First time flooding in four months I've had my Titanium Grey 8. Like many others, I moved the car ten feet into the garage and shut it off. Even at the time, I thought, " hmmm, I don't think I'm supposed to do this, isn't this what causes the flooding issure? ... oh well, it hasn't happened to me yet." and then I went inside. The next day it snowed here in Massachusetts, so I carpooled with my wife (I will invest in the snow tires this summer, when I have a bit more cash). So then Tuesday morning, when I tried to start it, it was clearly flooded. No success with the manual's flooded engine recommendation or sustained cranking while hooked to a charger.

Thank you all for this site. I was pretty disheartened by all the posts stating that they had to have their 8 hauled to a dealer to fix it. A couple of posters mentioned pulling the plugs, cleaning them, disabling fuel pump, cranking out the fuel, and reinstalling. Thought I could handle that, but damn ... where are those spark plugs? Searched through all the site and found one mention that you remove the drivers side front tire, then move a flap to get to the plugs. What a livesaver, I never would have found that. (I wish I could remember who posted it).

I could only get to two of the plugs easily, those for the rearward rotor. So I pulled those, cleaned off all the muck, pulled the fuel pump fuse and cranked for a while. I put everything back, hoping that power from one rotor could get it going enough to clean out the other side. It cranked for about ten seconds, then finally kicked over. I revved it high, trying to take it just below the red, but it couldn't maintain high rpm. It would "bounce" from 6K up and back again for 30 seconds or so. I assume this was the effect of only one rotor firing, untill the other side burned clean. Then it smoothed out, and after a couple minutes, the engine warning lights all went out, and it the engine purred just like it always has.

That was last night. No problems todays. No special tools or detailed automotive experience necessary, just a willingness to try and a standard plug socket found in most basic socket wrench sets. I know that it probably would have been covered under warranty to have it towed and fixed by the dealer, but the whole thing took maybe an hour (including cleaning the plugs while I watched the nightly news). A lot less hassle and time than would have been spent getting it towed and picking it up.

 

Did he get mad at yiou for buying such an unreliable car?

That's what my lady friend told me when I warned her about mine.. ;(

 

Good Job Cyderman! Sounds like you might even have enjoyed the job ... once you knew it was going to work.
Tom

 

I'd sure like a do-it-yourself with photos on how to do this. Some day my car's not going to be covered under the Mazda warranty, and I'd like to have a "Plan B" to having the car towed. I think I'd also buy an extra set of plugs, maybe cutting down that 1 hour fix time...

 

Well, I am having 2nd thoughts about the whole RX-8 purchase, after being so excited about the it. The test drive was fantastic!

But one has to worry running down to the store for milk in the morning, for fear the engine will flood. If it does flood, it's not like the old days, where you just wait a few minutes, then hold the pedal to the floor and crank. What the hell is this...towing...removing fuses...changing plugs...running it longer! Please! I guess you leave the car in the driveway and walk to the store! I just wonder how much of a hassel is this...getting mixed messages.

 

unless your store is 500 feet away, by the time you get in, drive to the store and park the engine should be properly warmed up and flooding shouldn't be an issue. i'd say 95% of those posting with flooding issues have said it was due to pulling the car out (or in) and shutting it off immediately (say 1 minute of running time).

pretty much every rx-7 has been like this - it's an amazing car, but you do have to take some differences in the motor into account. if you're smart and follow what the manual says, you should be fine. i had an 88 rx7 for 4 years, and flooded it twice - both times were because, against my better knowledge, i shut the car off after just moving it from the garage, etc.

a bit of a hassle? yes. but ultimately it's worth it because you're not likely to find another car, for the price, that will perform like an rx-7 or rx-8. and if you do have a problem, no matter how pissed you may be at the time, once you get it back on the road you won't give a ****

think of it like this - you're dating the most beautiful person you've ever met, and the *******' is the best you've ever had. BUT... the person is a little bit annoying at times. You may hate them for an hour or so, or maybe a day, but once you get a good ride again all is forgotten :D

stupid analogy, but you hopefully get the point.

 

yves,

Don't worry...buy the car. All of this sounds complicated, but can be distilled down to a simple rule-of-thumb: don't start the car unless you're going to drive it.

