RX8_GT

Bascho:

I agree - fix is perhaps not the right term.

Have had RXs since late 1985 - only had one flood in RX-7s since then - lived in Nova Scotia for years. Many short cold moves without major issues. But the RX-7 had stronger starters and batteries - along with antifreeze injection.

Floods in the RX-7s seemed rare - but in the RX-8s in 2003 and 2004 they seemed more common in my limited opinion. The ECU re-programming helped - and along with the new starter - battery - flooding will be rare too.

But only time will tell. Mazda is marketing the RX-8 against the 350Z - and other mass market sporty cars. All cars will have issues - but reducing the size of the issue will only help these great cars from Mazda getting to a showroom. I hope that the next car from Mazda will be based on the concept Kabura. Just saw it at NAIAS.

A sub-forum would be a good place to find out about a unique RX-8 issue. A central point to assess it as the future unfolds.

Tirminyl

Then post in the issues and problems section. Just because you get a specific flood forum doesn't mean people are going to suddenly post ALL their flooding related stories in this one section. They can't even do that now, so why waste space.

There is already a huge sticky with a poll in there.

bascho

John,

You have shown yourself to be of reasonable intelligence, so IMO you do not belong of the list of "stupid people forum." Many of the things you've had to say are factual and reasonable.....and if that is an indicator of the content that would be provided in the 'flooded engine forum', then I am all for it.

However, the reason I responded to the original post so aggressively and callously is do to the infinite moronic posts about flooding. Most threads state the obvious facts about flooding and the complete disbelief of how it happened. They are pissed off at Mazda when they should be blaming themselves. Though I personally own a 2005 and have not flooded, I work with 4 other RX8 owners (all 2004) and not one of them has flooded by following the highly publicized procedure.

If you felt that I unfairly lumped you in with the morons, then I apologize. But I really feel that the majority of flooded engine victims are the problem and not Mazda. You mentioned the RX7 and low occurrence of flooding complaints.....I propose that it may have had to do with the price of the car and the average age of the owner. It appears that the lower base price of the RX8 has lowered the average age of a RX8 owner thus resulting in more inexperienced drivers behind the wheel. Before any of you 'young-ens' take offense, compare the YOU of now to the YOU of 5 years ago.....who's smarter? I am turning 29 next month and I can tell you with absolute confidence that I am smarter now than I was at even 24. I have no doubt that I will be smarter yet as I pass 30....35....40. So yes, younger does equal less experience.

RX8_GT

Bascho:

Blame is not very useful. Mininizing the risk of flooding thru driver education and re-education along with upgrades to reduce the risk or enable recovery from a flood will be useful.

As for age/experience of RX-8 owners - I'm not sure. having passed 50 some years ago there may be a bell curve - Ha Ha. Not sure about me now vs me 5 years ago.

One factor in the RX-8 may be that fewer and fewer drivers do their own maintenance / repairs - and thus may be less Rotary friendly. RX-7s - especially the 1st and 2nd generation - are now mainly owner maintained.

Probably many RX-7 owners today would see the RX-8 flooding issue as something to deal with and work with rather than a "Must Sell This Car" issue. I sure do - they'll have pull my license to get me out of RXs.

John

rotarygod

First off, be nice.

Second, we are not going to create a flooding subforum. We don't need it. We dont' even need more than one thread on the topic as there is nothing on the issue that can't stay in one thread.

bascho

I'm being nice. I apologized to John for unfairly catagorizing him and I think we've made peace......right John?

RX8_GT

Bascho:

Right. No problem here. After 50 plus years - skin is thick. Perhaps I'm thick elsewhere too.

A single thread would be very large - but a few sticky threads in a sub-forum might be useful IMHO. One on latest fix / one on incidents / etc.

John

RedSheDevil

Face it, not everyone bought their car new. I didn't and not one word was mentioned about flooding when I bought it. I can also tell you not everyone is an enthusiast who would be surfing the internet for a car-related forum to find these lovely 500 threads on "I flooded my car!"

It must be nice for everyone who has NOT flooded to sit up on their perches and look down upon those who have and point the "You're a stupid idiot" finger at them. If you don't want to read about flooding, don't read that thread! It's that simple.

Wow, heaven forbid someone who flooded might actually be able to find some helpful info in a flooding thread ...

