Grabbing the bull by the horns (not a dodge reference)
 

Hey guys. First off, I want to say thanks to everyone that's ever helped me with any questions I've had (the many for the short period of time I've been active), it's really helped me in understanding what everything is and means as well as does (seeing as I have no mechanical background). Thanks again (feel free to skip story)

Now, I just got my car back from Mazda, who apparently had some rotary techs (Small city 150 000 people isolated from mainland). They busted my nuts for $2000, $1300 in labor, and $700 in parts (I DID NOT HAVE A SAY IN THAT, my Dad was the runner of the show in this case).
My car was serviced by the same two rotary techs for the prior 19 years the original owner had owned it. So I assume they know the car pretty well and rotaries fairly well (considering what the service master was telling me when I first went into the service department and spoke to him, he was a fairly knowledgeable guy).
They had my car in and they suspected the cause of my difficult start-up and terrible idle was due to a blown intake manifold gasket and they said it couldn't be compression tested until it was fixed. So they appraised parts and labor at around $2000
Today they called my Dad who then told me to head down to Mazda after school for a test drive. So I got out and headed out anxiously. I was talking to the guys at the desk and they mentioned something about the compression testing low and my heart sank.
Went out with one of the guys, got in the car, turned the key, no go. Unflood, bingo. Still had the terrible lumpy idle and I could tell it wanted to stall, my expectations of the car being fine are completely gone now. So I was talking to the guy in the car with me about why when I came to a stop I had to use my hand brake and why I was reving the engine all the time (he was a plug, he was walking with me to the car and he mentioned something about the cylinder heads leaking and when I heard that I just tried not to say anything too offensive the rest of the way) and how it would stall if I didn't. Sure enough I took the corner and I wasn't touching the gas and it went.
Got back to the service department and had a chat with the Service Master and Master Tech who worked on my car (he didn't know much either) and they told me that one of the front rotor faces tested low at like 2.5 or something (it was in metric) and it's supposed to be no lower than 6 while the others tested for 5.5.
They told me I'd need to spend $4000 for an engine from japan (10 week wait) or to buy one for $4000 from a shop in Alberta or something who re-manufactures JDM engines.

Bottom line is, I need to re-build. I got my nuts busted for $2000 of useless parts and labor when I knew it was compression from the second it happened.

My question is does anybody have any tips/pointers on doing a re-build for somebody with very little experience (besides the obvious of marking certain things and documenting stuff)?
Don't tell me not to do it, because that's not what I'm asking, I got myself into this and I want to fix it and do it myself.
I've already begun reviewing rebuild threads and such (and I will continue to) and I'm going to order the Mazdatrix rebuild DVD and watch that a thousand times over. I have seven months to do this so I don't expect it to be a huge problem.

P.S I'll document and take pictures of the whole thing.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for the help.
- Jimmy

First thing I'd do is fine another opinion.
Anyone who'd charge you $2000 to replace the intake manifold gasket is not to be trusted, certainly not allowed to work on your car and maybe not allowed to live.

Search this forum for "compression test", it's not all that tough to perform yourself and see if their info is accurate.

2 grand to replace a gasket...sheesh.

I know, I have no equipment at all right now. But I will anyways in case I get a hold of some. Thanks for the quick response too.

What model RX do you have?

I still can't get over the fee from those Mazda guys...
I assume you got a service ticket from them, where did the $700 in parts go?

It's an S5 T2 with REVII exhaust and HKS SMR intake.

Yeah I have the ticket, I'll scan it on now. I need to review it myself (Dad has it).

Edit: In the office, will do tomorrow.

kick your dads ass.
then go to the shop and get your dam money back.

Might as well have bought a T2 motor

^^^Yup. or a rebuild kit.

Get some of your money back from the crooks by threatening to take them to court.

Use that for a rebuild kit, after you know what you need.

Yeah.....2k for a gasket is rediculous.

I also dont know how many hours (fraction of an hour) that job "books" for......but it is no way remotely close to 1300 dollars.

that gasket must be platinum.

I am looking forward to seeing this receipt.

john ny

Why cant I get customers willing to pay me 2 grand for a gasket change?

Maybe cause I'm not crooked enough to try and ask them.

Yeah, was talking to my Dad tonight. He said he'd suck it up and pay for it seeing as it was his decision to go to the dealer. But yeah, no ticket yet (he hasn't looked for it, but I'll dig it up for you guys tomorrow regardless for you all to have a chuckle).

Why not try to correct the injustice rather than encourage those crooks to do the same to anyone else?

Dude i work in parts (for hyundai not mazda) and theres no way theres a gasket out there that costs 700 bucks, or anywhere even close to that. A headgasket kit is less than 300 bucks.

also 1300 in labor means they spent around 10+ hours dicking around your engine bay.