It's a fun car to drive -- unlike most anything available under $40K new. A steal, if you ask me.

A while back, a grocery chain here in the Southeastern US ran a comercial which featured a young man who had recently gotten his drivers license. He was very eager to 'help' his parents by running to the store at the slightest suggestion of needing anything. This car brings back that feeling.

Today I took my 8 in for recall service (the airbag wiring and the transmission-cover-plate-which-might-fall-off problems) and was given a Protege5 as a loaner. The Protege5 is considered a pretty good drive in some circles but after 2 minutes I missed my 8.

Buy what fits your needs and makes you happy. Take care of it and it will (usually) take care of you. The Mazda rotary engine has been the focus of more R&D time than almost any other engine on the planet. It can't be a lemon...if there are flaws in the 8, Mazda will put them right. Too many jobs in Hiroshima depend on the success of this car and the US is a fertile market that can't be lost.

 

thered1996... i agree, but not too sure about "The Mazda rotary engine has been the focus of more R&D time than almost any other engine on the planet."

given how long piston engines have been around, and how mainstream they are compared to the rotary, i just don't see how that could be true. not too many NASCAR, IRL, F1 teams out there running with a rotary even if is the powerplant for the only japanese-made car to win the 24 hours of lemans!

anyway, just my thoughts.

 

The piston engine has been around far longer than the rotary. Every car manufacturer has improved upon its design and there are currently more styles of piston engines in cars today than there have ever been different styles of rotaries even experimented on. The rotary has basically only had 3 different incarnations in regards to the way they work. The first setups were periperal intake and exhaust. The next leap was peripheral port exhaust and side port intake. The 3rd incarnation is the Renesis with its side intake and exhaust ports. The other advancements in rotary design over the decades have been in port size, displacement, seals, intake, and exhaust design. That all may sound like alot of advancement but just consider that Chevy topped this amount of experimentation in different V8 engines alone in the past 10 years. Imagine what the rotary could be like today with all of the years of development and attention by every manufacturer. It would be a wonderful thing.

Not trying to start a war or anything. Just my take on that comment, that's all.

 

OK, I admit I got caried away. Maybe "pure R&D time"? The recent thread where the idle spark firing order being "reversed", comes to mind...the engineers at Mazda apear to re-think things on a periodic basis.

 

Actually, I like your analogy very much :D ....... if she's more reliable in other ways, then her flooding potential can be overlooked quite easily. Time will tell.... 5k and never flooded (knock knock).

rx8cited

 

First, I tried the emergency procedure they have in the manual (it's been posted in this thread). That didn't work, so I did this:

1. Pulled the fuel pump fuse.

2. Run starter for 30 seconds w/ gas pedal pressed. If you have a lot of flooding your car may dump a ton of white smoke (like mine did), you'll see it and smell it. When the white smoke/smell is starting to lessen you can kinda hear the car want to turn over more and more.

3. Put fuse back in and when the motor catches give it extra gas.

(If the motor doesn't catch go back to step 1.)

4. Drive the car around for at least a half hour (just to be paranoid).

5. Before you turn the car off rev it to 3000 RPMs and then turn it off.

Voila! Haven't had a problem since. The good thing about this is that you can do it by yourself and it doesn't take very long.

 

It might be worth printing this out and keeping it in your car:

Service Bulletin 03/11/04

 

I just read through the new TSB (01-011/04). Some initial comments:

1. Mazda now officially recognizes that short distance trips can result in a crank/no-start condition (ie flooding). Previous documentation (and email responses) only made an obscure reference to reducing engine life.

2. Mazda officially indicates that this is a warranty repair.

3. Mazda strongly implies that this situation is the result of having the RENESIS meet the US Tier 2 Emissions classification.

4. Mazda indicates that the customer (you and me) should only use the de-choke procedure listed on page 11 (pedal to the floor). There are several references throughout the procedure for the service technician to do arcane things to avoid damaging engine/exhaust components.

5. I could find no mention of this issue being more likely with the AT version of the RX-8.

6. I could find no mention of hotter plugs being part of the remedy.

7. The customer de-choke procedure is a prerequisite before towing to the dealership.

8. It is unclear if the specified PCM update reduces the possibility of flooding in the future or is simply needed for the following diagnostic steps.

