The passenger side exterior door handle had pulled out!
Strange failure...
Took off the door panel and the intermediate panel to access the back side of the exterior door handle.
The window cable mechanism syncs to the door inner intermediate panel. Seems overly complicated.
When reinstalling the intermediate panel, the cable mechanism has to be correctly synced to the window motor for the mechanism to work correctly.
It's quite tricky.
This is the back of the door exterior sheetmetal panel, behind the rear door handle mounting point.
The handle base that's bolted to the panel is broken where the release lever connects.
The part that broke is plastic and looks not so robust.
The front area of the door handle mounting backing plate (plastic).
The backing plate is held in place with two 10 mm head bolts.
Found this small spring at the bottom of the door panel.
Must have come off when the rear of the handle base broke.
The RX-8 has a large plastic intermediate panel between the door inner trim panel and the door structure.
A bit of an unusual design (not like the door panels that I took apart on Toyotas).
Intermediate panel reinstalled.
Will leave the door inner panel off, while waiting for the replacement broken part to arrive (ordered online).
The rotary engine is entirely behind the front wheel centerline (front-mid-engine).
T plans to replace the plugs and coils. Looks like a tough job due to lack of working room.
Cleaned all the wheels.
Very dirty and most are curbed.
Used a file to smooth out some of the curb rash.
From 10 feet away, looks OK.
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