I got to agree with Joe here. Flooding may be a bit more rare than it would first appear from reading these boards, but there is no denying that it can happen. The owners manual even tells you about it. If its in the owners manual then clearly its a common enough problem to warrant a bit of caution. My car even came with a quck reference guide which also very emphatically warned against shutting down cold. There is a whole section of short trip procedures which explains that you should never turn this off cold.

I live in Boston and when I bought mine the salesman told me when I came to pick up my 8, "Make sure you don't shut this car off cold or it could flood" Then later on when I met the service manage he said "RX8? Just don't turn that engine off without letting it warm up first or its gonna flood on you." Then later on when I was talking to my cousin who works as a mechanic at a foriegn car dealership he said. "RX8 is a great car, just what ever you do don't shut it off cold or it will flood, I have done it myself first time I drove one".

I don't think all these people are just saying that because they read it somewhere on the internet, its clearly a problem that has been common enough that its caused several different people in the industry to warn me about shutting down cold.

Its definatley something you should consider if you are going to being Valet parking the car often, its quite likley to happen in that situation. I know I don't Valet mine for that reason. Sure you can talk to the Valet guys about this, but who knows when a new guy is going to be working an move your car without knowing the proper warm up procedure.

 

Thanks for all the input guys. I had rev'd it to pretty exactly 3000 rpm, knowing that at 3250 the second port opens.

I don't want to wear out my starter unnecessarily, so I guess I have to bite the bullett and have it towed to the dealer.

Peter

 

I looked for that TSB on this web site:

http://www.finishlineperformance.com...ocs/index.html

but cannot find it there. Is there another list with further TSBs?
I'm going to have it towed this afternoon.

 

Let me know your experience regarding the dealer you took it too - Royal, Putnam or other? As other locals would benefit from your experience, you can PM instead if you prefer.

Thanks....

 

The RX8 does just fine as my only car. I don't have a battery charger.
The whole point of the cold-engine shutdown procedure is that it allows you to shutdown the engine when it's cold.
Does the key do something mechanical that would prevent this from working? If not, what a simple solution that would be...

As far as the procedure goes, I don't think it really matters if you rev to 3000 or 4000, but I always make sure I take my foot off the gas just before I turn the key off.

 

If you were to pull the plugs right now they might look like hell - carboned up and oil-soaked because of the flooding incident. If you were to get the car running, this *could* resolve itself by getting the plugs to the proper temperature for a long enough time for the deposits to burn off.

On the other hand, instead of being *symptoms* of the flooded engine, it's possible they were the *cause*. That is, already fouled and finally contributed to a flooding incident. For plugs that become carboned long enough, the spark can short across the carbon on the insulator, etching the insulator and forming a track that doesn't self-clean the way that plain carbon can. Also, the carbon can get fused to the insulator. There's a difference between "fluffy" carbon deposits and the harder "fused" carbon.

So, if you manage to clear the flood yourself and the engine returns to good operation, it's probably ok. If the dealer gets it, they may lean towards replacing the plugs since the flood was bad enough to be unrecoverable, and they also want to prevent a second service call. Another factor may be that part of the full-blown recovery is injection of a sizeable amount of oil into the intake. That's a whole lotta extra carbon. Also, if you don't already have the hot plugs that might make them more likely to replace.

 

The only thing I found:

Make : MAZDA Model : RX8 Year : 2004
Manufacturer : MAZDA NORTH AMERICAN OPERATIONS
Service Bulletin Num : 0102504 Date of Bulletin: JUL 21, 2004
NHTSA Item Number: 10009427
Component: ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:BATTERY
Summary:
BATTERY TEST PROCEDURE REQUIREMENTS. *TT

I think this is just a generic "how to test a battery" document.

Unless it is covered under this one:

Make : MAZDA Model : RX8 Year : 2004
Manufacturer : MAZDA NORTH AMERICAN OPERATIONS
Service Bulletin Num : 0101104 Date of Bulletin: APR 12, 2004
NHTSA Item Number: 10007575
Component: ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE
Summary:
ENGINE CRANKS NO START. *TT

or this one:

Make : MAZDA Model : RX8 Year : 2004
Manufacturer : MAZDA NORTH AMERICAN OPERATIONS
Service Bulletin Num : 0102204 Date of Bulletin: JUN 02, 2004
NHTSA Item Number: 10008057
Component: ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE
Summary:
MAZDA SPECIAL PROGRAM (MSP04) - ENGINE NO START, LACK OF POWER, DIAGNOSTIC TROUBLE CODES P2107, P2108, P2402, OR P0420 - POWERTRAIN CONTROL MODULE (PCM) REFLASH. *TT

I would doubt that Mazda sent a TSB to the dealers telling them to replace the OEM battery with an Interstate battery :D

Dennis

 

Thanks GO48 & Nubo,

Good Answers.

 

Other than mentioning you need a charged battery to de-flood the car, the battery is not mentioned in the TSB.

In the battery "service tip" shown here:

http://www.finishlineperformance.com.../01-042-04.htm

it has the part number for the 640cca battery. I don't see any page that says "We screwed up and put too small a battery in the cars, when they come in replace them with the 640cca battery". So I guess really nothing for you to print and and take with.

As was mentioned, if you don't have the larger capacity battery whine about it while they are de-flooding your car and they should put one in for you :D

Dennis

 

I live in Capitola. So it gets towed to Marina Motor company.
Now the truck just arrived.

