Not if you don't have any internal damage. A failed Renesis is only plaigued with excessive carbon build-up inside the engine. In this case, it cost next to nothing to refresh the carbon infested engine rather than spend 1,800-2,200 for a junk yard engine. Nothing internally will be out of spec. Been there done that with great success. Even Kevin Landers at Rotary Resurrection will back that up. If I were you, I would be opening all these engines and doing an internal cleaning. That's all they really need.

Car and Driver, long term test, 40K miles, 9/05…

"None of the RX-8's times touched those of our old 255-hp, 2884-pound twin-turbo RX-7, which put out 5.2-second rushes to 60 mph and 0.93-g skidpad runs. But neither do the RX-8's frustration levels touch the RX-7's. We made nine unscheduled stops in the RX-7 to the RX-8's three. After the converter and A/C fixes, the RX-8 ran flawlessly, with only its oil addiction and scheduled service stops to crack the hood. There were three of the latter, costing $25 to $30. There was one $90 rip-off, and the big 37,500-mile service ran $411 and changed out the filters and spark plugs as well."

That's one car and one test what's your point? Please go back and read my post again. I'm speaking only of the excessive carbon build-up related issues with the internal design change and the number 1 source of all the rx8's related engine problems. The excessive carbon build-up is what's killing these engines. Also for the record, as complicated as the Fd's 13brew was, it was never recalled for total engine replacement. I'm not trying to compare which engine is better here.

They know about it. Look at why they shelved side port motors back in the '80s.This time around, they "decided" that the change in side seal and apex seal design was sufficient. They were wrong.

Except they are replacing the housings and sometimes the end plates as well. They have quite a graveyard.

The problem is, by the time you accumulate the billable hours and parts (even for a "refresh" as you put it), you are stuck with the spotty work of the dealerships and having to support that with an extended warranty.
Ultimately, it is more cost effective to just yank the motor and drop in a replacement.
A refresh will take a dealer tech a minimum of 9 billable hours and $800 to $1600 in seals, gaskets and O-rings. (On top of the 13 billable for the RnR.)
It doesn't matter - the housings are "out-of-spec", even without catastrophic apex seal failure.

I thought they claimed the side exhaust failed due to the types of oil used back then causing too much carbon build-up?




That doesn't make any since. Please eliaborate on the cause. I can't imagine or have I've ever seen carbon destroy a rotor housing unless the engine carbon locked causing apex seal breakage.

How "massive" is this recall though? If Mazda isn't mentioning the number of engines involved, how do you determine it's a "massive" problem?

We've started an informal poll: https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?t=122843

I don't know for sure - I can't get my hands on a MNAO-pay motor. I presume that it is abnormal wear to the housing from the apex seal since the latter is much harder than the former and when applied together without lube and at high temps, the housing suffers.
Williams has a massive graveyard of housings and end plates.

It is a recall that is open to ALL RX-8s. Can't possibly be any more massive than that (compared to the BMW recall which is model and year specific).

There are many such recalls on many types of cars. That still doesn't answer the question of how you determine it's a "massive" problem... unless you define any recall as a massive problem.

NEW YORKER are you going to sevenstock?

I would really love to see the # of engines replace, most car company's fix the engines instead of replacing them thats the real diference