steamaway

Hi all.. nice site.. I was trying to post this in "General Discussion' but cant post yet.



My questions stem from a accident (front end collision) a few months back. The car had a fair bit of front end damage and was spraying radiator fluid everywhere at the seen of the accident.After pulling car of road to a dealership parking lot I had noticed the turn signal were flashing randomly and that there was Japanese or strange symbols flashing on the center console of the RX-8.

This concerned me and when communicating with adjuster and body shop I wanted to be sure they addressed this issue.



Some time later I got the car back (still missing a functional stereo) and noticed it was hard to start and that it ran very rough. I expressed concern to the repair shop (bodyshop) .. They said that they werent aware of any issue and that I would need to take it into a mechanic.. Bothered by this I started to do a bit of inquiring into what decisions were made by my appraiser. The body shop had told me that they were not givin the OK to send it to their mechanics and that I would have to take it up with the adjuster/appraiser. After contacting the adjuster I was givin a run around and told that the damge was not accident related although there was no confirmation of this. I later took the car into a Mazda dealership and paid (out of pocket) to have car inpected. Later the news was that there was collapsed engine mounts , but it had been decided by the adjuster that they were not damaged from accident. The strange electronic /symbol issue was not present at the time of inspection so diagnoses could not be determined.



Later the repair shop had finally got my stereo in and installed it. I later (2days) picked up the car . When my wife started it it wouldnt catch and took at least 2 minutes to start. I told her I would meet her at home after she piked up a few things at the mall.I got a call 15-20 minutes later from my wife freaking out about how the car is dead and won't start. I went down to get her and she was right it was dead.(No power).. I called the body shop I had picked the car up at 20 minutes prior and they told me to have it towed to a mechanic and that there was nothing they could do or did do.. I was very upset about this and had to hang up the phone..Later that night I went back as it was eating at me. I opened the hood and removed the battery cover to find the negative connect resting on top of terminal on battery.It was kind of burned looking (like it had arced). I removed the battery and replaced it with a identical battery from a other vehicle. It started up fine and seemed to drive well , but was later disappointed by the return of japanes/symbols and very rough idle again.



My question is ... Could my engine mounts have been damged by a moderate front end impact and furthoremore could my engine control unit have sustained any damage from the shock. I really beleive this to be the case but need confirmation and insight from experienced mechanics or car owners. The dealership had said it could have been possible but my appraiser denied that . I need help and good advise as I havent delt with a matter like this before.



Also is it normal procedure to not have a car inpected by a mechanic prior to repairing body components . Now I have to get it inspected with visuall damges repaired thus making it difficult or near impossible for mechanics to fill in the dots. Please help if you can

Baldy

Welcome to nopistons! General Discussion is mainly for off-topic stuff. I'll move this to the RX-8 section, you should get some answers there.

steamaway

Thanks nice to be here. Appreciate the thread move.