Recently, my 2006 RX-8 with about 10K miles on it has started doing this weird stutter thing when I try to start it. It fires up, but it shakes a little bit and seems kind of reluctant to start. Here is a video where I tried to capture it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59bmfEdS2y0

Here is a normal start:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Yg9c51XVw


It's a little more obvious in person, and maybe more obvious to me since I've been the one with the privilege of starting this car for so long.

Any idea what could be causing this?

 

I get that sometimes when I start the car immediately after I shut it off, especially when the car hasn't reached its operating temperature yet. Just try to avoid short hauls like around the block or down the street.

 

Unfortunately, this has been happening recently even after driving around town for 15-20 minutes. I'll pay more attention to the duration I'm driving and see if I can find any correlation though.

 

OK, it happened again this morning after the car had been sitting out all night. A few minutes after starting it, I revved up to around 7K and had my check engine light start blinking. After the revs dropped back down to 3k or so it stopped blinking. Also, I recently topped up the oil.

 

Whens the last time you changed your spark plugs and coils? Try taking the coils out and looking for white marks. Or follow this thread:
https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-trouble-shooting-95/how-do-i-know-if-i-need-new-ignition-coil-128443/

 

Most likely this, are you the only owner? if you are how long has the same gas been in the tank?

 

2nd owner, but I bought it a couple years ago with 4k miles on it.

I just filled it up this week.


Anyway, I took it to the dealer since it's still under warranty. The flashing CEL evidently was indicating a rear rotor misfire. The spark plugs are ok, but they said two of the coils "went bad".

Is that normal at around 10k miles?

 

OK, they are going to replace two of the coils. I tried to bug them to replace all of them, but they said the front rotor ones checked out fine.

 

If I still had the OEM coils(which are weak), I would be replacing them at least every 25k miles. Others will say 35k is the point where most seem to go bad. I was changing them every 15k miles before I went to non-oem ones, so that's why I settled and said 25k.


FYI.......those coils can be bad right out of the box, so the best thing I can recommend is that at first sign of a misfire.............flashing CEL....change them out! If you don't, it can lead to far worse problems. 10k might be a little soon compared to average for them to go out, but one never knows. Some people have 80k on originals! Go figure!





Oh....and to Dale..............white spots don't really mean a thing! You need some edumancation on that point.