Slow start
 

Hey guys, I am new here and have owned my 8 for all of a week. It's a 2007 MT GT with 28k miles. We love everything about the car except for the long crank and gas mileage. When we go to star the car, we have to turn the key for what seems like forever, then give it some gas to fire up. The gas mileage is atrocious. By my estimates we're getting between 11 and 13 MPG! Took it to Mazda and they said we needed new plugs, wires, and coils...for the low, low price of $750! Took it to a local Mazda specialist (MazTech in Tampa). He agreed with the tuneup diagnosis, but said there were no codes to suggest the coils were bad. He swapped out the plugs and wires but there has been no improvement. I'm at a loss as to what it could be? Mazda replaced the battery under warranty and said the alternator and battery connections were fine. Could it be the starter? Or something else? Please help.

Something definitely wrong.
Not sure what at the moment, but something is up!
Even redlining a couple of times a day, you should be getting about 18mpg and it should fire right up without giving it any gas at all.
Where did you buy this car and what is the history on it?

Next time you take a good drive, when you get home, look under the car and see if you see the CAT glowing red. I seem to remember reading that quite a few 07's were getting pre-mature CAT failure.
I'm not sure this explains your issues, but if you do have a weak coil, then you could be dumping a lot of fuel in the CAT which will burn it up and might possibly increase gas usage.

If you are going to get coils, then get them here, you can save a lot of money and change them out yourself.
http://www.mazmart.com/PartsList.aspx?id=38&n=NEW&m=6

Coils.........$185.00
Plugs........$80.00
Wires.......$70.00

So that's about $335.00 in total.
$750.00 is insane! Hope you told them to go screw themselves.

Actually at 28k you should have not even need the wires.

Oh..............If it turns out that is is the CAT, you are covered for 8 years 80k miles.

What's your driving style?
Do you redline it often?
If you do redline it often are you getting a flashing CEL when you do that?

I'll definately check the cat. It's a manual, I've redlined it only once. I definately have fun driving her, but nothing ridiculous. Definately nothing that would come up with 11 MPG!

Redline it in 2nd gear(at least) way more often. You need to blow out some carbon.
You might want to think about running some seafoam or the Mazda cleaner through it.

Here's but one example:

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...hlight=seafoam

Don't baby this car, it likes and must be driven hard at times!