Hi



My wife has just bought me a lovely red 2004 rx8. 67k miles and lovely condition.

But.

I've just driven it home, and it's very lumpy around 3k revs. 4k and above it feels lovely and smooth.

Also, after a bit of a blast along the motorway, a red light came on. I pulled over and looked in the book, and it's the coolant level. It went off, and stayed off as I drove slower.



It also turns over for a good 5 seconds before starting.



Are these normal for rx8, or have we bought a dog?



Thanks!

Welcome to nopistons! I'll move this to the RX-8 section, you should get some good answers there.

coolent level lamp coming on is an internal fault of the overflow bottle. the sensor gets stuck. new bottle needed. the lumpy issue you have is a carbon problem. have a service shop run the car on a B+G fuel system cleaner. its a 3 can cleaner wich will eliminate all carbon in the intake manifold and free up the actuators, there is also a bulleton on both the coolent bottle and the port control shutter valves. now asfar as your extended crank, change plugs, or have a dealer do this and ask about the SSP, you may need an engine. i see this alot mainly on auto tranny rx-8s but now and then on 6speed cars aswell. the compression can be good on a rx8 but little vacum. rx8s have a 100k powertrain warrenty on them now.



randy

the previous owner said that he had new plugs put on 5k ago. What's ssp?

ssp= special service bulleton. or check TSB 01-014/08 lack of power bulleton. the dealer will be able to pull your service warrenty records and check for any recalls or tsbs or ssps avalible for your vin.