oil change / adding oil
 

I only have about 300miles on my rx8 so far and i was wondering if any of other owners were able to get away just going to the oil change at 3000 or 5000 miles without having to add oil yourself?

Based on my experience I would not recommend taking that risk. I found that my particular car went down over halfway on the dipstick after 1200 miles (yours may be different). At 2000 miles I would have been below the 'LOW' mark. Just check the oil every 1000 miles and fill up if needed - it only takes a few minutes.

is it 1 quart of oil from low to full?

For me 1 quart was just over halfway from low to full. I used Castrol GTX 5W-20, and still have about 22 quarts left in the garage which I won't be needing any more.

You've got to check oil at least every other fill. I just changed my oil for the first time at 2400 miles. Before that I had to add at least 2 1/2 qts. to keep it near the top of the stick. Checking only takes moments.

At 1000 miles I found that the car had used 1/3 (it was at 2/3 between LOW and HIGH)
At 1500 miles I found that it had used 2/3 (it was at 1/3)

So it seems like each 500 miles eat up 1/3 and at the beginning it was overfilled.

So I filled it up at 1500 and I check every 500 miles = every second time at the gas station. I've got 2800 miles now, it's soon time again.

I'll have the first oil change at 5000 miles.

-Peter

Might be a silly question but (this is coming form someone that never had to add oil), in this car i need to remove that engine cover to in order to find the cap to remove to put oil in right?

so lets say i'm getting gas at the gas station, i should let the engine cool for 5 minutes and then pop open the hood, check the oil using the dipstick. Remove the engine cover, find the oil cap, remove it and pour oil. When it's no on full oil up to the full mark?

Did i miss anything?

thanks!

I believe the difference below the high and low marks on the dipstick is 1.8 US quarts.

you got it meeh. that's pretty much the procedure. the 5 minutes is not an exact 300 seconds, and you can pop the hood before you get out to start fueling, etc. The engine cover is easy to pop off - I'm surprised you haven't removed it a few times already to show those who want to 'see the engine'! Make sure you put the filler lid back on! Eccles is right - 1.8 qt from low to high mark. I usually add around 6 ounces of oil when I add to keep it within a few ounces of 'full'. Mine was the lowest ever this morning before I took it in for oil change #2 (first free from the warranty deal) at 1/2 way between low and high.

I think to check it every other fillup is a bit too much, i check mine every 2000Km ( 1200 miles) and never had a problem where it is too low. I used to put way more in my RX-7 (a quart every 700 miles) . Stop worrying about oil, it burns a bit of it but it's nothing to have nightmares about. Drive more and worry less.

Yeah, according to the manual, the oil level is perfectly ok between the 2 marks on the dipstick. Don't be so constantly worried about having too low of oil. They designed the engine with oil burning in mind so there's a large reserve of oil in the engine in the first place. That's why the level is perfectly safe between the two marks on the dipstick, or before approximatly 1.8 qts of oil is burned off.

oil checking
 

My wife drives the car most of the time to work and back. All i do to releave my worries of this oil issue is check it once a week after she has pulled into the garage and said her hello. Just wait a few minutes and check the oil once in a while.

P.S. i would think that anyone that chose to buy this particular car would actually enjoy having a reason to open the hood. That way your friends and family dont think that you are just obsessed with the car. God i look forward to popping the hood every day just to oooh and ahhh over the peice of art that i bust my ass at work for every day.

one more peice of advice: Love it or Leave it.

Re: oil checking
 

I feel the same way! :D

I put in a 1/4 qt at 1600 miles not bad. I found Castrol 5w-20w at Walmart and will use that.

i put in half a quart @ 1200 probably more than needed but better more than less

At 2000 miles, my oil level was half way between low and high. This seems consistent with what everyone else is experiencing.

i would say thats the norm also, i am curious to see if this will be a consistant rate or if it will slow down or be more after all the metal parts have really seated in and worn down a bit.

The factory sugests that you check after each fuel fill.....however the design engineers from Mazda designed the engine to go 10,000 mile without adding oil. In my first RX-8 I could go between oil changes (3000 miles Mobil 1 0-w40) with-out the addition of any oil.

My new RX-8 has only 900 miles and has not used any oil.
By design of course the engine uses oil, just a lot less than the older Wankel designs.

Kind regards,
Doug

I never had to do any oil add to my FD. If the oil is seriously low beyond the low mark, the warning light would come on. I would suggest that you check it a few times to determine if your engine is burning up oil and then determine if you still need to monitor it every other fillup. You don't really need to let the engine cool to check oil level. Just pop the hood, start filling up gas and read the dip stick. Most of the oil will be back to the pan after a min or two.

Hey Gang,

I appreciate all who post info. on this site. It seems there are few people, dealers included, who actually know what they are talking about without actually making the payments and driving a rotary/RX. That being said, let me tell you how I use my trip A/trip B odometers with regard to fuel economy monitor and oil check reminder.

What I do is use my trip A odo. for fuel fills and calculate my fuel economy, etc. I use my trip B to see when I last checked the oil level. When I top off the tank, I reset A, and when I top off tank and check the oil, I reset both A and B.

As much oversight as such a hi-po engine needs, we can all use help in engine management.

Whaddaya think? Thanks.

Ray

I had just planned on checking oil every 500 miles. I reset trip A everytime I fill up. I used trip B to measure home to work...now I have no use for trip B :p

NOW THAT'S A GOOD IDEA!!!

Here is what happened to me. At about 400 miles, my oil level light came on. I was driving pretty fast at the time so I pulled over to check it out. My oil level looked ok, even though the engine was hot. So to me that told me that maybe the engine was drawing enough oil to bring the level below the sensor. So I checked it again the next day with just a warm engine and it was near full. So I thought just something was screwy with the sensor.

A few weeks later, the light started comming on again so I checked the oil level. This time it was near the LOW line. So I decided to fill it up. Well I did not read the manual on how much there should be between the LOW line and the FULL line. I warmed up the engine and poured a quart of oil in. The level still showed less than halfway between the LOW and FULL lines. So I poured one more quart in and the level barely went up. So we took the car out for a while and saw that the low level light did not go on. What did light up was the Check Engine light. So I looked through the book and saw that it was 1.7 Quarts between LOW and FULL. When I checked the level once I got home, it was above FULL which is why the light came on. After discussing it with the dealer who is 90 minutes away at 80 mph, we decided the best course of action was to drain some of the oil out of the pan to get the level below FULL.

Well this turned into another big mess since the oil did NOT come out of the pan slowly, nor was I ready for the mess it made. :) So now everything is better. I still need to go in to get the check engine light turned off, but it was an interesting lesson on how this car works.

I noticed some 1/3 oil loss over my first 1600 miles, but that is the point at which I had my oil pan replaced under the TSB since the light kept coming on at speeds over 70. My service manager was able to have the pan overighted by FEDEX and replaced the afternoon after I called (only a 2 hour procedure). They performed a full service oil change at that time even though they only had to put clean oil in after swapping the pan. They also checked my CPU for any other malfunction codes and found none (yes the showed me the results). I will keep an eye on mine just because this is my first rotary and I love this car too much to screw up something so simple to monitor...

I have never added oil yet. I have around 2200 miles on it. It was changed once just to check on some condensation when I first got the car. Every other fill up does not seem necessary.......I'd say you are safe every 1000 miles or so....based on my experience so far...but who am I?? Follow the manual suggestions.