I just started receiving the problem today. I think it must be my wheel sensor because of the following steps.

Turn key to on position: all lights go off (DSC and ABS light off)
Start car no lights stay on
Let idle no problems
Start driving > After about 25 feet ABS and DSC light come on.

I do have a LED third brake light but never had an issue in the past 4 months.

I currently am going through front rotors every 10K due to run out, implying I have hub runout and I get vibrations from the front with two separate set of tires and rims, and slight drifting at high way speeds. I think i need a new front wheel bearing and sensor. I am going to the dealership tomorrow, we will see what they say.

does your ABS work ( do your wheels lock up?)? and does your cruise control work too when the ABS/DSC lights are on? mine comes on like yours upon warm/hot restart and driving 25ish feet the error lights come on.

Got back from the dealer ship.

Here is the deal.

The tail lights don't light up when I depress the brake pedal. This is a pretty big issue.
They traced this to fuses that keep blowing each time the brake pedal is pressed. (Brake fuse in engine bay I believe)
They traced all this back to an issue with the EMF filter on the brake line. I think this is bullshit as an electric engineer the chance that this part is bad is almost 0. It is just a LC (inductance, capacitance) filter. 3 non moving, very durable, $0.50 parts

The ABS issue error code is the pressure sensor is reading high.

So two crazy thing to note. If i pull the switch out and actuate it manually the tail lights work. (switch is good) If i install the switch and press the pedal they don't. I am getting the replacement part (should only be a few dollars) Tuesday. I might need to get a salvaged ABS module to replace the current one. I worried this is an electrical gremlin.

Back to the dealer Tuesday.

The ABS doesn't work. Neither does TCS. I can slide and lock up the breaks (tested in the parking lot).

I had this problem yesterday, no rain, but did hit a particularly rough patch in the road. Stopped right after and, without prior knowledge, had the wife turn the wheels to lock left and right so i could check the abs plugs on each of the front tires. Then turned the car all the way off and back on, nothing so far, and we did quite a bit of driving. though i will check the wear on the tires and the tire pressures.

Please Help...
I have MAzda rx8 2004 Manual 231hrs... I bought 6 months ago, everything was just fine and then few days ago without any reason inside the wires that connect accelerator pedal and brake switch pedal start burning in 2 min i could not accelerate i stop and turn off the battery cable....and i safe my car of burning in fire...
What i realized on the part where the burning start there is one plastic box kind of noise filter and 4 wires colors G/R, G/B, Y/R, W/G...
Can any one help me with this issue , wiring diagram or please picture of the installation from accelerator pedal to the brake pedal so i can see if owner before me install something that cause this problem?!
I saw here issue very similar to my issue, and i remember i change more then 6 fuses because after pressing brake sometimes lights of dsc/abs came On. I had broken wheel hub on right front wheel and i replace it i change fuse also and after that everything was just perfect then this melting wires and burning start after 300km driving...
To Everybody who want's to help me sorry for my English.
I can send also pictures i took if any one knows how to help me.
Thank's in Advance.

Well, I will try and put the electrical portion of the manual in this post, and I hope you will be able to read it. If not, it's available onlinie and I'll post the link shortly.

Wouldn't let me attach it, so try these links:

http://foxed.ca/index.php?page=rx7manual

http://foxed.ca/rx7manual/2003mazdarx8/

Please make a new thread on your issue instead of posting in this one.

Check your tires make sure are the same size.

Thank you
I have taken a pictures of a part where the melting start it is a noise filter....im suspicious if this is a factory original part. Maybe the owner before was upgrading something...
is there any one who can see on his mazda, and send me back pictures on mail...

No it didn't work we are confused about the part i said above...
Im very grateful ti you, the manual you send me will help me a lot after i figure out what was the cause of this melting.

Did it work.

Check your E-mail in a few minutes.

I'm having some of these problems and after I fix them they keep coming back. Yesterday was the worst. First off I park on a hill with the nose of the car pointing down and it happens only when i'm parked there. I'll start the car and both the traction control light and DSC light will be on. When it happened yesterday I tried to turn the wheel and it wouldn't turn, it would turn a 1/4 inch and the power inside the car would flicker and start to die. So I released the parking brake and let it roll down the hill to the flat area. Once flat the steering wheel turned fine both ways to reset the DSC light. Turned the car off and restarted it and the traction control light went off.

What's happening to my car?! Please help.

Wow, I gotta think about this awhile.
Question................you absolutely sure that the ONLY time this happens is when you are parked nose down on that hill? No other time?

Positive...its really cold out when it happens and the pads freeze to the rotors so im wondering if its sensing somethings wrong with the brakes?

^.................That's a good as anything I got at the moment.
Maybe do nothing at all(don't even put key in or touch the wheel) but let it roll just a pinch first, and see what happens from there?

alright i'm just not gonna park on that hill anymore

alright it happened again yesterday...twice. I keep having to reset the DSC and TCS. Also the power will flicker sometimes...could my battery be going out? I haven't had any trouble starting the car but it seems weak to me.

Mazurfer, you should add the 15A stop fuse in the engine bay fuse box to this list. It went out on me after my 3rd brake light cable shorted, causing my ABS and traction control lights to come on.

