bean438

A search of "block heater" or "cold starting" fetches tons of posts i.e. "I read so and so has one" "I heard that...." and so forth.
Has anyone used an inline heater or oil pan heater?
If so were you satsified? Can you link us the parts you used, or at least describe what you bought?
Yes your warranty could be void but come on, installing a subwoofer can do the same thing.
I keep hearing about these cold start fual maps and how a block heater can screw things up.
Is this for real? Is the RX8 the only car in the world with cold start fuel maps?
I dont buy the old "if its Janruary and the 8 thinks it is spring it wont start" deal.
If you heat the block then you will not need these cold fuel maps or whatever.
My service guy at the dealership said nonsense to that.
He did however give me the cover your *** "mazda does not recommend the use of non mazda parts and doing so could void your warranty" statement.
Maybe we should do a winterize your 8 post as a sticky. We could include what kind of block heater you used as well as what grade or type of oil, and if you used a battery blanket.
As I live in Winnipeg I am in the position of enduring some of the coldest and highest snowfall winters of any major populated city in Canada.
If the 8 will start/drive here then it will do so anywhere else.

scoop

Well I am parking my 8 for winter but I would never bother with a block heater. IMO block heaters just mask poor batteries and waste a lot of power for nothing when one is dealing with small gas engines. The game is not the same for some huge V8s or diesels, the rotary has so few moving parts by comparison that is has got to be way easier to turn over. The battery problem will become evident when the plugged in car starts perfectly in the morning then sits outside all day at work at -30C not plugged in and won't start. Money spent on a battery warmer would be better spent on a new battery every few years. The oil is so light in the 8 that I wouldn't worry about it thickening that much, I have used synthetic to get around thickening of higher viscosity oils required by other cars. In terms of cold fuel maps, all is possible I suppose, other cars use separate cold start injectors which are triggered by temperature etc. I don't have block heaters in my Audi or Subaru and I wouldn't bother, both start flawlessly without at temps below -30C and the Audi has about 235K Km on it. One key element is keeping cars maintained properly, even old well maintained cars can be very reliable in winter. I would try the 8 without a block heater and see how it goes, a battery with more CCA might provide more value, I just can't imagine that engine being all that hard to turn over. Sorry for providing the curmudgeons perspective but I just don't understand why so many people are bent out of shape over block heaters for this car and some are in much warmer places. Another option might be one of those magnetic temporary oil pan heaters for emergency use if it got extremely cold some night or the car got flooded.

bean438

I wouldnt say a battery blanket would be a waste. A warm battery takes a charge quicker which would help if you drive alot of short trips.
Not to bash Ottawa but you guys do not get the cold that we do in Winnipeg. We dipped down to -40 last winter. I have no doubt your cars start no problem. A friend of mine in Ottawa also has cars that start fine.
I already know about the oil pan. I know about the inline block heater. I read that they should work. I read that so and so had one, or was thinking of buying one, bought one but didnt instal it yet, I heard it will void warranty, but the cold fuel start maps what the hell are cold start fuel maps and is the 8 the only car ion the planet that has them? Lots of cars have block heaters and start just fine cold fuel maps or not.
A search turned up lots of info but no answers.
I would just like to hear from someone who bought either an oil pan heater, or an inline block heater, installed it and had the 8 parked outside on a very cold day.
Did the car start even though you messed with the supposed fuel maps?
Where did you buy/what did you buy? (model or part # please) or, even a link would be nice.
I have seen the links "so and so was gonna buy this, and check this out".
Not interested in maybe's only confirmed fact.

Gord96BRG

Block heaters aren't for batteries. They are for warming the metal of the engine block and THE OIL!!! Have you ever tried to pour oil that is at -40? It's thick like molasses. Imagine your cold engine trying to pump molasses around - there is not much lubrication happening for a while in a -40 engine. With a block heater, the oil is 20 or 30 degrees warmer, and that makes a HUGE difference in cold viscosity, the oil is much thinner and flows much more easily. Now, remember that something like 80% of engine wear occurs within the first 30 seconds of cold starts. That's even worse with those subzero starts - block heaters make a very significant difference in reducing engine wear due to lack of lubrication at cold starts. Further, at -40, the engine can be so cold and have so much internal friction (often due to the cold oil) that the starter is not able to even turn the engine over. FWIW - this cold start severe conditions are where the real benefits of synthetic oil are - reduced wear on cold starts.

