snap-on

It's not the best we can come up with..

Fixing your car is the best I can come up with. I just seem to answer the same questions over and over. Please don't take it personally.


You are not the first cold flood issue we has seen this winter. I have posted recently there is a TSB addressing the CCA of the stock battery(310) and how they are upgrading all the replacement batteries to 640-690 CCA. This will be an attempt to ensure a high cold weather cranking speed and reduce the issues you have posted.

RX8MN

I think it was a quick start/stop that caused the flooding. The car was moved cold for a wash and not warmed up. It started again and was moved into the garage, no problem then. About 4 days later, went to start - flooded! Guess the flooding was from the second cold start on wash day and the gas just hung around till next time. I'll be more careful in the future. Yep, I was glad to get it started myself, almost called roadside assistance for a tow! Having a battery charger with a 50amp boost helped, the battery would have run down before starting without it.

bean438

It seems pretty stupid that for the same amount of time you spent typing your 2 non helpfull posts, you simply could have given an answer.
I did search. I did not find a cold flood issue. I found all the other flood threads. I thought this was clearly laid out.
Sometimes this board is helpfull.
I guess all the helpfull people are on holidays.
Thanks anyway.

snap-on

I guess I must be pretty stupid..

I hope the helpful people get back soon so we can really fix this problem.

Sea Ray

I only thought us Yankees where rude????

bean438

Well no arguement there, yanks are rude.
I dont think I was being rude.
Like I said, thanks anyway.

Mr M

No, only defensive when somebody takes a jab... :D

Mr. Bean, I think the best thing you can do is teach your soccer mom the dechoke procedure, and ask Mazda to check your PCM flash, your spark plugs (to see if they are the hot ones or not), and your cat. In doing that (excluding the bit about your wife), your case will go on record at MNAO and will hopefully contribute to research by MC into a foolproof starting procedure/software program.

I sympathise with you, I don't think being a soccer mom, or a woman should be the reason for a car not starting in this day and age, but at the same time, a rotary engine does require a little more pampering than a reciprocal engine. That is not good or bad, as I'm sure you know, it is just the nature of the beast.

If you have driven the car with no problems, but when your wife got in the car and it flooded, I think the solution is obvious. First, win her over again, because I'm sure she is absolutely pi##ed at that damn car! Get some friends to compliment you on the car in front of her, go for a nice long drive in the mountains where the scenery is beautiful, you get the idea....

Then let her drive a few times, with you in the passenger's seat, coaching her a little. Then maybe go into a little detail about how the rotary engine works, how Mazda stuck it in the faces of the big-buck Le Mans teams in '91 and won with a rotary, even though the opposition had them banned from the next year. Tell her about the RX7's and how much better the 8 is than them. Then tell her the dechoke procedure...

And the answer to your question "Can flooding ONLY be caused by the turn it on and shut it off quickly?", No.
The engine floods because it doesn't fire first pop and the excessive fuel in the engine washes the oil off the rotor walls, causing a loss of compression (making the engine sound different). If there is already a lot of unburnt fuel in the engine, like after a stop-start when the engine is cold (less vaporisation of fuel, plus richer mixture) it makes the situation worse. But the root cause is the engine not catching on the first crank, or half catching, and excessive fuel being present. That can be caused by lots of things. Most of which are under investigation by Mazda - so please report this to your dealer.

Sorry for the novel...

tania

Well, I had a similar problem. I am also fully aware of flooding and to the point where I will be late for work because I've been sitting and waiting for the car to warm up. (Or driving around) But one night it was the coldest it's been so far this winter, about 0 farenhiet and I cranked it once, didn't start. Cranked it much longer the 2nd time, still didn't start. So I started looking in the manual for the de-choking procedure but I couldn't find it and it was so damn cold that I just tried to start it again a 3rd time, and then a 4th time, and then it finally started. (and I'm even a woman!! but not a soccer mom, definately)

Dephender1

So I've read a lot about RX-8's flooding....but tonight (for the first time), my RX-8 did not start! I thought it may be because of the cold weather, but the neighbor's cars started up fine. And the weather is nothing compared to other Forum member's flooding experience (it is 40 Degrees F tonight).