Unfortunately sometimes a shop, dealer or independent, will screw the pooch. Don't be that Dog.

Take your Dad in, dispute the charge in a very ADULT, reasonable and calm manner.

Make them give you a detail of the repair, parts and labor. Don't pay them for the repair. Leave the car with them while you research. This puts enormous pressure on their system and calls attention to the situation from other departments (payables, receivables etc.). It is likely that the shop ordered the part(s) and now they cannot pay for it until you pay for it. It is a financial control that prevents theft of inventory.

Get the cost of that gasket(s) in print from an online vendor Malloy Mazda (ray crow at malloy mazda is Vendor on this board). Make them justify the parts, make them document the actual labor. DON'T just let them charge you 'book' for a bunch of procedures that you cannot verify were done or not. I know that Book is the way dealers work and that it is usually a fair system for the customer and the mechanic, but something has gone wrong on this one.

Remember, they provided the diagnosis and proscribed the procedure to fix the car. Not only did they take your head off, they didn't fix the problem.

Take this in, lay it down and discuss this with the service adviser. If you don't get a reduction to a reasonable price, then ask for the service manager. Keep the level low key, yet persistently press your case. If the service manager won't help, go to the General Manager and then the owner. Go to the Mazda organization if necessary.

No on in that organization wants you to go away *screwed*. Keep in mind that they probably deal with angry loud complaints pretty often when the repair is justified. These people get blown off because the dealer is in the right. Don't give them an excuse to blow you off by being unreasonable.

Wear them down in a polite and persistent manner. You will win some amount of reduction.

Having your Dad, an adult, in the process makes them take you seriously. Yes, I know it isn't fair, but until you are a little older and more seasoned, this is just reality. Don't just let you Dad pay for it without going through the process. Tell him to Man Up and teach you how a reasonable adult works through difficulties like this.

Good Luck.

wow ya an intake manifold gasket took me only 2 hours to replace and I also stopped to have lunch! Lower and upper gaskets are only about $35 each

Presumably, this has already been done and until we see the ticket, further speculation is just armchair quarterbacking.

Not to take sides (which my first post may have implied) but until we see what the dealership has to say for themselves- which is what the service ticket will do- there's no way of knowing how reasonable- or not- this deal is.
Since neither the OP (or his Dad) seem terribly mechanically inclined, it's certainly possible that more than just the manifold gasket was replaced and it's just slipped under their radar.

C'mon...let's see the ticket...

Sorry it took so long
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Now, I'm going to get my Dad to go back and deal with it as he should have regardless. But onto the real topic.

Do any of you guys have any tips on rebuilding? Rules of thumb? Know of any guides? I know the stuff like if your nail catches the scratches on the housing, toss it. Some small things like the lettering on the rotors, organization obviously, cleanliness etc. I've done so many searches on the forums and I have found one or two useful threads but none with any kind of instructions.

I've ordered the Mazdatrix rebuild DVD and Mark Warner's "Street Rotary" and I plan to go over those as much as possible before I begin to do any work.

I'll admit, I'm not that mechanically inclined, I haven't been exposed to much of it through my life (just the games I've played which I realize doesn't mean shit). But my dad has done his share of tinkering, he's just moved on since the 80's (when he had a 280Z and a 300zx) and he's a Real Estate agent now and hasn't had much time for tinkering or toys with 3 kids.

I ain't seeing where nearly $1300 in labour is justified, nor $600+ in parts; I haven't rebuilt a rotary (knock on wood!), but most engines you can buy a complete gasket set for $100-200, sometimes less. The original "diagnosis" makes no sense either - a leaking intake manifold gasket will have NO bearing on being able to do a compression test, which obviously should have been done first - its the place to start with just about any hard-to-start and poor idle issues, especially on a turbo. So assuming you've relayed that information remotely correctly, it's hard to see what diagnosis was really done by the dealer, it seems more likely wild-ass guesswork.

Compression tester - head to your local Canadian Tire, or any auto parts store, grab yourself a compression tester (Canadian Tire lists 2 Equus ones, one $30, the other $50, the cheaper one will do you fine, I've had one for years). Doing a compression test is pretty easy, it's in the 2nd Gen FAQs. Only real difference from doing one on a piston engine is you need to either remove your gauge's check valve, or hold it open, so you can watch to see the pressures on all faces of the rotor as it rotates past the plug hole the gauge is in, rather than just letting the gauge hold the the peak pressure after cranking the motor over. You'll want a helper to crank the engine while you watch the gauge. Remember to pull the EGI fuse then remove one spark plug on each rotor.