Scoop, obviously you've never lived on the Prairies, or somewhere where it gets really cold!

Bean, Canzoomer did purchase and install a stick-on oil pan heater last fall. A search should turn up his posts - he included pictures, and his source. Also check forum members Doctorr or StealthTL, he may have bought something as well. Both those guys are in Edmonton, which is nearly as cold as Winnipeg! (I'm in Calgary now, but grew up in Steinbach, so I know well the prairie winters )

[Edit] - I just searched, and right now I can't find a canzoomer post where he listed the oil pan heater. He indicated he was thinking about it or an inline coolant heater, but later said his car was starting fine down to -30 without any aids, so it looks like he may not have installed anything. Sorry, I can't help with any confirmed information.

Regards,
Gordon

StealthTL

iTrader: (1)

I ran the whole of last winter. Bought a 250 watt stick-on pan heater from J.C. Whitney, made my own battery warmer, and use an in-car preheater.

(Follow up note to my November 2003 Mazda Canada post - I'm still waiting for a block heater option, YOU MORONS!)

Scared of a repeat of my RX-3 days, when I melted the poles right off a battery, trying to start at -33*!

(Did I mention that Mazda Canada forgot to design a block heater?)

Pissed off that Mazda covers their *** by 'warranty' threatening people who use their own heater, after their own ineptitude at providing one, even as an option.....REALLY pissed off.

The battery box has no room for the usual 'blanket' type warmer, so I made a little plate for underneath, there's lots of height. This makes a REAL big difference.

(No problem, we can just fit the one from the RX-7.....WRONG!....even that piece de crappe don't fit. Did I mention the morons? yes, I think I did.)

I feel a rant coming on....

S

bean438

Unless my battery is smaller than others, I think there may be room for a blanket.
If it will not fit then I guess there is no harm in leaving the battery box cover off, and wraping the battery.
Gord, what are you using for oil, Redline, Amsoil, or just a regular brand name?
I assume you are using synthetic.
Do you do your own oil or does the dealer?
I am going for my first oil change and will request that they use synthetic.
A battery blanket and a synthetic oil should keep me happy, although a block heater would be ideal.
Coming from Steinbach I think you are one of the few who can truly understand just how cold it gets here in the flatlands.

scoop

Synthetic is not recommended for this car by Mazda, rightly or wrongly, there has been a lot of debate on the board about this. I personally would not jeopardize the warranty over it and I don't think anybody has had enough time to run up enough mileage on this engine with synthetic to prove one way or another. Anecdotal stuff where someone runs up 10K in synthetic is nothing, the car is still new and nothing should break, I want to see a car with 150-200K before I would jump. I have run synthetic for years in other cars because of the cold weather and wear characteristics but I wouldn't do it with this car. We are talking about oil combustion issues(deposits) and seals that don't enter into the equation on a piston engine.

There are two things working in your favour here. The 5W20 dyno oil is fairly light to start with, it's a lot lighter that the 5W50 Syntec full synthetic stuff that I run all year in another car, very noticeable when pouring. The pour points are not that different, Syntec full synthetic is around -43 and the better thin dyno oils are around -37. AMSoil is way down new -50 or something but you can't use it and it's very expensive so I stopped using it in other cars. If you look at the manufacturers web sites you can find the pour points of many of them. The other factor is that there are three moving parts in the rotary and a bazillion in a piston engine. That should add up to a lot less friction/resistance when rotated cold, I don't know if the stock starter and battery are up to the job but I would assume that Mazda would have done some cold weather testing during development, but who knows, it is a sports car. There is always some residual oil on the critical engine parts for months so low startup oil pressure although not ideal isn't that much of an issue, just don't rev it. In most cars the engines easily outlast the rest of the vehicle under these sorts of conditions.

