GiantXTC

I am in the market for getting an RX8. I was really impressed with the looks, performance, price and the practicality. I test drove it and loved it even more. What makes me nervous is the fact that I have spent over 10 total hours looking threw these threads and overall have seen many problems associated with the new 30k dollar car. Rough cold starts, really bad mpg, rare but still happening blown engines, flooding engines, sucking too much oil.

Someone tell me that these things are not happening. Maybe I am reading this wrong and there are 2 people on this forum giving a sour taste in my mouth. Believe me I dont want to believe that this is happening. I want this car very bad but I dont want to take my car in the shop every week b/c my car floods or i am getting 12 mpg. The mpg alone would **** me off. I have a 2002 accord coupe 5 spd and it says 26- 33 and when i drive it hard i get 28 mpg. If a car says 18- 24 then by God I should be able to drive in at 8 rpms and still get maybe 15 mpg. You are right when you say that people complaining scares people like me. The last thing you want to hear about a sexy sports car with practicality is that it is riddled with problems.

Like I said, maybe im mistaken. what i do like is that most the people who have problems still stand by their baby. that has to mean something. And dont chew me out for simply making my observations. Im not bashing anyones ride. I might just wait till the 05 but who knows.

Gord96BRG

It's all relative - there's around 8 or 9 thousand RX-8s on the streets of North America already, and there's a few here posting about problems. The other 7.9 or 8.9 thousand of us are just enjoying our cars! If you read carefully, you'll see far more of us post in the mileage threads that we're getting 16 to 20+ mpg; it's the 12 or 13 mpg people that are certainly the exception. I don't recall any sucking too much oil, and the rotary is supposed to burn some oil. Adding oil every 1000 miles (usually less often) is NOT a big deal.

All car forums have a constituency that comes to post about problems and look for assistance and solutions - you'll see that in every single auto forum, even for something as dead reliable as Miatas. The problems posts are noticeable, because the vast majority of us who are just driving our cars with no problems don't bother to post "Ho hum, nothing went wrong today either, just another fun day blasting around in my RX-8" all the time! :D

PS - this forum has been around long enough that 10 hours reading isn't NEARLY enough time to get a proper feel for the RX-8's strengths and weaknesses. As you've found, you've just scratched the surface to get an impression of possible trouble areas, but haven't got a good sense of how significant those are. Either keep reading for another 100 or 200 hours, or trust me!

Regards,
Gordon

Haze

Don't sweat it so much. There are alot of loud mouths on this forum.

There are some blown engines, but it seems to be very few and Mazda has been very good about replacing them. Blown engines happen in some numbers with all companies. The mileage thing does seem to be a problem for some, but I have been getting perfectly servicable mileage out of my car for 3,000 miles as have many others.

The only thing that I would say is that you make sure you break the engine in WELL before trying to rev it up or pump in alot of gas. My car has been problem free so far. I really dig it!

Just trust Gord. He ain't lieing, and this is the last of my two cents since I am sure that the flaming will start shortly and I will get lost in the noise as usual.

Genshie

Poor gas milage...well, if you are used to an Accord, then yes, it will seem like poor mileage. The rotary is fuel inefficient no matter how you slice it. Whether it is 20 MPG or 12, that is not stellar for a 1.3 liter engine. Just something you have to live with as a rotary owner (as well as burning oil). The benefits of a rotary far outweigh the negatives. You have highlighted the basic problems a rotary owner can experience. There are many ways to prevent these issues, however. Flooding can be prevented by not cold starting and shutting it off before it is warm...MPG can be improved by being a little more conservative on the gas, etc. Another reason why these cars are not getting the advertised MPG is because of the last minute ECU flash they did at the factory. I heard that Mazda is offering the Mazdaspeed Protege owners a free ECU reflash to improve performance. I am sure that in a few months, they will be offering the same thing to RX8 owners. They definitely made a mistake tampering with the ECU so close to ship date, so I am sure their SW engineers are working on a fix.

Don't let the issues you refer to below scare you off, they are not insurmoutable problems and can be avoided.

Happy Rotoring,

Kurt G.

med_mx6

I too am in the market, but a tad nervous. I have been (lurking) around this board for about a year (already!?!) so I think I can safely say that there are a whole lot more satisfied drivers than dissatisfied drivers. The dissatisfied ones are more vocal and come on the board to bitch, complain, and/or look for help, so the tendency/theme of this board is somewhat negative. There is a "Little Things..." thread (a Sticky now) that you might read to get your confidence back up. I will get this car at some point, but the timing for me isn't quite right. Besides, I do have some concerns (similar to yours) with this "inaugural" model year, so I don't mind waiting for the few (if any) fixes for the '05 model. (Thanks to all those that already made the commitment!)

