Article gives insight into just how many RX-8 engines have been rebuilt
 

So here is something pretty telling. So, in the U.S., Mazda sold close to 50,000 RX-8's from 03-08.

Sales thru December of 2011:
2003 - 12,346
2004 - 23,690
2005 - 14,673
2006 - 9,343
2007 - 5,767
2008 - 3,368

According to this article about the plant (written in June of 2011), they rebuilt 5,000 engines in 2010. The plant has been around since 2008, so it's safe to say the yearly average is probably about the same thru that time period give or take a few hundred I would say. If they were still doing 5,000 rebuilds a year, two years after it opened then that means that the failure rate is close to 50%. I realize you have to account for people like me that got two under warranty but still. We also know from the one R3 that had an engine replacement done here that the 09-11 engines are rebuilt there as well but to date I have only heard of three 09' RX-8 needing engine replacements and one was a weird random failure, not compression related.

This is not really surprising to me, it actually confirms what I thought based on how many my dealer (one dealer in a city with 5 Mazda dealers) has done over the years (friend works there).

Thoughts?

Mazda expands plant in Chesterfield - Richmond Times-Dispatch: Richmond's Latest Business & Economic News

On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

what a very sad deal, seems like the final blow to rotory engines, mazda would have to come up with a bullet proof rotory engine to rebuild the reputation

mines being replaced at the moment LOL

that's not even counting the engines that are rebuilt by various rotary/engine shops (not remans)
without more data on the # of rebuilds for other years the data is sort of inconclusive imo
I would think it increases annually especially considering the lack of reliability in remans

That quote says "produced" not replaced. Granted one could assume that since they are reman engines that they would need failures in the first place so they had engines to rebuild but i would believe that there's more than in car failures that led to engines available for replacement.

The one huge assumption that i think you made too far was the average the plant produced over the years. Just because they built 5000 in 2010 doesn't mean they did that every single year. Typically when building up stock a factory will create a surplus and then trickle off production to a point where they maintain that stock level. Having been built in 2008 also most likely meant it took some time for production to ramp up so they probably quoted 2010 because it was the high point in the factories production.

Also remember that engine failures come from more than just badly built engines. On a car like the rx8 that is often tracked im sure plenty of those engines died from over use or from accidents on track or off. The large amount of remans they produced will be used for more than just replacing the traditional failures.

+the number of engines sarx "rebuilds" :rollingla

jk scott

So you are saying driving an RX-8 under warranty is stimulating the economy?

I would venture the opinion that the indie shop rebuilds for traditional failures are outweighed by failures from non-traditional means or people who opt for rebuilds for more power whose engines did not fail.

I agree that the production rate might increase annually, but go farther to note that the cars also are aging at the same time. 2004 models are now 10 years old and performance vehicles will start crapping out from age rather than build quality issues. The point of the factory could completely be to bring in the capability to handle supply of reman engines for when the cars start aging out.

I'm on engine #4. I believe it came from this plant. Replacement #1 had to be shipped from Japan (2005).

Well they need cores to rebuild, they don't produce new engines there, they just replace parts that need to be replaced. I agree it probably took time to ramp up production but as we know from Sleepy-z (worked at the factory since day one) they were pretty busy early on. I think he even mentioned how many he rebuilt in a day and if you consider the amount of employees they have, you can assume that the number of engines rebuilt in a day is quite a bit.

I realize that some engines failed from racing, owner neglect, etc. but those engines would not be covered under warranty and so the likely hood that those engines would go to the plant to be rebuilt is low. And if you are paying out of pocket you are not likely to purchase a reman from Mazda due to the price of the engine and installation.

Al, I am pretty sure my first reman was from the Cat plant (no blue plaque) when Mazda was contracting them to do the rebuilds. My second one was from the Virginia Plant. It is funny though that the cat contract was cancelled due to quality control issues yet my cat engine lasted 75,000 miles and my Mazda reman plant engine only lasted 30k and my original japan engine only lasted 22k.

The intent of that article was to mention the expansion of the factory for reman automatic transmissions, the engine line was a brief tangent. It also mentions they plan to rebuild 3,000 of them annually. As far as i know auto trans failures aren't that high so these numbers can't really be used to correlate failures to production amounts. It would seem to me that mazda is just trying to amass a large amount of rebuilt parts and it's not indicative at all of any kind of failure rates.

