Hercules

All my friends in recent months have gotten new cars (6 months or so). And all of them have had to break them in, for 1000, or 3000 miles before driving htem hard.

What about the rotary engines? Because I have a CD made with the songs I'm going to listen to after getting the car... and the first song is "Song 2" by Blur. Download it and you'll understand why I'm asking this question

Jerome81

I would sure think so, though I'm not sure. 600 miles seems to be standard now.

ZoomZoom

600 miles sounds a little too low for my liking. The only car that I have know of that suggests 600 miles is the Honda S2000.

I will take a look at the owner’s manual when I get the car but I know that I will wait until I put at least 1,000 miles on her before I see what she likes.

Hercules

I spose.. better to be safe than sorry

wakeech

now, i seem to remember the number 3000 for the 13B's... but then again i could be thinking km's!!
but ya, i thinkn that the longer the break in, with lots of oil changes (up to a point obviously!! like 10 000 miles with a change every 1000 is over the top, duh!!) would only serve to help the seals really form nicely (which is so super important in the rotary, obviously...)

(i'm saying obviously too much, obviously... sorry guys!! :D)

Elara

Ok, I'm going to bite- I've never owned a brand new car- how do you break a new car in, and why do you need to break it in? At least, a high performance vehicle like the RX-8?

Rich

Elara,
Try this link for one group's opinion on engine breakin for the Miata. You may have to search for "break", or it's the first one in section 4.

http://www.miata.net/faq/faq3.html#A

There's a lot of debate about whether or not modern engines need anything special to be done during the breakin period. It used to be that for a few thousand miles you weren't supposed to drive at or near wide open throttle (i.e. floored gas) or approach the redline. Also, most recommend that you change the oil after the first 500 miles to get rid of any metal shavings that may have come off and settled in the oil. I know some people change the oil at 500 and 1,000 miles, but they also wax their cars at least once a week . Last (that I can think of...) you're not supposed to use synthetic for about the first 10,000 miles or so.

However, many people claim that many if not all of these precautions are unnecessary with current engine manufacturing tolerances. I took a better safe than sorry approach with my Miata, but there are many, many people that didn't follow any of the recommendations and have over 100k miles and no problems.

This is just for piston engines, I have no idea what Mazda will recommend for the rotary. I'm just as in the dark as you are on that question.

Fifth-gen

Break-in for rotaries is more important than piston engines. In the old Rx-7 days, it was always stressed by the dealers, the main item being run-in of the apex seals. Excessive hard usage of the engine (full-throttle starts, high speeds when cold, etc.) could cause accelerated wear of the seals while they were wearing in to the shape of the housing. I found, in addition, that the engine would not produce maximum power (this was seat-of-the-pants data ony) until 20,000 miles or so. Conventional (rotary) wisdom at that time said that a slow buildup of carbon in the corners of the combustion chambers (where the housing meets the side plate) would result in increased sealing and higher effective compression.

All this says go easy on the engine for a few thousand miles if you plan to keep it a long time.

Enjoy!
Bill

RX7 Guy

FWIW,

I’m the original owner of a ’87 RX-7 with over 251,000 miles on a engine that’s still going strong. For the first 3,000 miles, I avoided going over 3,5000 RPM’s & I limited the throttle to about 66%. Additionally, I changed the oil at 500, 1500 & 3,000 there after. It’s possible that some of these precautions aren’t necessary but they sure won’t hurt. My advise is to be disciplined for the first 3,000 miles & then treat yourself to a nice big faty burnout. One more thing, there is a strong argument against using synthetic oil in rotary engines & I tend to agree with the rational. Just use good dino oil like Penziol & change it every 3,000 miles.

wakeech

i've never owned a rotary, or my own car for that matter, but i'm quite a nut about rotaries. i've done a lot of reading, and found that the only company who condone synthetic oil use in Mazda's rotaries is Racing Beat (i think they have a sponsorship deal with Royal Purple...)

