toxin440

hi all, im a new owner of an 8, had it for a month, and have put almost 5000 miles on it (i drive 1000 miles a week for work)

anyways, I know the rotary eats oil by design, and ive been diligent in checking and adding oil. My question is, my oil light has come on twice (only for about 1 minute each time) and its worrying me. My oil pressure guage is about 2 notches ABOVE, the middle mark. So im getting conflicting signals here.

I want to add some oil, but the oil pressure guage has me confused, in the manual it says that exacly in the middle is where the oil pressure guage is supposed to be, what does it mean if if is slightly above that? too much oil in the engine? or what?

Please give me some advice as I have a 300 mile trip ahead of me tommorow.


Thanks
Jeff

xrider01

for the oil pressure part, it's fine where it's at, no need to worry about it. mine has been in the same location as yours since i got mine 8 months and 22.5k miles later. oil pressure is basically there to tell you if you have a hole in your engine and oil is leaking out hardcore status.

for the light, check your oil. depending on how much you baby your car, or how hard you push your car will determine how often you need to add oil. my oil light normally comes on around 1.5k miles (give or take 200 miles), and all i have to do to shut it off is just add another quart of oil. though i usually add oil before my light does come on.

EDIT:
you say you've driven 5k miles already. have you even done your first oil change yet? that could also be a reason why it has been turning on.

Marc_GS

The oil pressure gauge isn't actually a gauge at all. All it does is point near the middle if there is "enough" oil pressure. The best way to check oil level is with the dipstick. I check every two fill-ups and so far it loses less than 1/2 litre in that time (I've only had the car for a month and a half though.) Don't wait for a light to come on before adding oil.

toxin440

thanks for the info guys I actually went out and picked up a quart of 5W30 from wally world the other day, because I know i need to add some before my trip tommorow.

Happy driving!

ZoomZoomH

iTrader: (1)

you should get 5w20.... though 5w30 will be fine as well...

mamccubbin

Jeff,

Where do you live? I live in Wisconsin, and sometimes I notice that when it first gets cold out, the light comes on for a few minutes now and then when the oil is just a little bit low. And as others have said, the pressure gauge is just a dummy gauge and basically acts as a yes/no indicator for pressure. Like yours, mine is always just a couple of notches above the middle.

jcataldo

I noticed my oil light comming on now. It's my first winter. I checked the oil and it needed a litttle. Added a half a quart and today the oil light came on again first thing in the morning. It was very cold. Any help would be great!!

Thanks,
Joe

msrecant

The "gauge" on the dash is simply an analog idiot light for low/no oil pressure. The exact position of the needle on the "gauge" is meaningless as it is either all the way to the left (low/no oil pressure) or somewhere in the middle (acceptable oil pressure). Racing Beat claims that the gauge will never read all the way to the left, but I have not found a confirmation of that on this forum.

The "light" on the dash indicates a low oil level condition as measured in the oil pan. It comes on when the oil level drops below specification (1/4 above the L on dipstick) There was a TSB issued about an oil pan design issue that resulted in the light coming on erroneously (http://www.finishlineperformance.com...13-04-1341.pdf) but that was fixed pretty early on in the 2004 production cycle.

therm8

I've consistently noticed that long trips use much more oil than my daily commute. It doesn't make sense, but that's how my car works. You could also have the old oil pan issue. Does the light come on under acceleration/cornering? At 1000 miles/week you will be adding oil more frequently. I usually add 1/2 a quart every 1500 miles or so.

Krankor

So I'm a good rotary owner and check the oil frequently. So this question is purely hypothetical:

If one *did* ignore the oil, and the level got low such that the oil light came on... is that low enough that you've done some damage? And is it different for rotary vs. traditional piston engine? I ask because my old beater Toyota I had before my 8 apparently had an oil leak somewhere and used to go through a bit of oil, and I didn't discover this until the oil light came on. After that I always kept the oil topped off, but I always wondered if I'd done any damage.

msrecant

The RX-8 light indicates oil level not pressure. It comes on when the oil level drops below specification (1/4 above the L on dipstick) so no, the light coming on briefly would not indicate damage. However, if you drove a really long time with the light on the level could get low enough to result in damage (500-1,500 miles).

Piston engines turn a light for low oil pressure. If it goes on it indicates that the engine is running without sufficient oil pressure. If it comes on for any substantial duration (10s of seconds or minutes) it results in damage. I'm not sure exactly how long you can run an engine without oil pressure before damage occurs.