Wing5

Background:
-Early make '04 RX-8 (Bitchin' Black )
-Purchased used in June @ 30.5k miles
-Currently has 35k
Problem:
So living in L.A. I rarely get to highway speeds and consequently I never get into 6th gear. For once, a week or so ago, I was able to get cruising and tried to shift into 6th and: nothing. Shifting into it while driving, from a stand still, with the car off, nothing would work. Funny thing tho everything else was fine; reverse worked and I didn't have any problems with grinding into gears.
Diagnostics:
I take it over to Galpin Mazda and have them check it out. Aside from the details of the service rep. trying to sell me 6 different things, never calling back, and giving me BS about him not being able to help me under warranty if it's been abused, he says they'll look at it. After a few days of talking with MNAO just to get permission to open up my tranny, they get into it and he gives me a call. He says inside there are metal shavings and the transmission oil is completely black. They said they had never seen it before and couldn't figure out what had gone wrong.
Solution: (as of so far)
He tells me he's got all the parts on order and all that is left is the final OK from MNAO to go ahead and give me a new tranny under warranty.
What's to come:
The car has been there since last Tuesday and he tells me I'll have my car back by the end of the week. [sigh] I'll keep ya'll updated. Pics to come of course.

Wing5

My car on the lift.


Everything torn out.


The tranny taken out and cleaned off.


They gave me a new 6 for a loaner and this 3 was on the lot

tiltmode43

iTrader: (15)

Bleh, I'm through with Galpin. Hey, when were you there? I was picking up my white 8 and I believe I saw a black there.

lone_wolf025

So did they say what the problem was?

Wing5

I was there Tuesday dropping it off and then on Friday again to take pics and pick up a loaner.

Wing5

Wow I knew I forgot something, I'll edit and add this bit.
They said they had never seen it before and couldn't figure out what had gone wrong.

mazda8guy

got mine rebuilt for a grind into 2nd when it was cold. I had to go back 4 times for an oil leak and you could not do a 9000rpm shift into 2nd after the rebuild. Also the cruise wouldnt work in 6th.

Now i have a new tranny and the cruise works. I hope yours goes better then mine.

XDEEDUBBX

hoe it all works out well for you michael...BTW,,thats a really ugly Mazda3!

NgoRX8

iTrader: (1)

good luck michael. hope all goes well.

Aseras

used at 30K? I'll bet the car was towed in 6th gear.

ask them to take a look at the rear diff just for fun if you can.

mmats69

had the same thing happen to me bro except i lost 3rd gear instead of sixth (27k miles). same results when opening up the transmission. caught hell b/c of my aftermarket parts and thought i was gonna get royally screwed but i had an open ticket from 6 months earlier and i had only put 1500 miles on the car since then. believed that saved me a lot of arguing and headache. i'm glad to hear that i'm not the only one that has had this problem. i hate to hear about it but at least i'm not alone in the battle.

side note: i had a 95 probe (carbon copy of the mx-6 at that time) back in the day and the exact same thing happened to it. is there a pattern starting here or is it me?

XDEEDUBBX

Wow, look at your shift **** just sitting there, hope no one jacks it!

rotarygod

I'm actually very surprised that they didn't try the usual excuse of blaming it on you for street racing and being hard on it.

Jedi54

iTrader: (7)

damn wing, I hope everything works out here.

mmats69

that was the first quesion i was asked. "You haven't been racing or speed shifting have you?"

I truly am appalled how it is the dealers quest to blame the customer first, THEN "consider" that it might be the fault of Mazda. I am going through that again now. Took my car in yesterday over the "power loss after driving on the highway" issue. First thing they did was blame my aftermarket intake which has been on over a year with no problem.

Wing5

So first and foremost: I don't have the car back yet. >.<
The guy got the final approval from MNAO early last week to give me the new transmission. As of the end of shop hours on Friday the tranny has not even shown up yet. No surprise really but it means I've been driving the 6 loaner this past weekend.

As for why they are giving me a new tranny and didn't give me more shyt about abusing it, I have a theory. Just on hints and things I picked up from them, I came to the conclusion that my tranny is different from other 8s because it's such an early make and Mazda doesn't want to deal with it. Sorta like a recall in that these early 8s have different & (potentially faulty) trannys but rather than recall them, Mazda is just waiting for people like me to come in with it broken (or worse: have the warranty run out on people b4 it breaking?). Anyone have any knowledge on the subject?

Hopefully I get a call today with an update...

Wing5

For an econo-box, I like my loaner 6. The side cup holders in the door pockets and the latches in the truck for the rear seat releases are shweet. 'Couple of things tho:
-All the doors need more force than normal to close. It's really annoying having to close doors twice all the time.
-The audio display has some lag time that my 8 doesn't
-When the trunk is open it's in the perfect position to obstruct my head movement. Think I've hit my head 3 or 4 times in the 2 weeks i've had it.
/end own thread hijack =P

Wing5

[BUMP]
Called Galpin yesterday and he said the tranny had just come in. Says it'll be done this afternoon. Hopefully this is all done by tonight cause it'll prolly sit there for another weekend cause of Thxgvg if it's not finished today. Any good luck and wishes are welcome

mmats69

hope it comes in before the holidays man. i brought mine in on a thursday and was back in it the following monday. i do have to agree with you on the faulty tranny. seems that this is a problem that Mazda does not want to address. i guess they banked on people driving the car out of warranty before this would come up. I bought the extended warranty myself. Although the factory hasn't run out, i am glad that i got it with all these problems surfacing.

Wing5

Weee back from the holiday weekend! ^.^ Ok didnt go anywhere and have been on 8club the whole time but still lol

Got the car back that afternoon like he said. The new tranny is working just fine and I had them do the 30k mile service as well. Lucky me tho, the guy called me this morning to tell me the mech forgot to put in a new air filter with the 30k @.@ U'd think that's a pretty big thing 2 forget. So off I go back to Galpin; at least they were pretty nice about not giving me any flack when I brought back the 6 with some curb rash. (Tried to get out of the way for an ambulance, didnt have as much room as I thought >.<)

Anyways, about the tranny, the guy said it's only the 2nd tranny Galpin has had replaced under warranty so far. Still in wonder as to why my transmission took a shat, cause they dont know either. Oh well I'm just ecstatic to have my car back ^.^ And I seem to be slamming my doors all the time now (see my post about the loaner 6)

Jedi54

iTrader: (7)

glad you finally got your car back!!

ucleadguitar

iTrader: (1)

wing i love the supra guy doing the impressions on ur myspace!

Wing5

vrrrrrooooooOOOOOOOmmm [GEAR GRIND] vrrooOOOOOOooooooooooommmmm
Bwahahahaha cant get enough of that. Glad u like =P