It should probably be one of the first things you check.

Will do...............thanks!

Actually, I modified #14 to include checking the fuse.
Remember, I'm trying to put these in order of most likely.............so as I get more data(saying this is more common) I'll move this one up the list.

I'm having this issue, and have not been successful at remedying it.

Symptoms:

ABS, TCS, & brake light come on after a few minutes of driving, every time I drive the car. Sometimes they come on when the car is just idling, warming up.

ABS is not functional - can lock the front brakes.

No codes are being thrown.

I've followed all the advice in this thread, save for the alignment (which I am about to try) and have also followed the troubleshooting guide in the factory service module. Unfortunately, I have reached the end of guide, where it recommends replacement of the ABS hydraulic module, which is very expensive.

So I'm curious - has anybody else gone down this path and found that replacing the ABS unit was the only way they could restore the ABS system?

So Major update to my problem.

Short answer it was a short in the center tail light wire.

Long story:
Mazda Dealership trip one. Blowing fuses right and left. Tehy said it was the brake switch emf filter, which is about a 50 cent part. Having a electric engineering background i new this was bullshit, but a built a new one to install and then when that didn't work we jumped and bypassed this. Still didn't work. Finally I left for the day 5 hours of diagnostics and they didn't figure out anything. They said i needed to replace my wiring harness ($2700, didn't do it)

Mazda Dealership two. They said my ABS module was blown ($2000, bought a Salvage one for 100, mine is still working 70K on it if someone wants to buy it) They installed it same problem. They they said it was the EMF filter again. I said your morons and to give me my money back. They gave me 200 in some free parts i needed. Anyways i figured it out that the EMF filter was the problem reinstalled the orignal.

How i found the problem:
Pulled the brake siwtch out of the metal holder to trigger a pedal depress in the electrical system (They over tightened it prevent it from releasing, Fixed that too) with the trunk open and a new fuse in, i slammed the trunk a few time and the fuse blew. Unhooked the center tail light repeated, no blown fuse. Running with center un hooked for three weeks and no problem.

So 600 in fees = Dealership dumb as hell and a me fixing my own problem in 15 minutes.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, that does help. That’s too bad about the unnecessary ABS unit replacement – that scenario is exactly what I want to avoid.

My situation is a bit different – none of the three fuses mentioned in this thread has ever blown on my car. So, I’m pretty sure the problem isn’t electrical in nature (although I suppose not all shorts result in a blown fuse).

I did the alignment this weekend, and also cleaned off the rear sensors, which had accumulated a moderate amount of magnetized particles. Also looked in the hole where the rear sensors mount to visually inspect the “teeth” that the sensors detect and saw no obvious problems. Put it all back together with no change.

However, given that the fault doesn’t normally occur immediately, I decided to take the car out in the rain and, before the fault occurred, deliberately provoke power-induced oversteer to see what happens. In short, the car did exactly what it normally does – modulate the rear brakes to stop the impending spin. So, when the fault isn’t active, the rear axle seems to function just fine. A few minutes after this test the fault occurred again, true to form.

This tells me (I think) that the ABS hydraulic unit is capable of modulating brake pressure, and that the rear sensors are functional. This leads me to believe that it’s the front sensors that are going bad. I’ve already replaced the front sensor cables, but my understanding is that the actual sensors for the front axle are in the hubs, not the cables. So I’m thinking of replacing the front hubs next.

Pyroshock, I may be interested in buying your ABS unit.

#14....................noted! :D:

Let me know back here when/if you finally get it solved. I am interested. Good luck!

A follow up:

In my case, the culprit was the main ABS valve. '04 with about 67k miles on the car, but I'm a heavy autocrosser and give the ABS system a healthy workout most runs. Probably more than I should from a driving technique standpoint, but the RX-8's ABS system is so darn good it's hard not to.

Some notes to help others:

- If any of the three lights are staying on in the dash, pull the codes. This may sound obvious, but I wasn't aware that my cheapo CodeScout wouldn't pull chassis codes. So I was assuming I had no codes. So, if your dash lights are on but your code reader says NO CODES then go somewhere that has a better scanner.

- I had the help of a sympathetic forum member who had factory service knowledge & procedures that went above and beyond what is in this thread. I still could get only so far without help from the dealership. For example, once I pulled the code that indicated the ABS solenoid as the potential problem, there still is another step in the factory troubleshooting guide that requires the dealer WDS system to test the ABS solenoid directly to see if it is indeed failing to actuate. Which in my case, it was.

Then, once the new ABS valve is installed, the WDS system is again needed to initialize the valve. Not sure exactly what it does here or how critical this step is, but the service manual states that the ABS/stability systems will not function correctly if you do not do this. It's possible that if you install a used valve pulled from a wrecked RX-8 this step might not be needed; don't know for sure. But it seemed like a good idea to me considering what was written in the service guide.

I didn't fancy the idea of bleeding an ABS valve anyway, so I had the dealer diagnose & install the valve. Cost was $320 for labor. Not bad and worth it for me.

Anyway, hope this helps somebody.