Interestingly enough, here's the informal satisfaction poll. Given that most people visiting the board are fans of the RX8 and that ~180 votes do not properly represent the thousands of RX8 sold, but notice how many satisfied / highly satisfied votes there are and then compare it to how many negative/complaining threads there are.

RX-8 friend

Personally, I would wait till the 05s. There are a few who returned their cars due to the HP, and got Infiniti G35s. They still wish they had their RX-8s, according to their postings on the G35 part of Edmonds site. More fun to drive and handles better.

From my observations, the few problems with the RX-8 are:
Poor mileage - worse than my 3rd gen RX-7. This may be dealt with soon by Mazda. See Canzoomers latest report.
Some "teething" problems - perhaps the oil pan is the most serious.

It is still a very nice car. Very well thought out. The LED lights in the interior are a very nice touch. It -may- handle even better than my 3rd gen. And it seats 4, comfortably. I have ridden in Canzoomers many times, even in the back. I'm 6', 200 something lbs, and I had plenty of room. Even the front of my 7 is cramped.

swoozie

[The rotary is fuel inefficient no matter how you slice it. Whether it is 20 MPG or 12, that is not stellar for a 1.3 liter engine. Just something you have to live with as a rotary owner (as well as burning oil). The benefits of a rotary far outweigh the negatives.

What are the benefits of a rotary?

Genshie

"What are the benefits of a rotary?"

Uhhh...where do I start?

Here are just a few:

1) Highest HP to Liter ratio of any engine in the world (RENESIS: 240HP in a 1.3L N/A engine...try to find a more powerful motor than that at 1.3 non-turbo)
2) About 30% lighter and more compact than a piston engine in its HP class. This enables it to sit further back and low in the engine bay, giving the new RX8 a perfect 50/50 weight balance and a sub 3000 overall weight...about 300 lbs lighter than a Z.
3) Freely and comfortably revs to 9,000+ RPMs with an ever increasing HP band all the way to redline.
4) Far less moving parts=less things that can break. No pistons, rods, rings, etc to go bad or shoot through the block. Just a rotor and a shaft.

Those are the main points, maybe others can chime in with more.

Happy Rotoring,

Kurt G

Haze

Benefits to a rotary -

Quiet smooth power at all RPM's which makes for very comfortable and quiet cruising.

Free revving engine that feels great to drive.

Light weight and compact package that permits the engine to sit very low in the car as well as fully behind the front axle making the RX 8 one of the best handling cars that you will ever drive by its nature and not through heavy suspension stiffening. Therefore the car has little yaw through corners permitting the car to corner fairly flat at high speeds while having less shock through the spine than other performance cars with the same handling.

The displacement is actually more comparable to a 2.6 litre piston engine due to the way the calculations are made it can be characterised either as a 1.3 litre or a 2.6 litre.

Here is a FAQ that might help:

http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/cfaqmenu.html#FCF

Other than that, you have to drive it to feel it. It's in the upper reve range that the car truly feels great, but the engine also definitely needs to be broken in before it can be driven hard.

Wing

One thing to note from a former owner, there are a few problems with the car, mine was pretty good, no flooding no blown engine, gas mileage was not bad 18-20mpg. I really didn't have too many problems.

But things aren't that rossey with the car either, the "hot " console the a/c isn't the greatest, and the seats especially the passenger seat isn't that great for a long drive.

I've moved on to an S2k which seems more solid in nature, from reading posts on the s2k forum nobody seems to have any gripes! I'm not sure if it's because the riff raff has been weeded out and that is yet to happen here or not.

The RX8 is a great car, fun to drive, and goes like stink (quote from top gear), it is a little quirky so you have to decide if you want to live with those issues.

rabinabo

There are lots of other benefits to the rotary. First of all, go to the Mazda website and look at the way it works first, compared to a piston engine.

The rotary is much smoother. In a piston engine, the pistons are constantly reversing their motion, going up, stopping, going down, stopping.... In a rotary engine, the rotors only move in one direction. This means that a rotary engine can run at much higher speeds than a piston engine, with less vibration.

I personally like it because it's just a beautiful design. The 8 has a few flaws, but it's the only car I out now that will seat 4, look incredible, and put a smile on my face. It is a very well-designed car, built entirely around this unique powerplant.

Back to Giant's concerns. I'm not that worried about the problems, because at least Mazda is fixing those engines under warranty (even replacing them). Even with a very reputable brand like BMW you can have problems, like with the M3 where they even rejected some warranty claims for blown engines (which were factory defects).

