealer, at least they were not lying about the code, although they could have been a hellava lot clearer when I talked to them.

Interesting you had the problem Monday. Did you have the hesistation issue on cold starts too?

jgv999

 

I have a similar issue with a flash. I have no idea if it is the same one. But mine is an '04

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?t=48286
https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-discussion-3/engine-light-my-way-back-lunch-fixed-dealership-same-day-48284/

I guess we will see what happens after Christmas. Hopefully, a solution comes done the pipe.

 

No i had no problem with any cold start ups or rough idling. how long did they say you would be with out your 8? they said next week sometime for me. but i think they might be wrong. All i know is i want them to pay some of my next car payment. Do you think that is crazy of me to try and get?
robert

 

They said Jan 5, but they also said it was safe to drive, and that I could have it until they needed to send out the chip next week.

I figure, they are paying for the rental, so no wear and tear on the 8 for the week, and I also figure I would rather not take the risk driving it, because if the check engine light is on, how do I know if the something if something else suddenly legitimately failed on the car, and if Mazda doesn't completely know what happened, I find it hard to believe that they could say it is perfectly safe and fine. Finally, if there is an issue related to this, I would prefer not to get stuck somewhere freezing by butt off. That said, sure I would rather be driving my car, and sure I wish I did not have to visit the dealer and waste my time on this. But given the circumstances, there is not a whole lot I can do.

My personal opinion of trying to get Mazda to cover your payment is it is not worth your time. I don't think you have any leverage in the matter. I mean, if you bought the car outright, you could not go back to Mazda and say "give me some money back because I had my car in the shop for a week" (unless you were eligible for the lemon law, but this doesn't even begin to qualify). If you think of any warrenty situation the dealers end of the bargain is to provide you 1. with somewhat equivalent transportation during the job. 2. To cover the repair. They are holding up their end of the bargain.

It sucks, but it happens. Buying a new car has never been known as a great investment

jgv999

 

Why are they waiting to replace the PCM?

If they inhale the old one...either get the WDS up to date or take it backwards.

Reflash

Done.

 

I can guess why. They probably suspect a manufacturing difference between PCMs is causing this false DTC to appear on some vehicles but not on others.

Perhaps Denso changed the supplier of one of the CPUs in the PCM, and although it still meets the specifications MC engineers dictated, it reacts differently to the software updates.

Or it could be a manufacturing fault in the PCM, who knows? I think it is good that MC are showing an interest, and the dealer.

 

It is a problem if the CEL comes on for the same reason 3 times. In my case I took it to the dealer 7 times with the same problem " Crankshaft position angle" Do not remember the code #. Even the Mazda technician at their final repair attempt could not fix it, So Mazda agreed to buy the car back from me. I am sorry, but Constant CELs like I was having ( 2 or 3 times a week) should not be tolerated . I did not!!!!!

 

I am unclear as to weather or not my car got fixed now. I had the bad flash from what this formum told me the P01?? - something like that. You know the tempertue false reading thing. It says on my invoice that I got the latest flash was given to me to correct the issue. Am I to assume then that once you recieve this flash all is good, or are there still people having troubles even after the corrected M flash is installed?

Sorry if im causing any confusion.

 

You are not the one causing the confusion..It all started when Mazda started changing the protocal on the flash level designations.

As far as I can tell the 34.9(P-3) update causes no ill effects. IE P0126.

You need to be sure the dealer is at this level.

 

that's wds level^^

your trying to tell me that a service guy could not find and fix the fault when you were getting a "crank posititon angle" code? did they ever just change the sensor or that part of the wiring? did they check the terminals/ connectors for shorts? hell i would have changed a whole wiring harness and pcm plus the sensor before buying a car back. that's rediculous!!!

 

ahh something i hadnt thought of- the change in flashfile nomeclature could be due to a change in pcm architecture that caused them to not like the software they were putting on. hmmmmm....

 

That seems to be Mazda's way. I'm after the Lemon Law now over a $500 clutch. Doesn't make any sense. I would fix it, but I know I didn't cause it to break and don't want this to affect any further Warranty.

 

I am with you. It is ridiculous. Changed the sensor twice and the harness but no fix so after seven times of not fixing it, I gave up and sent the letter to MAzda. They sent one guy out to check it and he plugged up his laptop and all he said, Yeap. you got a problem same code, so they bought it back. I think that they follow the lemon law procedures to the T.
1) does is affect the value, safety or performance of the vehicle. If yes then..
2) the problem more than three times or 30 days in the shop?
3) confirm the problem
Buy it back...
Hey hell. I am happy.... Got all my money back plus interest.

 

Just curious...What are you driving now?

 

Plus interest? Where do you live? Here you only get a % of what you paid based on the mileage, etc.

 

I have not gotten another car to replace the 8. I am driving my 1970 1/2 Camaro SS. It has been pretty reliable so I use it as my daily driver. I really do not like any of the other sports cars out there so I am waiting for the 2006 BMW 3 series. Maybe I will fall in love with the it just as I did with the 8.

 

you get the down payment and all your monthly payments including interest and you deduct the millage usage which in my case was minimal. You also get the difference between the trade in value and the NADA of the car you traded to get the 8. Im my case this number was positive.

 

Who says there is a flash nomenclature change? Snap on?
The number I saw him refer to as a flash in another thread was actually the WDS update software number, not a flash for a PCM.

 

no, im saying it. and so do our tsb's. the US flash files were previously named sw- N3H4(6)Ex. with the letter after the E being flash level. they were that way up to the first up to the first update of MSP04. then the files changed in the 2nd update of MSP04. to be sw-N3Z1(2)Ex with the letter after the E still being the level. the last H file was EM. the next flash file was the first Zfile which was EL but that was the buggy one that caused them to put out the first stop flashing order. that was replaced by ZEM. but these appeared to all be the same "level" as the updated MSP said if you had HM then you didnt need the Z files.

now a recent TSB(which has now been recinded due to programming concerns) showed new file names for 2005 cars-

sw-N3K6(7)EB for all fed and canada cars and
sw-N3K8(9)EB for all California cars.

so when jvg999 said they wanted to swap the pcm to examine the chip that brought on my thought that maybe the architecture has something to do with the nomenclature changes. thats just speculation on my part.

 

I just got my first CEL, after getting the "new" flash from Mazda that is supposed to eliminate the random CEL that people were getting. Prior to the "new" flash I had 0 problems. I asked them if I should just continue on as is, since there were no problems, and they said it's not "if, it's when" you will get a CEL with the regular M flash.

Newsflash, Mazda f$$d up again. My dealer just called me and said Mazda told them they weren't supposed to do the flash update yet, but Mazda had told them 3 weeks ago that they WERE supposed to do it.

I love my 8, but I feel like (after reading what's goinig on here on the forum) that it's a circus with no leader. No wonder Mazda is having problems getting repeat customers.

Trevor

 

yes i have been saying for a couple of days now that all flashes are halted. no one is supposed to be flashing cars. apparently it takes a few days longer to filter down to every service center than it does for the news to appear here

 

When I picked mine up yesterday, we checked to make sure it had all the flashes. The guys at the service dept told me that they had just recieved word earlier that morning to halt the flashes.

 

no i dont but if they are reading today- i wouldnt mind. especially if they would just like to pay me for the services i provide to other forum members

 

thinking about this furthur i like my original reasoning better. that is- the H files are like version 1.x for 2004 cars and the Z are 2.x . that would make the K files ver 1.x for 2005 cars. sinc they are just now looking at the pcms it seems to follow that they didnt know of any potential differences when the flash files and their numbering were created.