so yes, i believe that the refined natural oils are far more healthy for the engine (because of the oil injection)... the plugs get a whole lot of carbon buildup pretty quick becuase of the combustion resistant properties of high quality synthetics, those against synthetic use say.
of course there's always the heavily modded rotaries that can use it without any chance of problems, but who the hell wants to pre-mix for every bloody fill-up in their daily driver?? not me, for SURE...

so, ya, i don't know of anybody who actually does use synthetics in thier 7...
anyone tried different??

boowana

First thing wil be to see what Mazda recommencds and secondly, see what kind of oil is in the car when it is first delivered. They will also note any special break-in procedures in the owners manual, I'm sure. That is not to say you can't "better" the recommendations or change oil more often than recommended if you choose to do so.

Regarding using Synthetics in the first 10,000 miles as one post suggests, if this were correct, manufacturers of Porche, Corvette and a handful of other makes, would not be shipping brand new cars from the factory with Mobil One in the cars.

My $0.02 worth.:o

Rich

Re: synthetic in new engines -

All I was saying is that conventional wisdom in the past has been not to use synthetic in new engines. The idea has been (again, I don't know the truth) is that synthetics lubricate so well that they prevent the seals from setting (whatever that means) properly, and keep the engine from wearing down minor production imperfections. The idea is that those cars (Porche, Ferrari, Corvette, etc. ) have much higher production tolerances than your Ford Taurus, so they don't have those imperfections to wear down. That's why they can ship with synthetics, but the cheaper cars we get aren't produced to such close tolerances, and need the additional friction that dino oil gives.

Now, I have no idea whether or not that's true, all I was saying in that post was that some people have argued in the past that it wasn't a good idea to use synthetics early in an engine's life. I'm not sure I believe it myself either, boowana.

fuz

A lot of the better made engines are pre-broken in so that the break in period is highly reduced, or so that synthetics can be put in right from the start. The lubrication properties of synthetics are not a whole lot better, they just resist breaking down several times better than regular oil, so the need for them to be changed is much longer. Temperature tolerance is also, several times better than regular oil making it much better suited to things like turbos and high reving engines.

The filter however, still needs to be changed just as often, as it is the weak link.

boowana

You might want to check this site out called "Myths about Synthetic Oils" at http://www.mobil1.com/index.jsp

I had had a long conversation with a Mazda engineer a couple of years ago discussing oils in general which bear out what Mobil claims on its web site.

Interesting read...:p

Hercules

Exact link: here!

PatrickB

A very interesting FAQ. One of the things it says is that while Mobil1 won't normally void the engine warranty in your car, they specifically exclude mazda rotary engines from this statement!

fuz

Interesting. Didn't think that a rotary really made a difference on oil. There must be some reason for it.

Toadman

The rotary has an Oil Metering Pump(OMP) which injects oil into the rotor housings to lubricate the apex seals(each tri-corner seal). Somewhat similar to a two-stroke cycle engine. There's been debate whether synthetic oil combusts like "dino-juice", and the probability of ash/sludge coatings. I'd stick with OEM recommendations, at least for the duration of the warranty.

n22lasing

I don't think it was mentioned, but Mazda does recomend a break-in period of 600 miles. They urge you to run the engine at varying speeds up to 4000 rpms no more and to avoid full-throttle starts. What I did is break in the engine for 3000 miles, and change the engine oil at 600, 2000, and then 3000. After that I changed it every 3000 miles. I still have my 1985 RX-7 with 120k miles.

As far as the Synthetic oil is concerned? I have read that some synthetics, which are run in rotaries, may leave deposits as oil is routinely burned. Because of this, I have stayed away from synthetics. Some mechanics recomend adding the oil with your gas! As if it's some kind of lawnmower or something. Anyway I don't know too much about that, but you can read it here

Ardent_Psyclone

I run premix in my 1990 RX-7, about 1/2 a pint with every fill up. I do this because my OMP doesn't seem to be doing its job correctly anymore.

It isn't uncommon to use 2 stroke oil mixed with the gas in an older or racing rotary engine. Although you do get some funny looks at the gas station.