Actually I called mazda the other day on some simple questions. Out of curiosity I asked the service guy if they had a rotart tech on hand. He responds, NO. So I responded back, what do you than when you get a rotary engine. HE says, "we just figure it out"!!!!

 

^^ Could very well be true. I wonder how many motors blew up just because of this reason.

 

I guess I should have been more clear......you are correct in that detonation can certainly cause zero compression on all three faces, and that's probably the most common way (I know firsthand unfortunately ). But, I was just stating that it's not detonation 100% of the time, and there are other (albeit more rare) circumstances.

 

If they were doing a clutch job it is standerd procedure to DRIVE the car when it is done. I dont care were you are from and what dealership you may or may not work at, thats how its done. I have never EVER in my experience driven a car on a lift for four miles, that is ludicrous. Driving it on the lift doesnt load the clutch like you would driving, they are outright lying to you which is how they plan to cover their asses.

There have never been very many techs with much rotary experience, believe it or not even Mazda dealerships dont have many techs that specialize on rotaries. Even when FD's were new, there werent many "rotary specialists". Even ASE techs have there limits.

For all of you who may not beleive me, those dealerships (I am talking about Mazda especially) that dont have many rotary experienced techs, they have training wheels... Shop Key and/or AllData, they follow the instructions as best they know how. Its even worse now that the FD has been out of production for so long, there are probably few techs working in Mazdas dealerships that have even touched an FD.

Hence why I will never ever take any of my cars to a dealer. I wouldnt even let this dealership touch your car ever again. Get the repairs you may need qouted at a shop that maybe some fellow forum members can reccomend in your area. And take this dealer to court, It does not matter in any shape or form as to whether or not the damage was caused by them driving it or not. You drove it to the dealership, and when the dealer was supposedly done, it wouldnt drive home. Sometime during when the dealership had physical possesion of your car it attained this problem.

When I worked at my first dealership any time a car was damaged in some form unrelated to what the initial shop visit was for, you would find a way to fix it. Now fix becomes a subjective term, it could mean fix it for no or very little cost to the dealer. Or you would hide it, in some way that it would never be noticable or if it did become noticable it would be some time after it left the dealer. I can only imagine this is the situation you are in now, they wanted it to appear as if the problem didnt exist. They showed you to your car and acted as if nothing was wrong, you got in and attempted to drive and "What?? There is something wrong? Well it was fine when we parked it here..."

I never wanted to do alot of the things I did in a dealer, of course you are usually covering up for a new guy, but when you find that your job may depend on it.... And not all dealers are like that, there are alot that are good upstanding shops. But when it comes to saving a dime, some shops are like that. You will find that they wont want to rebuild and repair the engine, if the dealere does it, they will simply want to replace the engine. Saving them time, the more time a tech has to spend on different jobs the more cars and customers get out the door.
You will find in these places that quality gets trumped by quantity....

 

What should you do to remove the built up carbon if you suspect it is in your engine?

 

http://www.rotaryresurrection.com/3r...injection.html

 

 

I'd definitely go chasing the tow companies around town, because there couldnt have been all that many FD's towed in that area around that time, unless of course the workshop actually recovered the car itself, without a commercial towtruck.. I've known people to be that sneaky at times. I would go down the avenue of trying to dig up secondary evidence of the car being towed- towtruck reciepts from the tow company, or even doorknocking the places near where your car was worked on (I dont know the area, so I'm just speculating on this) & see if anyone remembers anything unusual..

Also, I guess while I'm here, this quote from the 'Vrrmmmpfff' guy:

"your brother is a no good stupid ******* *******. He deserves to get the **** kicked out of him. No respect for other people's property and as a apprentice its even worse cos he cant afford to pay for the damage he causes. If he did that to my $100 ******* that i took in to have an oil change id still get to him with a sharpened golf club. Sorry but hearing about ********* like that annoy me. When i take my FD to any shop i tell the boss that the car has datalogging/ rev limiter and if anything sounds wrong he will pay through the nose."

Sorry mate, but I was trying to offer an insight into how these things often happen & are then covered up. With a straight up attitude like that, you wont make many friends on this forum. So why would you take your car to a shop when you could do the work yourself, if you seem to know everything? Judging from your bitter attitude, I doubt you really do.
On the other hand, I understand the anger that comes with somebody else completely screwing your car & not being honest about it, & thats what this post is about.

 

Thanks for your suggestions and advices.
I know they are lying about running a car on a lift for 4 miles. That's really rediculous. Why would anyone testdrive a car like that? The car wouldn't even stay running for that long. Someone has to apply throttle constantly to keep it running.
About chasing tow companies around town, even though they may have been able to drive the car back to dealer after the testdrive, it's definitely worth trying.
Thanks for the suggestion.

 

To narrow down the tow company, you might try calling the dealer to say you need to have your car towed in for service and ask if they recommend a tow company. This may give away who they use. Good luck.

Jack

 

Trout2, that's a brilliant idea.
Thanks for the tip.