I had the opposite experience. My replacement #2 came from a contract rebuild facility and lasted 24k. I never got to see the tags. The current (Virginia) was replaced at about 48.

first let me note that this is a great discussion and im not trying to troll or bait you.

I'm sure cores make their way to mazda from more than just mazda dealers.

One thing the article also doesn't mention is if this plant is solely for US production or if they rebuild engines for other countries as well. You'd think they would at least handle north america if not the entire continent. Keeping that in mind alone can skew the 50% number, although i have no idea how many cars were sold in Canada or South America. If it's even just 25% more then the 5k a year starts seeming smaller in relation.

the other major X factor is the re-replacements. You and Al both indicate multiple replacements due to QA issues so i'm sure it's pretty common and a number the 5k production level is also trying to account for. Me, im at 130K or so on my original engine from 2004. Well at least as best as i can tell its original. No dealer records for replacement so if it was done it was done privately and out of pocket before i got the car and not by the seller i got it from.

The transmissions are for Mazda 3's and 5's, I have no clue what issues they have. But I don't see them rebuilding RX-8 engines just to have stock, this debacle has cost Mazda plenty enough as is. And if they were just building them to have stock then there would not be a wait for dealers to get engines. That wait time has varied over the years but both time when I needed a reman, it was a few week wait just for the dealer to get an engine. And that seems to be a normal occurrence in other parts of the country as well based on what people say here.

now that im thinking about it ive never seen the blue reman tag on my engine. i know it was replaced early when the first owner had it so maybe mines not a reman. idk ill have to look around. the tag should be by the front cover on the drv side right?

No, thanks for the input. Different opinions are welcome. I realize the people with multiple replacements skew the number s a bit but those are fairly rare, and I'm not sure about them making remans for other markets because IIRC from sleepy-z, they were for only U.S. models only. It's too bad Mazda asked him to stop posting but we did get some great info from him.

And I disagree that they would get cores from other sources, I just can't imagine how that would take place unless they are purchasing junk yard engines.

Yes sir, to the right of the alternator if you are looking at the front of the car.

all remans have that tag right? ive had a lot of stuff out of my engine bay and dont remember seeing it but i know mazda replaced the engine ~25k

This is info you should really know. Its not real hard to find look at the engine tag.

I would bet the re-man plant is doing much better now then in the past. They also do services and checks most rotary rebuilders do not do (engine dyno brake in). The problem is its still a crap shoot. you dont know if you are getting new housings or if the housings used are at the maximum allowed spec.

I can't see any Renesis with 130k on it having good compression. As for the records, well I had my buddy (rx-8 owner and Mazda tech) print out the service history on my car a couple of years back and one of my engine replacements was not on there and I had it performed at his dealer. During that time frame there was a cat replacement listed that I didn't know about (or it was never done). They had no explanation for this and so I called Mazda NA and they did have record of it. So apparently the dealer databases don't always match what Mazda NA has.

yep, they all have it.

https://www.rx8club.com/attachments/...-reman-tag-jpg

The production of new rotary engines ended about a year ago. They have/had to have a source for their cores.

If Canada at least got US spec cars then i'm sure they would get Us spec replacement engines. I cant imagine Mazda building reman plants in every country they sold cars in, it just doesn't make business sense especially when you're trying to hold down costs from warranty claims. Not to knock a rotary friend, but a guy working on the line isn't going to have sales figures, that is if he did work the line. Have no idea how Mazda would get wind of an employee posting on some random forum online if he was.

Other sources would happen because im sure mazda pays money for the cores. Junkyards can't sell failed engines but they can sell back for core charges. Do autoparts stores sell reman engines? They would also send back cores.

Other sources aside, unless you're looking for on the cheap or power rebuilds most people would probably go to mazda for the replacement even if it's out of pocket. I can easily justify the extra cost of a dealer job over indie just for the knowlege and warranty aspects from the dealer and recourse options from Mazda usa after having used a dealer for it.

As for waiting periods. That can be explained due to the fact that dealers are not going to keep engines on hand and will have to order them. I can certainly see a 2 week period being the time to rebuild an engine but i can just as easily see a heavy bulky motor taking 2 weeks to ship from a warehouse to a dealer. time to rebuild one and then ship it would be more than 2 weeks, unless they were only slightly behind and it took a few days for one to complete and then ship. It's also a job the dealer would have to schedule a large block of time for which can also explain a 2 week period.