I am not sure why you are so hung up on the battery blanket. As soon as I think a battery won't start the car under any condition I toss it. For $50-60 from Costco if they have one for the 8 you can have a new one every year for a little more than the price of a tank of gas that you will burn in a few days . . . I don't see temps as cold as you but I don't think there will be a huge performance difference from a new battery whether it's -32 here on the coldest days or -40 there. If a battery is marginal and you don't have a plug for the battery warmer handy the game is over in either case.

bean438

Synthetic is not recommended by whom? 200 different people from 200 different walks of life that are memners of this comunity.
No where does it say not to mention using or not using synthetic oil. Nor does anyone recommend using or not using conventional oil.
The only thing in writing is what viscosity, and that the oil must meet certain performance ratings.
If synthetic oil was an issue it would be stated in the owners manual.
Case in point fuel. Regular will work but it is recommended to use premium fuel.
As for the battery blanket, any battery new or old will have 50% capacity at -20 c.
and even less juice at -40 c.
50 % capacity, and a harder to start engine plus the "brain" of the car being deprived of juice could equal a no start. The starter also has to work harder.
I am new to rotary engines and it seems to me that they take longer to start up. I tried to imagine what it would sound like when it is -40 c.
Also a cold battery takes longer to charge (up to 30 minutes), and since my wife takes very short trips to work with the car, a warm battery is better than a cold one.
I normally would not be concerned with the blanket, but with no block heater I will do what I can to put the odds in my favour.

scoop

Not recommended by Mazda, there is a letter posted someplace . . . Have a look in the Tech Forum, there is lots of info there. It's your car you can assume the risk if you want, I am just telling you what I have seen. The "brain" of the car takes probably like one amp and the starter takes hundreds of amps, i.e. the ECU will probably work just fine when there is not juice left to turn the car over. I agree that many successive small trips are a problem in the cold . . .

Edit: Here is a link that includes info sent from Mazda USA to another member . . .

https://www.rx8club.com/showpost.php...&postcount=119

bean438

I have not seen a document nor has anyne produced a document that said not to use synthetic oil in the Mazda RX8.
If anyone has such a document could they please post it or link it?
Please tell me the page number of the owner's manual that states this fact.
Scoop I am not doubting you but you said you are telling me what you have seen.
What is it that you saw? A search of synthetic oil on the forums turned up the typical "Not recommended by Mazda, ummm there is a letter posted somewhere on the internet, oh wait my buddy told me that his cousin's aunt's sister's boyfriend's uncle knows a guy who was a mechanic who said not to use synthetic because he had a rotary engine and umm....."
The internet is great and there are a lot of well meaning people but sometimes too much information is just that. Especially non official or non endorsed information.
One would think that if synthetic oil was harmfull to use then it would be spelled out very clearly.

scoop

bean438, I was reading your mind and I was editing a link into the previous post while you were posting, look up . . . I don't know why it's not in the manual, that's just weird, an oversight probably. The response given by Mazda appears to be quite plausible so I would take it at face value myself. There are enough other "do not use" posts there to put serious doubt in my mind. Believe me if all these issues hadn't been raised I would have synthetic in my 8 now, I have used it for almost 20 years in other cars. At this point I don't want my car to be a guinea pig in case it is a failed experiment . . .

Gord96BRG

It's not an oversight. The owners manual specifies 5W20 API SL spec (in North America only - everywhere else in the world, the identical engine is specc'd for 5W30 oil. We get 5W20 for CAFE corporate average fuel economy reasons - how's that for a great reason? ). As long as your synthetic oil meets 5W20 API SL, you can use it.

PREVIOUS rotaries had different seal designs, and there were concerns with those. WAAAAAAY back (think 1970s), Mazda ran into one brand of synthetic oil which was incompatible with the seals. Rather than risk a lawsuit from discriminating against one brand of synthetic, they chose to advise to not use any synthetic. It WAS in the owners manual on those older vehicles, and that caution remained even in the 3rd gen RX-7 manuals. It is NOT in place in the RX-8 owners manuals. In Europe, Mazda dealers use synthetic oil for their dealer oil changes. Mazda North America is humming and hawing about it, their lawyers won't let them come out and say "go ahead and use synthetic", but they have absolutely zero grounds technically for advising not to use it.