In general, it sounds like this issue is here to stay and can happen to any vehicle at any time after shutdown without proper warm-up. I am not sure but they may be trying to say that this is a US emissions issue and not really a rotary problem (personal conjecture). I don't think any of this is a surprise. Perhaps a little disappointing. I personally would have preferred a fix.

 

I'm just curious why it is such a problem with the Renesis vs my 3rd gen. I've flooded my FD twice, but once was because a spark plug wire was loose and popped off and the other was when I had several wiring "issues."

I can't think of what the setup is right now, but there is supposedly some "flooding prevention" system on the 3rd gen RX-7 which seems to work pretty well.

For those rotary wizzes out there, is it the change in porting that makes the Renesis more prone to flooding?

Also, I'm curious of the people who have flooded their 8, how many miles they've had on the engine. If it only happens on relatively low-milage cars (ie <5000 miles), could it be a break-in issue with the seals? I've recently had my engine rebuilt and was told that flooding is more prone on "fresh" engines until the seals are set. Got me wondering about the 8.... Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the inner workings to know if that's even a possibility.

Just curious.... <shrug>

 

part of the Tier 2 emissions requirments is that the car maintains its current level of emissions for something like 10 years. the biggest part in maintaining that is catalyst life, which is hard with a rotary as the EGT's leaving the engine are much hotter than from your usual piston engine (the gasses run by a whole lot less metal on the way out, so the heat is not conducted away). part of the way to reduce this impact on the catalyst (which sits really close to the engine for "quick light off"... which is stupid) is to richen the A/F mixture a lot to keep EGT's lower, and to let the catalyst clean up all the excess fuel.

this is the reason for the lower-than-expected fuel milage, this is the reason for the lower power, this is the reason for the higher risk of flooding. so basically, we fix this and everything ought to be a wee bit better.

 

After 20 pages we have a 79/21% flood ratio?

Can we have a poll on past rotary owners ref the flood issue?

 

Msrecant's most recent post is very thoughtful and makes several interesting observations. IMO, the new TSB deserves its own thread, but I'm not going to start another flooding thread, lest I get black-balled.

I was disappointed how complicated the repair turned out to be. Without the computer equipment to run the diagnostics, it appears the only way to be sure that the car is back to 100% after a "cranks-no start" incident is to have a dealer inspect the car. I am specifically referring here to the references in the TSB to "Check current PCM calibration" and "If MEAS are not within specification, repair has not been completed" and "If measured value is not within MIN and MAX range replace catalytic converer. Replace catalytic converter?!?!

Anyone have any ideas on a "cranks-no start" kit that could be used at the site of a "cranks-no start" incident? The procedures are still a bit fuzzy and the best thing to do at this stage still seems to be to use the de-choke procedure followed by a check up if the car starts or a tow if it doesn't. Like msrecant, I was hoping for something more pro-active.

 

This is my first experience with a rotary engine. The "8" is my wife's car. When she came home the first time and told me the service tech told her the car was flooded, I told her he was crazy. I have worked on cars all my life, piston engines, and never experienced these issues.

I then read the service manual for the "8" and learned that this is an inherent problem with rotary engines. My wife has had the car towed to the dealership on two (2) occassions and has experienced starting problems on a total of five (5) instances.

I don't feel this vehicle is a high performance, finely tuned vehicle that should require substantial knowledge to be able to start and drive. We're not talking a Formula 1 race car here!! This should be a vehicle that anyone's wife (or husband) should be able to get in and drive without having these types of problems. Someone else posted, if you wanted to wash the vehicle, then you should get someone else to help you "push it onto the driveway", and then drive it after completing the wash.

Thus far, I feel the "8's" reliability is EXTREMELY poor. We had the oil pan issue resolved and now the oil light has started to come on again. We started the vehicle this morning and the check engine light came on.

This vehicle is beautiful from the outside and drives very nice, (when it runs), however, I would not recommend this vehicle to someone else to purchase for their daughter or wife if they require something that needs to be reliable. The $30+K price tag does not match the reliability.....

 

buddy, relax. read and become informed before you write the doomsday opinions of yours in stone, m'kay??