Their sources are the core that the dealers are required to send back. They could be purchasing from wrecking yards though.


Sleepy-z's story is well documented here, there is no doubt he worked there and rebuilt engines. And he was open and honest with what he said and the pictures he posted and I don't think he hid that from his coworkers. It is also know that Mazda and other manufacturers do surf automotive forums. If you search, you can read his explanation of why he had to stop posting. He also checked in a year or so later after he stopped working there IIRC.

As for other countries, well they don't get the 8 year or 100k warranty that we did so if you blow your engine, you are SOL in a lot of cases. Canada also did not get U.S. spec RX-8's. If you do get a reman from a dealer in another country, I am not sure where it comes from but I do know it is super expensive, that is why you can buy a low mileage RX-8 in the UK for $10.00, they have almost zero resale value.

Autoparts stores do not sell remans.

As for the delays, in my cases it was almost a month both times. It's not like they are rebuilding your core, you are just getting a rebuild from them so I don't see why it would take more than a week or so to ship and engine from Virginia to Texas.


But I will know soon, next week I am placing an order for a reman at a local dealer so we will see just how long it takes to get it in. I will document the tear down of that reman so we know what is what.

Car "feels" fine, but i have not had a compression test done on it to know for sure. If it is low compression and i've lost power then i need to re-evaluate my butt dyno. Ive had issues with dealers and records before so i went straight to Mazda NA and got mine. All the recalls were done but besides a few wierd things in its first few months there were no dealer trips for engine or any of the other major issues rx8s have had.

Ill admit i did not know about checking tags. However its entirely possible you had no idea that i didn't already do so and see it's original. There's a big chance that if it was rebuilt privately that it was just pulled, tore down, and rebuilt by someone. Which would mean the tag is still the same as the original from the factory.

Now that i do know i'll search and see what i'm looking for to see if it has been rebuilt. The guy i bought mine from only had it for about 6 months before he went broke and had to sell it (was a contractor who wasn't doing so well). The owner before him was a mechanic which is why i'm thinking private rebuild.

A big factor I'd be interested in would be the average mileage on those engines when they come in. 50% replacement with an average of 30k is quite a bit different than 50% replacement with an average of 60k.

After all, I imagine a poll of all 500,000 mile Fords would probably show a high % of engine replacements. Mileage is a pretty big factor in judging the severity.

thats along the same lines as what i mentioned with the cars starting to age out and there needing to be a larger supply of engines. Regardless of the failure rate for mechanical defects you can surely bet the rate will increase the older the model gets. That will also be exacerbated by the faster the mileage gets put on the car regardless of age.

I'm not even remotely surprised by the number. A 50% failure rate across the total number of cars sold in the country is actually lower than I would have expected considering the 100k mile warranty and reliability problems. I am one of the only people I have ever met in person who owned an RX-8 and hadn't had an engine replaced under reman. Ironic considering the hell my RX-8 went through.

Anybody wondering why Mazda canned rotary production can see the answer right here. They thought returning the engine to natural aspiration would reduce the failures, but I wouldn't be surprised if they lost more money on the MSP engines than the REWs.

Yeah in another thread New Yorker said the engine replacements were only a concern here and not in real life, :lol: He likes to say that a lot actually and he won't list his mileage so I would bet money his RX-8 is very low mileage.

I know tons of RX-8 owners and I only know of one person who has not had an engine replacement and that is in her 07'. In our group we have had just about every year covered from 04-08 and all of them have had at least one engine replacement and many of them were bone stock and a couple of them have been low mileage 07's. We have had only one member with an 08' 40th and he is no longer around.

Totaling the upper figures = near 70.000 RX-8's and not 50.000.
"In Sept. 2010 the production of the UK-market Mazda RX-8, which has been on sale for seven years, has ended. In that time over 26,000 cars have been sold in the UK, out of a worldwide figure of 186,632 - approximately 14% of total sales." (Mazda RX-8 production ends | Parkers)
April 2012 Mazda had produced a total of 196 RX-8's.
USA total population = 314 kk
UK total population = 64 kk
Assuming that the RX-8 was not much more popular in the UK than it was in the USA the total number for the USA could be theoretically 5 times 26k = 130 k, which I believe it is not (too high); however the 50k resp. 70k could be too little?
In my opinion it is difficult to believe that of the total RX-8 production of 192k units worlwide only 76k resp 96k went to the USA and the UK and the rest all over the world?
That must be 100k for the rest of the world!
I know that sales of the RX-8 in another large market, the whole continent of Europe was very low; their biggest market was Germany where only 8k units (Mazda RX-8: Rotierende Rarität - SPIEGEL ONLINE) have been sold.
(The Netherlands only 0.25k !)