If you're still not sure, do what I do - use Castrol Syntec. According to Mobil (big lawsuit which they lost several years ago), Castrol does not use a real synthetic base stock like PAO, but uses an ultra-refined crude oil as it's base. The court ruled that it was good enough to call synthetic because it had many of the same properties, even if it isn't really from synthetic base stock. So really, Castrol Syntec isn't synthetic, it's just really, really good conventional oil, which would be indistinguishable from conventional crude refined motor oil in a chemical analysis - there's no way Mazda could ever tell you were using Syntec from regular oil. So how could using Syntec be harmful in any possible way? It couldn't.

As for some of the BS you read here about the harmful effects of synthetic, like deposits from combustion? That's backwards - it's the less refined conventional oils which leave deposits. Synthetics burn cleaner than regular oils - that's a fact.

Regards,
Gordon

rotten42

Gord, I've read that you also drive an Audi. Did you drive your RX8 last winter? Did you notice any problems with cold starts when it got to -30C?

StealthTL

iTrader: (1)

It's sad this thread has devolved into another - "I heard you're not supposed to use synthetics..." argument.

The older RX-7's had big rubber 'o' rings to keep the antifreeze out of the chanbers, some synthetics would eat them away, antifreeze gets in combustion chambers, goodbye engine.

I was probably the reason Mazda said 'no synthetics'. I was running Mobil One in my 1973 RX-3. With predictable results, 'O' ring failure, and a new warranty engine.

The newer '7s' and the RX-8 have new technology seals, synthetic is no longer an issue, GET OVER IT!

Besides, even the cheapest 5W20 oils have about 50% synthetic basestock, it is difficult to meet the specs without. (Have you noticed the PRICE?)

So use what the manual says, and you WILL be using synthetic.

Back to the topic,
a circulating heater may not work, due to the heater configuration - the valve may close without power, cutting off your flow, and boiling your 'circulator'.

On with the discussion.....

S

Gord96BRG

The Audi is a 2002 allroad, with the twin-turbo 2.7 V6 and 6 speed manual. Coincidentally, Audi doesn't offer a block heater for that engine either! (I run Mobil1 in the Audi).

I did drive the 8 all winter, including taking it skiing to Lake Louise a few times. My garage is insulated (not heated), so when the outside temps were -30s, in the garage it was only -15 or so. I did have a few occasions with colder starts, though, down to -25 or so. I never had a single problem starting the 8 all winter.

Regards,
Gordon

scoop

Well this has turned into a rather inane thread that has gone completely
off the rails. Everybody is so "smart" yet they are not reading the posts properly and they are a little too uptight . . . First I said block heaters mask bad batteries,
i.e. they make the engine easier to turn over because the engine is warm
so you don't know if the battery is weak until you are somewhere where
you can't plug the car in. Duh, I know a block heater is not for
heating batteries. Next I said Mazda did not recommend synthetic,
that's what they said, I have no interest to promote here . . . They
stated issue is damage due to deposits because of combustion issues and
not chemical decomposition of the seals as happened in the old days, I
know they fixed that in the 70's. The issue they refer to is combustion
deposits, a different game . . . I know the flash point of
synthetics is slightly higher than regular oil so the explanation is
plausible but on the other hand it could be an overly paranoid legal
stance because the difference is minimal, like 50 degrees or something.
In the end I think there would be so little to be gained between typical 5W20 which is super
lightweight and a full synthetic in terms of cold weather performance
that it's not worth risking the warranty over. As someone already
pointed out it's nearly synthetic anyways. The manufacturer testing an
oil sample from a failed engine is not out of the question either, there
are companies do that sort of thing. For example am pretty certain you
can drop a sample off at CT and for a small fee they will send it off to
be analyzed and you get a report back. I have no idea what they can
detect, it's probably just focused on metallic content but who knows.
It's a risk versus reward thing, if there's not much to be gained why
take the risk, just seems to be common sense to me . . . It's just like
putting a GIAC chip in that 2.7T, if it blows a turbo and Audi finds
that firmware loaded, good luck on a warranty claim. People do this all
the time and it's an unlikely occurrence but the penalty is many
hundreds of dollars in parts and about 18 hours labour. Let's face it,
this is a fairly extensively reworked engine design in the 8 and it
doesn't have a long service history so the warranty is a good thing. In
most engines it takes many tens of thousands of kilometers before one
starts seeing common failures. Many other manufactures cars were famous
for busting timing belts, head gaskets, water pumps and cracking heads
at a fairly predictable mileage intervals, we are not there yet in terms
of seeing a lot of high mileage cars. A comparison with the old cars is
not that valid as manufactures sometimes get it wrong when they make
things "better". I had a VW transmission like that, destroyed for the
sake of a 10 cent part they saved during a redesign and there are
countless other examples. For example the rotors in this car are
basically the same as the old ones but are cast using a different
process so they are not really the same, they just look the same. The
ports have moved which will cause different wear characteristics etc.
Chances are things are better but time will tell if any flaws were
introduced, nobody really knows yet, that's nobody . . . It doesn't matter
if someone put a million miles on an RX-7 with synthetic, it could well be
that there are no technical issues. This about preserving warranty
in case there are a series of engine failures down the road and we can't predict that.