In any case, it was their mis-diagnosis that led to a large bill for a failed repair - they should man up on that, and not expecting you to eat it.

There's load of build threads on here, check the 2nd gen archive, aaroncake has a number of threads detailing a build of his NA car into a turbo - a lot of which covers conversion issues that won't bear on your straightforward rebuild, but there's lots of pics, and discussion of how and why things were done, which will help with putting together your keg. teamFC3S.org may also have useful build threads.

I really don't understand why they changed your exhaust gasket, when changing an intake gasket. No need to take off the exhaust manifold for that job. $134 for that gasket. I know I have bought new ones before, and do not recall them being that much! Also, why did they do the air bleed sockets?

Sorry, just realized that this is a turbo, so removing the exhaust is justified! Why would they change the throttle body spacer ($90). I have pulled quite a few intakes apart, and have never seen a bad one.

Did you give them free reign to change whatever they wanted?

First, it is total bullshit that a compression test cannot be performed if the intake manifold gaskets are leaking. You can perform a compression test with nothing but an engine block and some way to rotate it at speed. So you could have the entire exhaust and intake system sitting on the bench...

n370-13-710a is an exhaust gasket that goes between the turbo and manifold. Removal of the lower intake requires turbo removal, and if that gasket was bad, then it must be replaced.

n370-13-645a is the black phenolic spacer that goes between the throttle body and upper intake. Why was it replaced? I have never seen one leak unless physically damaged. That would be the first question I'd ask these people...

N386-13-461 is the turbo manifold to engine gasket. I see no reason why this should have been required. There is no reason to remove the exhaust manifold to access the lower intake manifold gasket or remove the turbo. In fact, 90% of the time these gaskets can be reused (they are designed for re-use). Ask why the manifold was removed, and why the gasket was replaced...

n351-13-c600 is a secondary injector air bleed. It's obvious what happened here: They intended to replace the o-rings but broke the bleeds on the way out because they were too rough. They do tend to break, but a bit of care when removing them goes a long way.

I have no idea why the top of the primary air bleeds (13-260A-N236) would have been replaced. All it takes are two 2 cent o-rings on each to stop them from leaking (if they are leaking). Ask them...

This reeks of "shotgun troubleshooting" where they just replaced everything they could without actually spending time looking at the problem. I'd say you were flat out ripped off. While the costs do add up, this unnecessary repair to perform a compression test is how they ripped you off. Hell, at worst it takes an experienced mechanic about an hour to locate an obvious vacuum leak. If that leak is indeed an upper intake manifold gasket, it is a half hour to 45 minutes to repair. If it is the lower intake, then it's more complicated as the turbo has to be removed....How did they determine which manifold gasket was leaking? What troubleshooting steps did they perform?

You were taken advantage of. Maybe not on purpose, but possibly by their lack of skill. These are not "rotary specialists".

Edit...That is also a stupid amount of labour for this job. Seriously. I see about 2.5-3 hours here assuming everything goes as it should. I realize they charge by the book, but wow...

Yeah, I'd been nagging Dad to get back to them the past few days, Mazda did a satisfaction follow up call and he told them how disgusted he was and he got a nice chunk of change back.

I realize that the compression test was BS, that they probably lied to my Dad saying that it had to be replaced before the test could be performed so they could actually get some money out of us. They charged my friend (who owns an RX-8 but doesn't know a thing about it) $750 to change the plugs.

Anyways, now that that issue has been dealt with, what are some things I should know before rebuilding, while rebuilding etc for somebody who is not very mechanically inclined (but is extremely willing to learn). I'm going to be keeping my car in my Garage over winter doing everything in the house.

P.S Notice I left the emails uncovered, feel free to email them with comments, I'm not endorsing it, but I'm not saying don't as the issue has been settled.

I'm going to do a compression test myself this week just to verify that I do indeed need a rebuild. But is it possible that I could be having these problems due to excessive carbon build-up? I mean, the car hasn't been past 5k RPMS for I'd say 5+ years (except while in my hands for two months occasionally in first going no further than 6k and occasionally in 5th nearing 6k or slightly past it). Would the carbon build-up give me shitty compression?

It is entirely possible, if the car has been sitting around for a few years, that the side seals could be gummed up with carbon. When you do your compression test, make sure the car has been warmed up, before going ahead with the test.

Also, if carbon buildup is suspect, you can do a search for the "ATF" trick. It basically takes a few days, and soaks your rotors and seals in ATF, loosening/disolving some of the carbon on the rotors.

I don't think I'll be able to get it going to warm it up but I've read that doing a cold test gives you a reading of ~20 psi less. Also, the car wasn't sitting, it was babied (winter stored, only about 3000-6000 miles/year).
I know of the ATF trick and if need be, I'll give it a go.