 

[QUOTE=Go48]

Carbon-fouled plugs can be cleaned with a special sand-blaster-like dodad, but it's easier and better to just replace carbon-fouled plugs. QUOTE]

Pretty sure that I read that sand blasting is not recommended for the plugs because of their coating (platinum?)

 

It's hard enough getting the average owner to understand the special features and capabilities of products. I can see it now. Owner gets freaked out by the revving of the engine he thought that he just shut off, lifts foot off of clutch and slams through the rear wall of the garage.

You won't be seeing this feature any time soon.

 

[QUOTE=beachdog]I haven't seen that, but you're probably correct. Of course, you could always use the tried and true method used by dirt bikers running two-stroke engines. (Frequent fouling of plugs caused by premix. Oh, that's oil in the gas. Sound familiar? ) Take a small piece of sandpaper and work it around inside the plug to grind the carbon off the insulator. Real high tech approach, but it got me going more than once with my bike out in the boonies.

 

Several loose flooding threads were merged here...

 

I had it towed. So far so good.

The tow guy brings it to the dealer; they ask him to tow it a slight incline (uphill). The tow guy tells one of the mechanics to lower the car as he pulls uphill to avoid scraping of the front bumper.

(I and some other customers watch the whole thing)

- [the mechanic:] does nothing
- [me:] (I see the front lip screeeech.....)
- [the crowd:] booooh
- [me:] STOP STOP
... other mechanics joining to watch ....
- [tow truck guy:] hey man, I told you to lower it so that the front end comes up!
- [mechanic:] (pushes the lever on the tow truck - unfortunately wrong direction)
The car is now higher at the end and even lower at the front. I temporary lose my voice

- [tow truck guy:] (continues to drive forward)
- [my rx-8:] screeech screeech screeech
- [the crowd:] booooh boooh booooh
- [other mechanics:] better not watch us while we work on your car

The mechanic who "operated" the tow truck level ended up working on my car. Only one additional dent this time above the right front wheel, I think, plus the bottom of the front lip, of course.

I guess I got off easy today. Plus it took him only one hour to replace the plugs. Gotta love this service department.

 

P.S.:
Yes, this was my *lucky* day. You all understand now why I wrote "I bite the bullett and have it towed to the dealer", right?

 

I didn't know about the whole flooding drama until it happened to me.I bought it used,and I moved it 20 feet two days later because I was blocking my fiance's car in the driveway.30 min later I can't start it. Mazda towed it,repaired it and changed the battery and took care of a "recall" for free(covered under warranty)the recall was something to do with loss of power at start up.Go figure. But now im **** about letting it warm up.This sucks, but its the price to pay for such a cool car!

 

Flooding???

Why Are You People Doing Driving In Water? Rx-8 Is Not A Boat!

 

My continuing story if anyone's interested, I have flooded twice, I'm in NJ, and the cold definitely plays into this, I have been talking to Mazda in CA, and they have just completed adding the higher amp battery, HD starter, plugs and N flash. There is a substantial difference when starting, you can tell you have more power from the battery, the starter spins at a much higher RPM, and you don't have that feeling with the old system that it just about starts. I would have attempted to turn the engine off after I started it at the dealer, but they had it brought around pre warmed up. I haven't had the guts to test it since it was only back one day before it was towed again. This time, the engine would not accerlerate, just idled at about 2800 rpm, supposedly a sending unit from the electronic accelerator was bad. Has anyone else had this problem?

 

I have seen the reference to a new heavy duty starter in another thread. Is Mazda really pushing this as part of their effort to address the flooding issue? It makes sense but I am just surprised that their initial cut was so far off-base on this issue.

Sorry to hear about the tow because of the electronics problem.

BTW, is yours an MT or AT?

 

Mt

 

It dawns on me that one of the reasons Mazda may have gotten itself in more trouble than it anticipated with flooding was the need to keep the car's weight down. The 8 was on the edge of incurring a gas-guzzler tax in the U.S. at its rating of 18-24mpg; the new "heavy duty" battery Mazda's recommending is apparently significantly heavier than the former stock battery (info anyone?). I wonder how much weight a heavier battery/starter etc. etc. could have added, and how the extra weight affects the fuel economy. No doubt it wasn't the only concern, cost being the likliest factor and squeezing everything in being another, but it was a tough engineering problem -- how much flooding protection does the car need before the extra protection becomes a waste of money/weight?

 

I vote for yes. Moved the car to wash it. Flooded. Towed. Thought the M flash was suppose to have fix this.

 

The M/N Flash is not a fix, it simply reduces the chances of it occuring. See the TSB and the video. Mazda still warns that the car must be fully warmed up befor turning off. The video even recommends reving to 3,000 RPM for 10 seconds, letting it return to idle then shutting it off.

 

I have had my 8 for 16 months, and it has flooded 3 times in the last 4 months, which meant getting it towed. It has been a constant problem and it just sucks. The service center said that they have replaced the spark plugs and battery on the last 2 floodings. It is at service right now. Mazda roadside picked it up this morning. Oh and the CD player will not read CD's anymore. These are the problems I am getting with my RX-8. Don't get me wrong, I love my car but I am highly persuing the Lemon Law. Of course my car has 30k miles but I just want my car to run for more than 2 months without a problem.