Ole Spiff

Guess it depends on the person. I for one am totally happy with my RX8. The car is a blast to drive and a pleasure to own. I just came back from Vegas (I have just over 7k on the car) and I was cruising with the flow of traffic which was moving along at speeds of 80-90. Obviously this isn't the best speeds for gas mileage but I still went from roughly the Ontario International Airport area to Las Vegas on 3/4 tank of gas. That's about 200 miles. The car runs like a champ.

When I was at the Bellagio they were doing security checks for each car as they were moving into the parking area. The security guys were all business until my car was next then they became car enthusiasts. They were grinning from ear to ear, looking everything over, asking me about the features of the car. Finally the lead guy came up to the window and said "this is a BEEUUTIFUL car my friend." He was Italian. We talked a bit and he waved me on through. Now I know they see every kind of car that's available roll through at the Bellagio but it was my blue RX8 that was the show stopper. Priceless.

Whatever problems some are complaining about are really in the minority. The vast majority of owners are very happy with this car. It's well worth owning and Mazda is being very good about fixing any problems that do show up.

This car is obviously the result of genuine enthusiasts who care about driving and performance. Don't hesitate to get an 8; you'll love it.

Ike

1.) As far as I know a 1.3L Rotary translates into a 2.6 liter for a piston engine which makes it so so in the HP per liter department.

2.) Prove it, because I just don't buy it, my car with 4 doors, and a heavy AWD system weighs about the same as an RX-8. Balance maybe, weight I have yet to see anyone prove the renesis weighs less than a high output 4 cylinder.

3.) Maybe a little too comfortable, the car doesn't pull that hard and seems to start falling short 2k before redline. (just observed in my testdrive)

4.) Sounds good, however those far less moving parts have had far more problems throughtout the years than most of the high output piston engines that weigh about the same, or less.

RX-GR8

Ike is back and he isnt wasting anytime trying to denigrate the 8. but its a futile waste of time. :D

Genshie

Ike, C'mon....it's not like you are biased or anything.

How have the "far less moving parts had more problems throughout the years"? As far as I know, I have a 130K mile 89 Rx-7 GTUs that I redline a few times per drive, and the car still has the same amount of power that it did on day 1. I know plenty of other N/A rotary owners with 200K+ miles on their cars. You are probably referring to blown apex seals on the FD...that has nothing to do with the number of moving parts in the motor...that has everything to do with the cooling system and the turbochargers.

Why don't YOU prove that the rotary is not 30% lighter. After all, you are the dude with the WRX in your tagline on an RX8 board. I dont have to prove a dayam thing. Most people here agree with me...that is the benefit of hanging out with a crowd that is biased towards my automotive interests and opinions.

Happy Rotoring

Kurt G.

Ike

Maybe you could find some way to combat my arguments and prove me wrong rather than taking the easy way out?

For instance, I'll start to prove myself wrong... :p

It's not the last 2K that's the problem it's somewhere in the middle that the car felt flat.

So what's the use of a higher redline if the car doesn't make good use of every a portion of the curve?

Find out how much a renesis weighs compared to the similar hp Honda, Subaru, Nissan, Dodge, whatever 4 cylinder engines.

Prove to me 1.3L of displacement is the same as 1.3L of displacement in a cylinder engine.



Ike

Haze

Ike, you don't own the car. You are never going to own the car. So, why are you posting on a thread advising a guy about what the car can do? You have no idea. And as I posted above, the 1.3 in rotary displacement does translate into 2.6 in a piston engine so you aren't really pointing out anything that wasn't posted above.

rabinabo

I tried to google search for the weight specs of the renesis and other rotary engines, but I couldn't come up with anything. Anybody have some hard figures on the weight of the renesis?

As for the displacement of a rotary engine, what should be taken for the displacement? The volume of air taken in during one revolution of the crankshaft, or one revolution of the rotor.... The volume is actually much more difficult to calculate than for piston engines, because there you just calculate the volume of a cylinder (V=pi*r^2*h).

Anyways, why do we care about displacement anyways? Isn't it used simply to convey the size of the engine? It's useful to compare size/power of piston engines, but it clearly doesn't help with comparing pistons with rotaries. Why don't we just compare hp per lb of engine weight?

Ike

I couldn't find a damn thing either, everything just says lightweight for the rotary and various 4 cylinder engines. All I could find was a 13B used for an aircraft application that weighs 345 LBS, but that won't help much. I'm actually very curious about this, car manufacturers throw light weight this light weight that around a lot. But what do these "lightweight engines" actually weigh?

Haze, I missed you pointing out the 1.3L issue. No I don't own the car, yes I could have owned the car, yes I've driven the car. Seems like my opinion has some merit whether you like it or not. I don't think I'm really advising him on the car one way or another.
I just jumped in on the discussion as to why the renesis is better.
I've tried to honestly figure out why people think it's better, in my trying to figure out why it's better all I've been able to come up with is that it's different. I guess some people think different is better just for the sake of being different, but that seems like a pretty weak argument.