just to address a few points. like people are saying, there is a bell curve for failures, around here the engine failure rate between 2005-2008, was like .5%, and then when you start to get to the 6-8 year mark, the failure rate goes way up. although i can tell you the dealership i used to work at has actually peaked, they were selling 6-8 Rx8 engines a month for about 18months, but its tapered off. if you want the perspective, we were selling 6-8 FD engines a month, and those cars are much rarer, AND they were out of warranty in the 90's.

two, for the first few years they were bringing new engines in from japan, and then they started rebuilding the dead cores.

as a corollary to that, when they need parts they just order them from japan, as its cheaper for them to do that then go hunting in a junkyard. so they get their core supply from the people they sell the reman engine to.

the 2009+ cars aren't on the reman program yet, you get a new engine from japan. although this is due to change.

and corollary to that, just because Mazda's plant isn't making engine assemblies for new cars, doesn't mean they aren't making replacement engines, or engine parts.

all that being said, the 50% number is probably close

Rudolph, good catch, it was late when I added, :lol: I don't understand the rest of what you typed.

j9fd3s,

I think you are wrong on the 09's, our local guy inquired (he was demanding a new engine) and instead he got a reman, they told him that was all they were required to do and the told him it was coming from the same reman plant. Mazda NA told him the same thing. There was also a thread here from an R3 owner who's story was very similar. They both got remans. I never did see his car though after the engine was replaced because he sold it.

Hey 9K,

What is the reliability of that source you quoted on your opening post?

I'm always curious about websites that quote numbers and figures.

Ideally, I would love to see actual numbers published by mazda.

It's a local newspaper where the plant is located. It was an article for local economy news so traditionally the reporter who wrote it would have interviewed someone from the plant. There was no retraction so I assume Mazda deemed it accurate. I doubt Mazda would ever release the figures publicly, this mention was probably missed to be honest.

That makes sense.

Perhaps the "real" are numbers are too scary for mazda to publish now...if ever:yesnod:

Dont forget the original RX7 was also NA and rotary. My brother owned one for quite some time and it was bullet proof. Moving to FI for the late model RX7s probably did introduce a lot of reliability issues that they hoped to resolve by going back to NA, but deciding to build an entirely new engine was probably the downfall not it being NA.

The decision to cease rotary production probably had more to do with fuel economy and limits of the design rather than failure rates. Plenty of engines throughout history have been rotary, Wenkel designed this type of engine long before Mazda made use of it. Aircraft like the Corsair during WW2 used a rotary engine, many of which are still running today.

I also don't feel the 50% number is realistic. Maybe it is and i'm off base but anything at or above that number one would think it would be making larger waves than it has. Companies like Toyota and their recalls have been way less than 50% and governments have stepped in. Admittedly Toyotas issues are safety related but consumer issues outside of safety do sometimes end up in the cross hairs of advocates and govts.

I'm not saying you don't have a lot of friends but close circles are like forums. You end up hearing more about things from a smaller cross section. Forums are usually a venting place for troubled owners who come looking for help or decide to air their frustrations. The odds of happy owners who have never replaced engines coming here and saying so aren't very high.

Those low sales numbers for other countries would explain why Mazda chose the US to open a reman plant. I think your data supports my guess that this plant is supplying most if not all of the worlds reman engines. Japan appears to still be the sole supplier of NEW engines, but im sure Mazda has plans to stop that at some point with the car discontinued.

Just going from 50k to 70k reduces the assumed rate from 50% to 35%. theres also stil the thought that just because they are producing 5k remans a month doesn't entirely mean they are actually replacing 5k a month. If it is a global supplier then that means some of the 5k are earmarked for other countries which could help explain the waiting periods, especially if the rate in the US is around 50%.

If Mazda was alert enough to catch a random employee posting on forums then im sure they could have found this article.

No matter what the real numbers are i doubt they would actually want to publish them. Even at 10% competitors could potentially pounce on the data and use it against Mazda. Negatives are negatives regardless of how much or why.

