zoom44

why would your warranty run out at 32k?

SimbaKui

No idea... but being it has been in for service so many times, I would only hope! What should I ask them to look for?

6speed8

Sometimes when the engine floods, the Catalytic converter gets destroyed (clogged). An engine running too rich can destroy a Cat as well. When a Cat getts clogged, the engine will not run, or run very well.

I would hope they checked that fisrt, but you never know.

edj

warranty is 4 years or 50K miles, whichever comes first. at 8K miles
per year, you would only have 32K miles when it expires at 4 years.

zoom44

yeah i always forget the time part of it. even got service- rigth now im a month past timewise even though i have 1k more miles to go. really need to make the appointment but am waiting on the silly recall letter.

thanks

agoodcave

JonToy,
I thought #1 too, but read the letter again. Daniel says, "Right now parts for this recall are being
shipped to the dealerships and customer notifications should be going
out very soon." and in closing, "Further
details and information regarding this recall has not been released yet
though."

You may be right but let's hope not!

Mike

zoom44

oh the only parts going out right now are for the ehat recall and possibly the control arm. although i havent heard of control arms being shipped yet. no parts for this issue are going out except for the new engines. only 20 or so back ordered still so most of the new engines have shipped for the cars currently down. take note that the nhsta only has the 2 recalls. if parts were shippign fo r athird it would already beup there

demob05

As we're talking about oil again, if we start using grades other than the specified (i.e. dino 5W-20) or Synthetic, especially since we've talking about how the 5W-20 may not be sufficient for this engine under extreme conditions, what about the Warranty?? Would we have to wait til Mazda authorizes other grade oils/synthetic before we take the initiative on our own, especially those of us living & driving and 'at risk' climates???

sharward

How about you reply back and ask, specifically, "Are you referring to the 3305G 'Thermal Damage' recall campaign? If so, that is not the issue I'm writing about." That would, hopefully, settle the "did he really understand the concern" debate.

Either way, thanks for posting the info. Interesting stuff.

--Keith

Rx8black

I live in Puerto Rico And the temp all the time it`s over 80 in winter and over 98 in summer this days around 105 and I never heard before about that.
The only Rx8 in PR it`s mine with the EPS.I not heard anyproblem with the engines.

Oktobernv

Got my 8 back on Friday with the new engine.

Runs nice. Idle is smooth.

Won't know too much for a while, as I am breaking in the new engine. Not going to ride it too hard for a while.

It took Magic Mazda 36 days to swap my engine. Long time.


Rob in Vegas

Oktobernv

A few other notes from Magic Mazda.

What kind of oil are they using? HAVOLINE 5w-20

Do all Mazda dealers use that? No, each dealer makes their own deals with vendors and picks their own oil.

Why Havoline Oil? Price.

How many RX8 engines has Magic replaced so far? Around 35

How many of those 35 were Manual Trans? 4 or 5

Have ANY RX8's come in during the last 3 weeks with blown engines? No.

Has Madza corp talked to Magic about changing oil weight recomendation for hotter climate areas of the country? No.

Rob in Vegas

khoney

Zoom - sorry I missed this post. Yes, I had the car in for service back in June. Everything seemed to be OK when I got it back, but I haven't been driving in a lot of congestion in the heat since I took it in. Now it has started to happen again- with school starting up the afternoon traffic is horrible. That is when the problem occurs - extreme heat (100+ on the ambient display) and lots of idling. I am at the 'P' flash, and have new plugs (that is what they did for me in June). My biggest concern is that summer is reaching an end, and by next summer my warranty will have run out. I want this problem fixed, and I want to be able to verify that it's fixed - that means I need hot weather! I've been running 93 octane since June, so that can't blame it on gas.

I'm going in tomorrow to drop it off - I am truly afraid to drive it now that traffic is heavy again.

dianoga

ok. so i have another fun story to contribute. my car has now been at magic for 32 days. i called last sat and sandra told me my car would be done at the end of the week. after not hearing from her, i called back yesterday and she told me again "end of the week". i got pissed and called a lemon law lawyer. they basically told me that because it's been more than 30 days and less than a year with the car, i have a very strong case. instead of using a lawyer right away, i figured i'd try to give magic a chance to get me into something else. when i got there i explained my situation to a manager and he said i could swap my lease for another car with no problems. at one point he talked to sandra about my car and she lied and told him my car had only been there since aug 13, not july 20 when i actually dropped it off. but anyway, the point of my story is that i was there for over 3 hours and they couldn't do anything for me. i basically want another car, mazda6 fully loaded for example, of equal value as my car when i got the initial lease, for the same payment i'm making now. they wanted a down payment which i'm not willing to do, because as far as i'm concerned, i've already put one down. they told me my payments in a similar $28k car would be 520 a month!! to get my payments the same as what i'm paying right now on my $28k rx-8, i would have to lease a BASE mazda6 in basically whatever color they want. it was at that point that i started swearing pretty loud, and got taken into the general manager's office to try and work it out. at that point he told me there's still 30+ cars waiting for engines at magic, and they only get 'a few' a week. also, mine happens to be on the bottom of the list for some reason, probably because of all the bitching i've done. basically sandra has been lying to me, my car has a good 2-3 months before i can get it back according to them. after i walked out of magic, i went over to people's to see if they could do anything there. after 2 hours it was the same thing. so tomorrow i'm calling Tom at corporate to see if he can do anything before i call my lemon law lawyer. i love my 8, but i'm not waiting 2-3 months to get it back. and all the salesmen at both mazda's told me that they wouldn't recommend an 8 to anyone with all the problems they've been having...

