I drop off the RX8 at Jim Ellis and explain to them that the car was going to have an insurance adjuster come out and look at the car. The guys at Jim Ellis said no problem and they would call me later.
Around 1pm the insurance adjuster shows up from USAA. He proceeds to look for damage he called "evidence of lightning strike". The things he was looking for was chips on the paint or burn marks, heat marks on my wheels , cracks in the wheels , or evidence of massive electrical failure such as fried wiring, multiple systems on the car not working , etc.
Upon his PRELIMINARY inspection he could not find any of the heat or burn marks that he said "USUALLY comes from a lightning strike". He then admitted to me that "I have worked some cases where the car was hit by lightning and i could not find the damage anywhere".
At this moment he asked the tech at Jim Ellis "Since i cannot find any evidence of a lightning strike, what do you think is wrong? What causes all these systems to not work?"
The tech replied "there are some modules under the clutch pedal that control or power the PS,ABS, CC we can look there and see if any wiring is fried".
This is where it gets trick so pay attention.
About 5 months ago, i had a problem with my clutch pedal in the RX8. Apparently its a common problem, the clutch pedal is spot welded to a plate that is bolted to the firewall. Over time, the spot welds fail/break and then you get side to side movement and a clutch that doesnt work. Well you can either A) Buy a new clutch pedal assembly , THAT WILL FAIL AGAIN, for $1200 or B) Put a larger weld on the pedal so it doesnt break again. I went with option B.
I had Mainstream Performance REMOVE my clutch pedal from the car, reweld it OUTSIDE OF THE CAR , then reinstall the clutch pedal. the car drove fine and its never given me another problem. Again this was OVER 5 MONTHS AGO before the lightning strike.
Ok back to the TEch at Jim Ellis. He decides to go looking under the dash for these control modules to see if there is anything down there that could be wrong. About this point he sees that my clutch pedal has been welded (the one from 5 MONTHS AGO). He turns to the insurance adjuster and says "Looks like they welded this clutch pedal, that prob caused all this stuff to fail". His contention is that we welded it ON THE CAR and didnt properly ground the car therefore causing the issues. Obviously thats not true
CASE CLOSED USAA calls me and says its my fault and it is not covered.
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