Oil consumption
 

Since we know you might have to add oil in between oil changes, has anyone seen a drop in oil level yet? It'd be good to start getting a feel for how far you have to go before really needing to do this. Does oil consumption vary with your driving style, or should it be pretty much constant no matter how you drive?

Having driven over 500,000 miles in rotary cars i will tell you all i consider this a non-issue. The worst oil consumption was probably 1 quart in 1500 miles.
I change my oil in my 1995 RX7 at 3000 miles + or - and it may be slightly low. Never more than a quart. I dump the oil, put in 4 and leave it alone for the next 3000 miles. So much i read on the web is from old stories from the 1960's rotary days and mazdas experiments with the motor. I still here people say they have heard apex seals dont last long...lol...very old news, no longer true as of about 1970.

Hey, great first post samurai. Welcome to the fray, er, forum.

Thanks wannabe,
i am full of it...oops i mean THEM

while we r on the subject of oil, how many miles till the first oil change?

Ali at Irvine Mazda said 7500miles! which I thought was way too long. When I kept pushing him on it he said OK, bring it in at 3700. I think he said it just to get me to shut up, but I think 3700 is too long, but I haven't had a new car in quite some time, so maybe this is now the norm. Maybe I'll take it in at 2000 just to get to stop thinking about it.

I also think the MT oil ought to be changed before 60k, which is when the owners manual says is time.

According to the manual, 7500 under normal driving conditions or 5000 under harsh conditions meaning: Repeated short trips (engine oil doesn't adequately warm up) or dusty conditions or extended use of brakes or salt/corrosive environments or rough/muddy roads or extended idling/low speed or long periods of cold or humid conditions.

Funny thing, as I was getting my car the sales rep actually put a red tab on the "harsh conditions" page and said "This is the schedule you have to follow." I said, well I don't drive short trips or those other things. Her reply, it doesn't matter, it's the California climate. All cali dealerships are following this guidance. So I asked, which cali climate is that? Freezing up in the mountains? City driving? Death valley? Coastal living? Central valley (flat agricultural land.) If "California climate" dictates followng the harsh schedule, that basically means every climate in the world has to.

Obviously, her training dictated such a brief, just like they dictate Premium despite what MNOA and owners manual say. Sorry for the rant, this kinda thing just sets me off. I'm gonna follow the 7500 oil change interval as per the owners manual. Anything else is just an urban legend.

aww irvine mazda[shakes head]. i was also surprised that they actually charge you for regulary schedualed oil changes!!! what the hell is that??!?!? thats suppose to be under warranty.

when i had my bmw thru crevier bmw, they paid for EVERYTHING.

It was critical to change the oil in the 3rd Gen RX-7 at 2500 - 3000 miles. Reason behind it is that the oil is circulated thru the turbos which run very hot (I used my IR temp gun and got 700+ F). The excessive heat cooks the oil.

You can send samples of your engine oil to labs and have it tested for metal contents, viscosity, water, fuel, etc. You should send two samples of your oil in ( at 3000 & 7500 Mile intervals) and see how comprable the results are. I'm not going to risk the engines longevity and performance over a few bucks. If you DIY it takes about 20 minutes & $12 for the filter and oil.

I think that's an upscale thing for the BMW MB crowd. I don't think many other car makers do that.

It's funny how the rules are different in different countries - guess just because you US guys do so many more miles than we do in Japan.

I took the car in for an oil change at 1000km and have another scheduled at 4000km. I've done almost 3000km now and the oil level is down to half so just considering topping it up.

Not sure if this is specific to my car but the oil light will come on if I hold at a constant speed on the highway for a few minutes at around 5k rpm. It'll switch off if you drop the speed and back on if you go back to a constant speed again. Doesn't happen below 120km/h. Has been the same since new - happens between 130-160km/h.

I've put over 1000 miles on my RX-8 in one week(damn I love this car). I checked the oil last night and it the level is less than 1/4 of the way down from the full line. I have only been hitting the redline in the last 300 miles or so.

I do not know what full/low line oil level variance is, but I figure at least another 3000 miles until it gets to the add oil mark.

Of course, I won't wait that long to add oil.

[/CLOSES EYES AND WISHES I WAS DRIVING]

Most vehicles require 1 quart added from low-full on the oil dipstick (USA)

I always change oil to the brand I will use for the life of my car @500 miles then again every 3000 after that. (I change my own oil with pennzoil)

That may be that I am too careful, but what is $12 on a $30,000 car

I talked to the guys touring the country in the RX-8s when they stopped by Carson and they have 16,000 miles on the cars. They said they haven't had any problems with oil consumption and they were following the Mazda recommended oil change interval every 5,000 miles.

oil usage
 

It should vary according to how hard you drive- if you are doing a lot of high RPM driving it should increase the oil consumption. I checked mine Friday morning before running the "Gap" Friday - it was down about 1/8" - by Saturday morning, it was down enough that I added 8 oz. - about 1/3" down before that. After adding it was about back up to the 1/8" from top level. I wasn't getting consisten readings so I didn't add more. It would seem close to 1 qt / 8000-10,000 range.