Gomez

Oh boy, this is going to open a can of worms......thanks for keeping us informed on the Vegas saga, BTW.

Havoline don't make a 5W-20 synthetic, so it appears that these "blown" engines ran dino oil (assuming the cars parked at Magic had all their oil changes done there). Putting the rotary dino/synthetic argument to the side for the moment, high quality synthetics DO operate more effectively at elevated engine temperatures. This spate of failures, if proven to be caused by oil breakdown at high temperatures, could finally bring about a response by Mazda on the long running synthetic debate. By all accounts, the evidence points toward oil breakdown. Vegas is hot.......5W-20 is specified by MNAO......20 weight is not as suited to high temperatures as 30 weight, for example......your auto RX-8's have a single oil cooler, and they account for the large majority of failures that Magic have parked on their lot.......ALL Australian RX-8's have a single oil cooler, but we have 5W-30 recommended by MA.....Australia gets hot, but we've yet to see failures of this type, in spite of having only a single oil cooler.

The way I see it, if the dice fall the way I suspect they will, MNAO may have to specify synthetic for use in hot climates......and the fitment of a second oil cooler for these climates. I don't know enough about the decision by MNAO for the specifying of 5W-20 for North American 8's, but I believe the decision was an EPA influenced one....so 5W-20 will probably have to stay as the preferred oil in the owners manual.

Look for the '06 Auto RX-8 with two oil coolers at a dealer near you.....

Gomez.

Baller

My friend got her auto RX-8 back from magic on Friday after 35 to 40 days for a engine replacement. After a closer look under the hood, it looked like the same dirty engine (20,000 miles)....guess what it was. They told her she did not need a new one after all. Her engine seems to run fine now. They did all the recalls and a "new computer".
The service manager at magic told her that most of the cars that were in for engines were fixed without replacement....hers does run fine.

Remember, I sold my RX-8 and bought a Honda S2000 but I do have a friend that works at Mazda and I have no reason to make Mazda look better (I did love my RX-8) Look for my post RX-8 VS. S2000 coming soon......it is closer than you think.

Blue87Sport

It took them 35 - 40 days to decide she *didn't* need engine work?!?! Over a month for what sounds like a PCM reflash? Did they do a compression test when she brought it in?

Either this is most incompetant service department in the world or something is fishy here.

Baller

35 To 40 Engines Sounds A Little Fishy, Don't You Think?

Go48

How are chances of scanning her work order and posting it here? You can block out her personal info and the VIN, but it would be very interesting to read the verbiage on the work order. Assuming this is actually what they did, it could be that Magic was waiting for a fix from MNAO and that's why the car was at the dealership for so long.

Baller

I think she will let me have her work order, she did say a lot of the recall parts took a long time to get (thermal blanket).

Bottom line.........this engine replacement thing is not as big as we once thought.

Go48

I think it's a bit premature to draw that conclusion. After all, this is based on the comments of one service manager to a single customer. More specific, authoritative information on this "resolution" of the problem is required before one can make that statement.

MadDog

^ agreed.

I used to be on the side of "not as big as you think".. Now I am on the side of "might be bigger than we realize".

I spent the weekend talking to my local dealer and doing diagnostics on my own vehicle...

I didn't realize that we had a problem here in New Mexico. Now it seems we might.

As far as my personal tests go, I have a fellow RX-8 owner coming over tonight to do similar tests on his car. I don't want to post the results until I make sure that I did them correctly. Testing his car will give me that opportunity. Sorry for the teaser, but I am trying to wait until I have a little more concrete evidence to back-up my claims before I post. I don't want to go spouting-off information before I have all the facts that I can personally collect. No need to cause alarm with faulty information....

-MadDog

rotarygod

Havoline is a very good oil. It is just about the best conventional oil you can get.

Baller

I think it's a bit premature to draw any conclusion period.

grapes

I agree with rotarygod-Havoline and Catrol GTx 5w20 are about the 2 best dino oils out there.. A couple of dealers i know are using Motocraft 5w20 with is a semi synthetic oil, but i'm not quite sure why as everything points to it being a dino oil with some minor additives. I'll stick with my Castrol.