I lost a rotor the other day while I was heading North on 59 just outside of Houston. I have never had a misfire, never had any lose of power, never had any real issues with my 8 and then I felt 1 misfire and I was like wow what was that, then just a few minutes later, BAM I lost all power compression from one of the rotors. As I was safely finding my way to the side of the road IN THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE with not much shoulder at all I saw sparks and black smoke out of the back of the 8, probably the CAT going out I think.

Towed to Expo Kingwood Mazda, they are great guys there, but they could not run any compression test to confirm the bad rotor until the now ruined spark plugs were replaced. They wanted $660 or so for the tune up just plugs and coils . Money I would not get back even if it was confirmed that it was in fact the engine failing.

So I bought brand new coils/plugs/plug wires from amazon for $211 free shipping, went out Sat morning and it took me 2 hours to change coils, plug wires, and plugs out in their parking lot. Front rotor plugs looked totally normal, coils looked fine, wires looked fine, but the rear rotor plugs had something that looked like melted shards of rubber all over them! I immediately showed the tech there and he said that the engine definitely had internal failure. Monday they did the compression test and confirmed no compression in the rear rotor. Now Mazda wants proof of all of my oil changes, etc. So I am having my dealership fax them over to the Kingwood dealership. A huge thanks goes to this site and its many how to's for saving me $500 on the tune up to confirm that the engine was bad.

My question is this: Since I was asked to pay for new coils/plugs/plug wires to confirm that the engine was bad, should they not at least pay for the new plugs that were destroyed from the engine loosing compression?

 

plugs are a wear item so I doubt they'll reimburse you.
just make sure you get fresh plugs / wires on the new engine and you'll be set.

 

That's just bullshit because you don't need functioning spark plugs or coils to run a compression test, you just need to make sure there's a seal. Hell, one plug per rotor has to be removed anyway just to attach the friggin' tester. They owe you $211 plus they should be paying you for the work you did removing the plugs so that the tech could discover that the engine "definitely had internal failure". Apparently, they think that removal and inspection of the plugs requires new plugs and coils? Add an education fee.

 

This is complete BS.

Right on. Now, if they replace your motor those parts will have to be replaced with out of pocket expense. Still, you don't need those things to run the test unless for some reason the plugs are not allowing a complete seal. If that was the case you would know it!

 

yeah they did the same crap to me on the last motor but luckily I had the extended warranty so they paid for the plugs, coils, etc. so i just paid my $100.00 ded. But it is BS because this being my third motor I knew it was blown when I took it in.

 

As long as they use my newly installed parts on the newly installed Renesis I won't be too upset, but just like you all said they should not have required this to be done before doing the compression test or being able to figure out it had internal failure

 

Dealership claims that after putting in new motor and cat converter that the brand new coils I put in are defective. What are the chances of this? I put in these coils:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...X0DER&v=glance

 

Seeing a lot of this lately with the dealerships either charging outrageous prices prior to engine replacement or just completely denying you one. I hope it changes soon.

 

Just buy OEM coils.. simple fix.

 

Who told you to use those coils?

 

Over 2 months have gone by, Mazda tried giving me the run around saying it was the coils, then oil injectors, newly rebuilt renesis was installed and still had no compression in the rear rotor, they are now sending a 2nd rebuilt renesis, and I have NO time-line as to when I will have the RX-8 back. Over 2 months without the car, on warranty work, due to bad engine, this has not been the best experience!

 

ugh, sorry to hear that.
did you end up getting OEM coils? I would highly recommend having those so it's one less thing Mazda can blame you for.

good luck, hopefully you'll have your car back soon.

 

Yes, even though I am sure the coils I put on there were fine, Mazda replaced them and I returned the old ones to amazon.com, their return policy is amazing. But the dealership is charging me just under $300 for the new coils, I wish I had it in my garage so I could have just done it myself for cheaper

 

dude... i would get the local tv station involved... I don't know if they have anything in Houston like they do in San Antonio, but here NP was tooling this one dude and his 3. They had the car for like 3 months and were giving him the run around on what was wrong... finally he went and got the tv station to investigate.... a week later he had his car back.

And if they give you a hassle over the 300 for the coils, you can get them from several places for about 35 a piece. See if they will take the deal of you replacing their stock with genuine madza coils.

 

I would like to see the test results of the coils, sounds like BS to me.

The engine problem has cost them a grip so they are getting tougher and tougher. On my last engine they made me jump through all kinds of hoops and I went along but I reminded the service guy that on my previous engines I did not do any of those things so if they tried to deny it I would put them all in their places. When my second engine was put in I had no oil change receipts (did them all myself) and they didn't ask for **** and they did not make me replace my plugs or coils that time.

Hell another local member had them deny him due to his midpipe and they never said **** to me about mine. I mean I can see them being hard asses if a car has been highly modded or obviously abused but the engine issue is well documented and for them to try be hardcore now is just BS.

 

So the 1st rebuilt engine was in for one day and the dealership would not give it back to me because it did not pass their standards for compression.

2nd rebuilt engine was installed and 3 months to the day after I dropped it off with them I picked it up after paying $200 for the Mazda coils and install, newly installed rebuilt engine lasted less than 24 hours and it was smoking and stalling and had no compression over 4500 rpms, took it back to them the next day 2-17-10 (exactly 3 months after original engine blew still not working AT ALL).

They tested the engine and it had oil in the intake, no compression causing problems again. This time they complained to Mazda enough about sending 2 bad engine blocks in a row that Mazda finally agreed to give me a rental (now that it has been since 11-17-09 that I have had an operational RX-8).

So Mazda is sending a 3rd rebuilt Renesis, I am not holding my breath that this engine will work either, they have not shown any signs to me that they are capable of rebuilding the Renesis. Bad LONG experience so far!!!!!

 

That sucks man, the new reman plant supposedly test them before they ship out.

 

Ack sorry for your misfortune Hopefully they get it fixed right for you soon.

 

why does it seem like there is a HUGE failure rate of remans? Seems like so many people end up getting 1 or 2 of them with bad compression.

 

Haha, yeah I wish it were that simple. No the tech knows exactly what he is doing, and he even checks each oil injector to verify they are working properly individually before installing, there are not too many things you could do to mess up an install so bad that the apex seals and compression don't make it past 3 start ups, this is definitely a problem at the rebuilding plants. This problem is far too common and far too spread over the country to be an installation problem. Too many engines, too little quality control at the rebuilding plants and Mazda is paying big time for it, and we are suffering as well.

 

I think you missed my point, there are not too many things that you can do in an install of a Rotary to make the engine itself crap out all of a sudden after only 1 day of driving. Installer error would more likely be seen in "customer complaints" as you mentioned, no internal compression in the engine block itself is not due to an install error no matter how you look at it. If it were an installation problem then it would be addressed and fixed correctly you would not be ordering a new engine block, trust me the techs don't really look forward to reinstalling the same engine 3-4x in the same car. There is obviously a problem at the re-manufacturing sites and many many Mazda dealerships are experiencing this all across the country.

Update: still no rx-8

 

Picked up the 8 on Saturday, March 6th. So far so good, I hope this motor keeps its compression longer than the first 2 they tried!!!!!

3 months and 3 weeks from engine loss of compression to warranty covered engine being installed correctly. Terrible experience but at least it is over for now.