 

update?

 

How about leaving your car with your gf? this happens

http://video.sanriotown.com/video/880a2ecf1a4d1ffb&

 

I'm only bringing this back from the dead because I had a similar experience that sorta fixed itself, I hope. I took a perfectly running, smog passing with flying colors R1 to the dealership to do a 60,000 mile service; they have had a decent rotory tech there for years and he has done quite a bit of work on the car with no ill effects.
I, too, got back a car that ran rough and leaked oil like a sieve; needed a new oil pan gasket they said. Also, the car would no longer pass smog!? After they fixed the pan gasket they ran a compression check and sure enough I was getting no compression on one rotor when hot. They showed me the readings - and said I needed a new engine.
I told them to just give me another smog test (with two failures and $200 in repair receipts you get an excemption in Nevada) and let me take the car. When I went back to pick it up - surprise!! The car suddenly passes smog. The service rep said now he thought it was just a broken spark plug or maybe a plug wire, and then he admits the rotory tech I thought was working on the car had left months ago and the guy doing the labor knew nothing about rotories (Heaven help the RX 8 owners in town.) He wanted me to bring it in so they could change out the plugs and wires; it'll be a cold day in hell before they see me again.
Anyway, the car has a bit of a rough idle, put pulls just like before with no smoke ; but it STILL leaks oil from the pan gasket; I'm going to have to crawl under there and tighten everything I can reach.

 

Tightening the bolts under there probably won't stop the leak. You'll probably have to pull the pan off yourself and seal it using the method I like to call the 'correct way'. There are also plenty of other oil leak sources in the general vicinity to consider such as the turbo oil return lines, the oil metering pump, the rear main seal, etc.

 

Come on, you really think that somone who can not write a complete, correct sentence actually works at a dealer? I call BS. It is a 16-year-old with nothing better to do with his time.

By the way the word they when used in the possessive is spelled "their" not "there". Not to be a pain in the ****, but I just read that about 50 times and it is bugging the crap out of me.

 

Dude, That Hello kitty car is awesome! You must have $2000 in hellokitty stickers on it.

Gaebing, sorry to hear about your dealer ship issue. You should also get intouch with Mazda North America and see if you can get them involved. Maybe they can get the dealership to do "the right thing."

John

 

the oil leak could also be from your motor mount bolt.
if it gets loose it will also leak oil and look like its coming from the oilpan.

 

you know, i work for a dealership with a rotary specialist... been great... cant tell you how much ive learned from him, hell even before i started working there, just talking to him about different things was great.

that said, i do note how few mazda dealerships have rotary techs there. Its a sad state of affairs which is why your better off doing the work yourself.

that all said, i feel for you man. I hope you get this sorted out for the better. Good Luck with it all!

 

Might seem extreme but every time someone works on my car, i video tape the outside for body damage, and then the tach, vacuum at idle, and engine bay. I never leave my car alone unless something serious is wrong (engine rebuild)

 

i dont blame you... i keep an eye on mileage, but i rarely take the car anywhere but to work at the dealership with me.

 

I'm going to put mine up on stands and check the motor mount bolts, I'm hoping the idiot mechanic either didn't torque them or didn't put any sealant on them. I suppose I'm going to have to pull the pan and either replace it, or use the RTV method. It shouldn't be the rear main seal, as I had it replaced just about 1200 miles ago and it didn't leak until this trip to the dealer. It makes me so damn mad, though, that not only did these jerks crap up my car, but they charged me an arm and a leg to do it.
Like the above poster said, it's a sad statement when a complete amateur/owner has to do the work himself because the dealership is incompetent. I have a couple of friends in the SCCA who own RX-8s and after talking to them I discovered they all take their cars to Sacramento for service - about a 320 mile round trip at the most expensive gas prices in the lower 48. I know I've talked to a few independent shops in town and none of them will touch an FD.

 

Sorry about your ordeal. That is F***** up!!
Obvioulsy they are giving you the run around.
I would go in there with some sort of hidden camera or mic. Talk with the techs again and see if you can get them to talk. Talk to the manager. If he dicks you around start going up the ladder. Get everything on tape.
Ask about policies and procedures and ask to have them in writing. Get some legal help if possible. Then call them out. Don't give up man!

 

i've worked at a dealership where all the mechanic beat the **** out of the customers cars (i used to be a lot boy). one time two separate customers brought in a s2000 and an nsx for a oil change and service and the mechanics thought it would be cool to "race" them on the backroads. long story short... they both hit gravel on a turn and ended up in a brick wall.. The boss then told the two customers that it was their faults for some stupid reason I don't remember.. Whenever tuner cars would come in for oil changes the mechanics would beat the **** out of them.. I remember one mechanic hitting the exhaust with a wrench cause it wouldn't fit.. puts a hole in the muffler.. the whole time the problem was that the parts guy ordered the wrong part.. its crazy

 

hm, its been months, i wonder if gaebing ever resolved the issue, im curious to find out