The day reporters fully research and confirm their information will be a great day for the world. What's that saying...believe none of what you read and half of what you see or something? Even if the reporter got the numbers right there is still the possibility the person who typed the article transposed information. Yeah i have my tin foil hat on, but the day i believe facts from reporters is the day they report my death.

The reasons are well documented. Largely, the single biggest reason for rotary unreliability is how much power you are pushing through the engine. Higher stress means lower reliability, across the board.

Take any engine you want, say a common 2.0L 4-banger. Put it out there making 100hp and it's going to last a hell of a lot longer than if it made 200hp. The Renesis is at least twice the N/A power of the first 13b rotaries, and that means heat, stress, etc... All of the specific reasons for failure are a result of either trying to get this kind of power and/or failing to address the heat control properly.

Nogoer,

You are getting your rotary engines mixed up. Rotary engines in WW2 planes are only similar to ours in name only.

Also, building a reman plant in the U.S. to supply engines for the entire world market makes no sense since they could have built the plant elsewhere much cheaper I am sure. They built it here because the rebuilt engines are for this market. Do you have any idea what it costs to ship a crated engine overseas? There is no way they are doing that on a larger scale.

Also, Mazda doesn't offer complete new engines, only new parts. If you wanted to build a new engine, it would cost twice as much as a reman in parts alone.

Oh, and NA SA and FB RX-7's were not bulletproof by any means. And I am sure someone at Mazda is aware of the article, but either they don't care or someone didn't think it was a big deal.

Although commonly referred to as a 'rotary' engine, the engine is actually called a Radial Engine. I work for the company that powered the Corsair, we actually have a demo of the twin row wasp on display in the lobby of our building ;)

Rotary is a concept ; Wankel / Radial, those are the implementations. Two totally different implementations at that.

I.E. design limitations, although i admit i originally meant rotary in general not renesis specifically. Mazda will never get the kind of performance from a rotary like they can from a piston engine and still have it cost effective.

Honestly i don't know enough about rotaries to understand why mazda even kept them around as long as they did. With the failures i'm sure they asked themselves the same question though. It'd be interesting to have seen what the RX8 would have been like had they opted for a FI piston engine instead. Maybe if the Rx series comes back we'll get to see just that.

The WWII engines he's thinking of were radial, not rotary.

There were rotary engines in WWI, but they were different from Wankels. They were radials where the crankshaft was fixed while the block and cylinders rotated. IMHO way more fun than other engines, but a real bitch to set valve lash at idle.

Ken

Also significant torque steer!

Rotaries are FAR more efficient than piston engines and FAR more reliable when implemented correctly. Today's failures are a credit to the increase in government regulations on emissions.

http://memecrunch.com/meme/3DRC/not-...ling/image.png

It would not be a RX if it had anything other then a rotory.

They already had plants in japan so why build one in the US as building a new plant no matter how cheap still costs more than using or retooling what you already have.

My basis for that argument was having it in the US means its easier and cheaper to supply your largest market which is why i think they opted for it here even if they could have built it cheaper elsewhere. Building here and then building in the UK or Canada as well just adds to the cost instead of just shipping them out from the US.

Point is they aren't going to build a plant in every country they need to supply remans for. Someone needs to supply the global demand even if it's shared. The failure rate being whatever it is can't possibly be a burden only the US cars have. Maybe japan is supplying the rest of the world maybe they aren't. Maybe they have secret plants built all over supplying supply for the plants we know of so they can secretly control the perceived rate of failures. We all know japan has fooled us once before.

Fug me, you're both absolutely right. I consider myself an airplane nut and i let myself spout that nonsense. I also then proceeded to misspell the mans name.

An "RX" named model with a piston engine is like saying it's a "gasoline engine that runs on diesel only".

A sports car with a piston engine in it would be named something other than an RX, perhaps something like "Cayman", "Corvette", "BRZ", etc...

I should clarify:

My comment is in regards to use in general, not just automotive applications. I.e. aircraft, industrial machine, etc.

Btw:

Yes there are wankel engines used in some aircraft. Have been and still are.

Mazda believed in rotaries. It was almost a religion for them. There was no option for a piston engine for the RX-8. It was their latest altar for a Wankel. When they wanted to build a piston-engined sports car they developed the Miata.

Ken