BUT here's the twist!!! My RX-8 was not the only car that did not start! My sister's car and my older brother's car did not start either! What's the chance of that? I checked all of the tail pipes just in case of some 'banana in the tail pipe' prank! Does anyone have any ideas what happened? I'm pretty sure it was sabatoge!! I'd appreciate any positive feedback! Thanks!

Ajax

Did you try the emergency start procedure in the manual?

Dephender1

Unfortunately, I'm at my parent's house and I left my manual at my apartment....can you give me the gist of it? I'd appreciate it!

p.s. i talked to some friends, they're convinced that someone put sugar in my tank.

greg-

how'd they come to that conclusion?

snap-on

Three marks in the same driveway? Time to get into the witness protection program..

Blue87Sport

Sugar in the gas won't ruin a car, it is an urban legend.

http://www.snopes.com/autos/grace/sugar.asp

IZoomZoomI

weird, my 8 started up fine yesterday, under the same weather conditions. I doubt its anything in the tank unless you left all your cars unlocked. This is strange indeed.

Omicron

So how cold WAS it?

Mr M

The dechoke procedure is cranking the engine with the accellerator pedal FULLY depressed. Don't worry, the engine won't start. This cuts the fuel supply, so that by cranking over the engine with the starter motor you are pumping any excess fuel in the engine out the exhaust.

seikx8

Out of 30k miles of trouble free, I finally joined the flood club! When I took out the spark plugs, they look very bad; no wonder it's easily flooded. It give no symptom, it's just decide quite one morning and it took me half a day to get the engine fire up again after the plugs were cleaned. To make the story short, brought it to the dealer next morning for th 30k service, they re-flash the ECM with the latest version and I will have to wait until my 35k service to get the new plugs replacement since I have the free maintenace service :D

bay

was flooded last night, did the deflood procedure (cut fuel, crank, rinse, repeat) and got it started this afternoon. i didn't want to just submit to the dealer tow, but im brining it in to change the oil and filter due to the flooding.

a war vetran i am now, truly a rotary owner.

.02$

msrecant

Part of the dealer de-flood procedure is to check for damage to the Catalytic Converter and a couple of other issues. You may still want to get the dealer to do those checks.

FWIW

zoom44

foot down to crank the flood out. then foot off the pedal to try starting. your foot should always be off the pedal when starting.

rx8cited

When does "crank the flood out" end and "try starting" begin? Don't I have the key turned to start in both cases?

rx8cited

Sorry to hear that ........ are most of your trips short? What version flash did you have before the upgrade - to the new M I presume?

Damn, that spark plug looks nasty.

Can anyone tell me if this is typical looking spark plug for a rotary with 30k miles ?

zoom44

sorry-
a.hold the accelerator pedal to the floor- this cuts off fuel.
b.crank for 8-10 seconds.
c remove foot from pedal, crank for 8-10 seconds to try to start.
d. if car fails to start go back to a.

after trying this a few times (the printed procedure has a specific amount of times) if you still cant get it to start call roadside assisstance.

if you are mechanicly inclined you could also pull and clean the plugs,reinstall them and try again.

RX8driver

Well after 1 year, no real problems, and a great overall experience with my RX-8, it finally just didn't start today.
The car in kept in the garage, and I haven't done anything abnormal or unusal except the car hasn't been driven for about 5 days. I went out this afternoon to take it out and bammm, it just wouldn't start. I noticed something wasn't right almost instantly as the engine sounded different?? Regardless I tried the emergency start procedure for flooding, checked the fuses and even added some more gas since it was on the low side, but to no avail.
Mazda roadside service just took it away (they took 3.5 hours to get here!).

I callled the dealer and he suggested maybe I got a buggy flash but I guess I will find out in a few days what went wrong. The last flash I received was due to a noticed I received from mazda, I think it was the 04 flash or something like that.

Anyone else had an experience like this? Since I don't really think it was flooding, it will be curious what the dealer finds out.
The car was also given "hotter" plugs during it's last service, but honestly it seemed to run smoother for the first two weeks, but the gas mileage also decreased by about 2-3 mpg. It could be just the colder weather... so it will be interesting to see what this is all about.