Signed,
Sick and Tired of All the Bitching!

tiggerlee

Hey! I've never flooded mine and I don't point at people and say that.
I do agree there needs to me a central place for the flooded threads though.

RedSheDevil

haha, no you point at people and say ... well, i cant post it here or ill get banned for bein vulgar

tiggerlee

You know me too well.

Steakboy42

I support the subforum for thew basic fact that all the people who bitch about all the flooding threads dont have to see them unless they actually go into that subforum. In essence, they dont have to see a single thread about flooding if they dont want to. that will do two things, provide help to those who are looking for some on the flooding issue without getting flammed, and the normal flamers wont get mad for seeing another "OMG fl0od1ng sux0rs !!!11!one1!!" thread that they are forced to see because they were having a problem and looking for a solution in the tech garage.

-Steakboy

tiggerlee

Just make sense to me, hell there's already a sticky

Steakboy42

i think the only problem is that could change at anytime. when i first answered that I said no, but in the mean time, a body shop flooded my engine...

-Steakboy

msrecant

First I don't see where space would be wasted. It would be an extra link in "The Tech Garage" heading. The threads are already there, this would simply be collecting them in a single location.

Part of the magic is that with a flooding sub-forum, the moderators now have a place to move flooding threads to. From what I have seen that is the most effective way to teach posters what should be where. It has been very effective in collecting polls, tire/wheel and appearance threads. Originally moderators had to do a lot of moving, now it is much more infrequent.

Jedi54

iTrader: (7)

Wow, this thread is still alive?!

C'mon guys, though I am shocked at the amount of floods that people have had...it simply does not need its own forum. That would open up a flood of requests for other forums; my brakes squeal, I ran out of oil cus my dumb *** didn't check it, I blew up my turbo, my center console gets too hot, etc etc. All legitimate "issues" with the RX-8 but not really deserving of their own forum.

Besides, RG already shot down the idea so I don't really know why this thread is still open.

*waiting for lock*

msrecant

This is a weak argument. Look at the stats. If you do a search you will find over 850 threads (spread over 15 forums/sub-forums) that include references to flooding. Thats more than 1% of the total threads since this forum began and almost every forum/subforum on this board. The 247/238 HP issue only shows 250 threads. The only other issue even close is gas mileage, and I don't disagree that that might justify a sub-forum.

Besides, the suggestion is not for a forum, simply a sub-forum within The Tech Garage.

Jedi54

iTrader: (7)

1 WHOLE percent of the threads?!

Wow, call Bill Gates....we're gonna need a whole new server!
(and they said my argument was weak....)

RedSheDevil

ill take one whole percent of a million dollars ...

msrecant

There have been a lot of threads on this forum since its inception. I think you will be pressed to find many single topics that have more. There is only one current sub-forum that is larger ... "Purchasing, Financing and Insurance".

Shifty Devil

The ECU controls everything else the car does so why doesn't Mazda have it control the shutdown? It should detect engine temp and automatically lean the mixture and maybe rev the engine before killing the ignition if the temp is below what it wants for operating temperature. That's the only way to "foolproof" the car to prevent this if the rich mixtures are needed for cold running.

WantedTwo

iTrader: (4)

Stop shutting your car off when its cold. Problem solved.

RX8_GT

WantedTwo:

I disagree - That only works if you never have to have the car serviced or driven by others - oh and never forget.

msrecant

I don't think anyone is comfortable with the key being a "soft" shutdown, like pressing the power off button on most computers is now a days, where the car continues in operation until the ECU is happy. Also people don't want to wait, particularly if it is going to be a number of minutes.

However, the ECU actually does try to compensate for a cold shutoff. I believe the later flashes have been updated to detect if the previous shutdown was done without the engine being allowed to completely warm up, and if so a leaner mixture is provided on startup.

BTW, getting back on topic, wouldn't it be great to have a sub-forum to discuss these issues rather than doing it here in the "suggestions" section?

RX8_GT

A soft shutdown seems to me to be reasonable - it could even be made overdrivable so the driver could force a shutdown. It would have to be linked to parking brake / transmission. It would even make the rotary more 'unique' as Mazda tries to say about the rotary's issue with flooding.

Much like a turbo timer - but activated by the ECU when the block is too cold for safe restart. I have a turbo timer for my T2 - works great.