 

Exactly what wakeech said. You state this is your first time with a rotary, right? These engines are much different than a traditional piston/pushrod engine. Do yourself a favor, and bump around the forum for a while, about the biggest complaint you're going to find is fuel economy complaints. But this is a sports car, and if you're really that concerned with fuel economy, get a Prius,(sp?).

 

I tend to agree with you that all three issues are tied together. Unfortunately, if they are, that does not bode well for any of us.

In briefly researching Tier 2 it looks like it was proposed in the 1998/1999 time frame for implementation in 2004. Hence Mazda was well aware of these requirements for the final design and testing of the RX-8 RENESIS engine. While it is conjecture on my part I could believe that the following has happened:

1. Mazda realized, reasonably early on, that they would not have an engineering solution available by the June 2003 US product launch date. This is supported by the recent TSB which both acknowledges the problem and the lack of a solution, even after almost a year (and I would say more like 2 or 3 years) to work it out.

2. Mazda made the decision to load the Tier 2 problem onto the customer so at least the cars could be sold, even if they were non-optimal (lower HP, lower MPG and greater flooding risk). The verbiage in the officially printed "Quick Start" guide indicates that Mazda was aware of this problem when the cars were produced and that the de-tune was not really a last minute decision implemented at the port in June 2003.

3. Mazda publicly down played all these potential problems hoping they would not be noticed by the customer base. JSpec cars are used for "pre-production" evaluation by the auto magazines. Cars start flowing into the US, on schedule, that appear to be what we are expecting.

4. This low-key approach is over-played when cars are actually shipped to the US with 247 HP stickers and the engines turn out substantially less HP. The buy backs and free maintenance are used to address their legal liability.

5. The RX-8 under-performance is noticed by customers and dealers alike. Again they have to back-pedal. The crank/no-start TSB's verbiage reassures dealers and customers that this problem is covered by warranty, even though it is caused by Tier 2 compliance (a very odd admission).

6. The RX-8's reputation takes a big hit. Mazda is powerless to really do anything about it because there really is no currently available technical solution, something they knew going into the situation. But it is still better than selling no RX-8s in the 2003-2005 time frame.


I know this sounds like an Oliver Stone conspiracy theory. As stated earlier, all the above is conjecture based on the odd set of facts that are facing us. I certainly have no proof for any of it. Actually I am hopeful that I will be proven wrong by the 2005 RX-8 being release with all three problems fixed. Who knows?

 

As one who has "worked" on piston engines for years, you are probably familiar with the idea that performance cars are somewhat more tempermental than ordinary vehicles. If you don't think the 8 is a performance vehicle compare the numbers is exhibits to other vehicles and see what you find. In addition, most daughters and wives have a strictly pragmatic view on cars. As far as they are concerned as long as it starts easy, warms up quickly, and gets good gas mileage they are happy. If you learn to accomodate the 8's inherent tendencies, you will find yourselves quite satisfied. Besides, my girlfriend gets a thrill out of my taking turns without using the brakes and she loves the attention it garners, wherever we go.

Charles

 

I didn't write my report of dissatisfaction for the approval of the members or to get other's opinions. I was simply stating the experience that I have had with the vehicle.

I spoke with the service department today after getting the vehicle serviced. The reply I received was that Mazda Corporation knows about the inherent problems, not tendancies, with the car and they are trying to fix them. A new program was downloaded to the ECM to hopefully assist with the flooding problem. According to the service rep I spoke with, Mazda is "playing with different solutions to fix the problem".

I have always truely liked performance vehicles and have owned several both foreign and domestic, I just feel this vehicle may have been released before some of the bugs were worked out.

In reference to the "thrills" aspect for my girlfriend, my motorcycle is much more of an inspiring ride.

 

I just gotta put my two cents in. I had the bad boy parked in a heated garage and was about to go for a spin after about a month of not running. Away at work, ya know.
Followed all recommend stuff but die she did. Towed the next day.
Not a happy camper.
Emailed Mazda and got a rather rude response to my way of thinking.
Still like the runner but I have to consider dumping it if they don't
up with a solution pretty quick.
The Mazda rep told me to look into the state lemon laws. No ****.
Pardon my french.