The only reason I chimed in here was to state that in my experience
having driven many cars with small engines with very light (5W30) or
synthetic oil (10W30 & 5W50) I have not had starting problems into the
minus 30s. The key is to also have a good battery and toss it when it
becomes weak. I have pushed some VW and Audi's beyond the 14 year mark
so longevity doesn't appear to be much of an issue either if one can
tolerate Audi repair bills that come in thousand dollar increments (you
see warranty is good). So unless one lives with much more extreme
temperatures they probably don't need a block heater. I seemed to have
done an unintentional/accidental troll here by replying to the synthetic
thing and caught a huge one. We are talking about a risk management
issue that has nothing to do with the properties of oil. Take as much
risk as you feel there is reward for and you are comfortable with, it's your car and
your warranty . . .

Scoop is signing off on this one, I will never say the S word agian, have fun and let the daggers fly . . .

bean438

Synthetic oil will not void the warranty. If synthetic was not recommended it would state such in the owners manual. Period.
They haven't even suggested not to use it. I.e. fuel. The manual says you can use regular fuel, but it is recommended that you use premium. Using either will not void warranty, but it is suggested to use premium for optimal performance.
I agree that a block heater may mask a weak battery. Proper battery health is checked at every oil change, and the battery would be replaced accordingly.
New, old, and somewhere in between, any battery will have it's work cut out for it trying to start any car, synthetic oil or not, during a cold -40 Winnipeg winter day.
I will stick to what the manual says to do and not to do.
My intent of this post was to hear from people that could tell me "yes I used ain inline heater, or oil pan heater from so and so, part number 123456 and it worked great in (name your cold city) starting up no problem after sitting outside in -40 degree weather"

One thing I am truly concerned about is the car being so low, that it may cause problems at the Tim Horton's drive thru window when one needs a hot Timmy's coffee to warm up our own blocks!

I can without a doubt assure you that Timmy's will warm you up and will not void your warranty!

I am not sure if their coffe is synthetic or not, but it is addictive as hell.

bean438

I just checked Mazda Canada's web site. In the owners page they have an f.a.q. that specifically states that using synthetic oil is not recommended, but using it will not automaticaly void your warranty. However they also state that if you use synthetic oil and it is the cause of the engine failure you will not be covered under warranty.
Very confusing. The manual says absolutely nothing at all in regards to synthetic oil, only the service rating and grade.
I know there is a law in the US that says if you are told you have to use a specific product to maintain warranty then that product must be supplied free of charge.
Is there a simillar law in Canada, and would it apply here?
They recommend not to use synthetic. We are told we will not be covered under warranty if synthetic oil is the cause. Is this not the same as being told you must use this specific product?
They dont state a brand but we are more or less being told we have to use conventional oil.
How about people who dont have internet access or a computer, and are using oil recommended in the owners manual? Are they not covered under waqrranty?
I am begining to question Mazda's intelligence.