So many people say the past rotary problems are due to heat, last time I checked engines of all types make heat. Seems kind of like making a swim suit that is very durable unless you get it wet...


Ike

eugene

I see that Lil' Ike is back with us and up to his same slimy tactics.

Like He said "I'm drawn to it like white trash to Jerry Springer" .....OCD maybe?

Well Lil' One, will you at least acknowlege the fact that "The Stig" from Top Gear got identical road track times out of the M3, 350z, and RX8? And take this as proof that what you perceived as a lack of power in the RX8 has no real world effect on the 8s performance?

This, along with the other videos where the RX8 won on road courses is all the proof I need. Not to mention the excellent autoX record the RX8 is establishing.

OBTW, keep it up. Commodus will speak again. I see a Permanent-Permanent ban in your future.

SA22C

I would like to caution the RX-8 owners from trotting out lap times. I recall a time not too long ago when the RX-8 did fairly poorly in a Best Motoring Vid and everyone fell over themselves denoucing lap times as in indication of performance.

On the other hand, Ike does like to slant things his way, much like RX-8 owners like to think their car is perfect. I don't own a RX-8, but I've been following its development since it was the RX-EVOLV in 1999. The RX-8 does offer a lot of great features and benefits, and it's really quite a deal at 26k.

Benefits:
-> Small package that still seats 4
-> Lightweight compared to other RWD cars, IE: BMW 3 series, 350Z, G35C
-> Very competative performance, especially considering the power deficit
-> Superb chassis that gives the best of both worlds, real world drivability and race track precision.
-> A real head turner. The styling is controversial, to be sure, but you WILL get noticed in a RX-8

Disadvantages:
-> Poor gas mileage. Any way you cut it, 18 MPG isn't that good for city driving.
-> Power issues, Mazda overrated the engine and had to offer a rebate when the power output was revised. This can be mitigated by Canzoomer's ECU mod for a very reasonable price. Check out his section of the vendor forum.
-> No spare tire. The fix a flat kit is useful, but I'd feel a little insecure without a spare, myself.
-> Indifferent A/C, some people have commented on the poor A/C, while others have said that it works great. This is one of those subjective, your mileage may vary situations.
-> Heat from the transmission tunnel, this is typical of Aisin transmissions, many Miata owners have the same gripe.

These are derived from the posts on the board so take them with a grain of salt. My recommendation to you is to take a test drive of the 8 and see how YOU like it. The RX-8 is not the fastest straight line car for $26k, but it offers the most inclusive package of practicality, performance and styling, with few compromises. The engine issues are not a pervasive problem, as much as the Chicken-Littles of this board would like to think so, the sky is not falling.

I would also like to point out that at no point in this post did I mention the rotary engine as a plus or a minus. This car stands on its own merits without the quirky value of the rotary, IMHO. I am a self-professed rotary fanatic and I really like the motors, but the RX-8 is not just a rotary powered vehicle, it is a compact sports sedan with competative performance that happens to have a rotary.

Good luck.

RX-GR8

in the middle or at 7k-9k my engine doesnt feel flat at all. it actually starts to come to life there. becuase your test car did you think they all have this "problem". cant find the exact weight yet. just mentions its lighter and smaller than piston engines in the same range. thats good enough for me.

eugene

Yes I do agree that Lil' Ike does have a tendency to exaggerate and twist the truth for his own devious reasons.

I have seen four videos that featured the RX8 in action. Three were race settings and one was timed laps. In three out of the four The RX8 either won out right or tied. This provides a preponderance of evidence that supports my claim that the RX8 has performance equal to or better than most cars in its class.

Lil' Ike provides not much evidence at all, save the impressions he gained from a few minutes test driving.

How much credibility does Lil' Ike have on this board? What are his impressions worth? Comic relief at best.

Sorry Ike

rabinabo

I wouldn't be so quick to debunk the Stig lap times. These are lap times by one single driver on the same track, which makes it a more valid comparison between cars. The videos I've heard of where the 8 gets whipped (although I haven't seen it) is a race with different drivers, so we can't really account for ability or how much practice they had with their cars.

Ike

Call me slanted all you like, but I agree with your points and have said the very same things many times. However I still fail to see the benefit of the rotary over a high output lightweight 4 cylinder. Which I believe is what we were discussing.

Renotse, why are you posting under the screen name Eugene, it's pretty sad whoever you are that you feel the need to made a seperate account to bash me. What even more sad is that you feel the need to search out what I've posted on other message boards and then take it out of context. FYI to everyone, my screen name at Nasioc is Lil' Ike. Grow up!