Okay, I get it now.

I will only drive my car in miles per hour to avoid that metric speed issue.;) ;)

Hello, JSG.

That is a well known problem in the initial lot of the RX-8 at least on the web. Some of the guys in Japan have been reported the oil light over 5000rpm.
From I've heard, that tends to happen especially at high speed and also when you go downhill.

I've read some reports on the web which said that the dealership could exchange the oil pan with modified one if the customer complain about this.
But, as is the often case with dealership, the stance toward this problem will change dealership to dealership.

Third post:

http://www.rx8forum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7494

Vince

Here's a question about the oil changes:

Do you guys think it'd be prudent to do the first oil change on these new cars at about the 3000 mark regardless? Simply because there could be debris left over from the assembly process still in the engine? Also I'm thinking tiny bits of metal, dirt etc. would be more likely in this first cycle since so many of the parts haven't been worn in yet.

Or am I just being overly cautious? :)

Not
 

Yes. You are being way over cautious. Modern engines like the Renesis don't have any "little bits of metal" or anything else. This notion harkens from the days of old when machining of parts and angines wasn't so precise.
Change your oil at %,000 miles (harsh driving according to the manual) and save yourself some money and help reduce the spent oil that accumulates. :p

eh?
 

did you mean 5,000?

hehe, i figured at much. Thanks boowana. :)

I now have 1000 miles on my RX8. I have checked the oil 6 times. It was perferctly on the full line when I got it, and it still is today. Three of the times I deviated from the method described in the owners manual and came up with 2 over full indication when cold and 1 below full indication immediately after turning it off. If you follow the manual, which says warm it to temperature, turn it off, wait 5 minutes, then check it, you will have no problem. It has been right on the full line every time I followed the directions to the T. Best thing is after driving park it on level ground (garages are good for this) turn it off, and time 5 minutes (not 2 or 10), check the oil, it will be accurate. If you check it hot without the 5 minute wait, it will appear low, and you will overfill it. Sorry for the length, but I feel this is an important fact for new owners to understand

The salesman I dealt with seemed pretty knowledgeable.

Then again, while shopping for cars recently I have found that--more often than not--I am considerably more knowledgeable than they are.

Anyway, my salesman told me four things which had me scratching my head a bit.

1) "This car burns oil, check it every other fillup". I suppose all gas engines will burn up *some* oil, and it can't hurt to check it this often, but he was talking as though the Renesis is a two-stroke or something. It can't possibly burn THAT much oil; otherwise it would fail the strict modern emissions tests, plain and simple.

2) "Use 5W20 oil". Hmm. This is in Texas, mind you. I looked in the owners manual, and there is a picture of a 5W20 bottle...but the wording is somewhat ambiguous, saying something like "use the appropriate oil for your climate". Which locally, seems to be 30W in the summer, not 20. I'm not even sure if I could find 20W oil without looking a bit.

3) "Don't use synthetic oil". The manual said absolutely nothing of this. If the engine is really burning significant amounts of oil, I could understand, since synthetic oil is designed to not burn up easily. But if I can, I'll take synthetic oil every time--my old pickup has a minimum 150,000 miles on it and still runs strong! Full synthetic every time. I'd like to see the same long life for my new baby of course.

4) "Don't start the engine for short periods of time if you can avoid it. If you can't, then rev the motor up to about 4,000 RPM for 30 seconds or so--this will bring up the operating temperature and burn off the oil. Otherwise, the motor won't get hot enough and the oil will foul your plugs." Again, I saw nothing like this in the manual. And making a modern car with a motor that's not idiot-proof would seem dumb in this day and age.

I've come to find out that many car salesmen will blow smoke up your butt just to keep you from walking off (ie, the guy at the Ford dealer trying to tell me the Roush Mustang had a supercharger when there blatantly was NOT one there lol). Then again, this guy's speech sounded like something he had been exhaustively coached on by overly cautious bosses. Has anyone else encountered this?

I'm also in the dark on this subject. There's been some interesting threads about that on this forum. I'm torn between all the conflicting information I've seen. The ECU may be programmed for 5W20 weight, and I'm a little leery of using a higher viscosity, but I'm still reading all I can. There more be more to it than the outside ambient temp. I live in TX also.