anouktlw

Hi everybody, I had reading similar stories like mine but most of them ended good because the car was on warranty, but I was told by the dealer over the phone that my car is not under warranty and the amount asked to fix it is almost half of the price of what I paid for the entire car, so I need some advice to do it myself to save some $$$ or get rid of the lovely RX8.
I just bought a week ago my great black RX8 2004 manual transmition, with 65k miles, paid for the car $ 6800 cash, I love the car, I always wanted to have one, now I finally got it and I was really happy until I drove the car for the first time on the highway for about 40-50 miles, at first the car was driving beautiful, lot of power, good response, but as soon as I reached aroung 65 miles/h, a red light came on "engine coolant level", slowed down to stop the car on the side of the highway and as soon as I started to pull over and reduce speed the light was off, checked temp gauge, the car was not overheating, temp was ok, the coolant was not low, and all back to normal, I cranked the car again and started to drive and again the same light came on after 65's, thinking of a coolant sensor defect, keep on driving, but now the car started to loose power badly, and when I "push it" to speed up, I was able to hear a noise "valve" coming from the engine, (knowing rotary does not have valves, just as a noise example) the car lost power so badly that I was not able to drive more than 30-40 miles/hour, again I decided to pull over and check on the problem, once I stopped it, the engine stalled, try to start it, no luck, waited around 5 minutes, turned the ignition, all back to normal, car drives again beatiful and again after some miles, all started again.
The check engine light on, Code P0037 back O2 sensor, only code shown on the report. Dealer told me I must replace the catalyc converter $ 1480 + tax, O2 sensor $ 85 + tax, Spark Plugs 185 + tax, coils $ 45 + tax each, labor $1680 + tax, TOTAL $ 3610 + tax.... and the good news was, "this may fix the problem or if not, you need a new engine".
Sorry for the long story but I am frustrated... Could please !!! anyone tell me what would you do in my situation, I can start buying parts and change them myself, but I will like to know if it is any way I can be sure if the engine must be replaced so I don't spend $$$ and hours trying to fix a bad engine.
Thank you for your time reading and I will appreciate any suggestions.

anouktlw

sorry but I posted this in the series II section and i thought it will be better to post it in the right place, as some guys already adviced me I just replaced the Cat, O2 sensor, spark plugs.... waiting for coils, flush the radiator and new coolant, but the car still doing the same thing, went for a road test and nothing have changed. Now I found that the water pump shows marks of prevoius leaking and maybe going bad, (green markes around the seal) and the belt it's in really bad shape, ready to be changed, the problem with the "low Coolant" is better than before but when the car start loosing power, If I push for more power and speed (step on the gas pedal) I can hear the "valves noice" and the "low coolant" light is on again , if I release the gas pedal, the niose goes away and light "low coolant" is off. Do you guys think that the water pump can be the one making the noice and also making the engine loose power? We can forget about cat, sensor and spark plugs, the check engine light is off, no more codes on the car....Any comments? Where is this noise coming from and why??? !!!!!
If after replacing the colis the car still loosing power, that means is a bad engine?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions....