Issues
 

Just bought a 2004 RX-8 with 90k miles on it, and have a couple of unrelated issues. Car is bone stock, no mods, factory exhaust, bought it from a non-Mazda dealer, they have no maintenance records for it. CEL just came on yesterday. I am hoping it’s nothing serious, the car runs like a champ, no idle or running issues at all yet. Do I take it to a Mazda dealer to have them read it or try to get a reader to do it myself? I’ve read several threads in these forums about resetting memory to get rid of the CEL, and other posts about getting your own reader, a CANbus or something like that? I have thought about doing some of the ECU resets methods that are listed in the forums to try to clear the CEL, but Rx-8s seem to be very quirky so I dont want to mess up the way its running now since its not giving me any issues and I am curious as to what the CEL is for especially since its a higher mileage car.

All of the climate control circle thing switches seem to be inoperable, defroster, A/C, etc. I am assuming/hoping it’s either a fuse or wire in the dash shot or something like that. Has anyone else experienced this problem before? Is it common for RX-8s?

Any advice is appreciated.

dont clear the code, the cel code holds valuable information. get a reader and check it and come back.

may be unrelated... but i seem to remember that if the ac or radio or something isnt plugged in, it puts the car into limp mode.. or.. a cel comes on.. or something.. someone correct me if im wrong.

the controls for the ac and defrost etc etc etc are on the lower left side of the radio(towards the driver) if you eventually need to pull the radio, maybe the plug became loose or a wire became faulty or something?

but who knows, everything i just said may have been bad info. i havnt had my car long enough to discover all these annoying little problems people have.

get a code reader and check it, i believe autozone will check it for you for free or something like that?

Yeah, Autozone (and many other auto parts stores) can check it for free. Get that code and report back to us. :)

boom, got something right. :yesnod:

Yes. Definitely get the code read and report back. Regardless of how well the car runs, That light being on means something is wrong. There are very few codes that can be ignored without recourse. And fewer still that wont come back to bite you later.

Thanks for the info. I will see if I can find a Autozone or auto parts store that is open today.