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Problems of RX-8s are mostly due to first year (2004), automatics, neglect or little maintenance & hot climates. Add a totally ignorant owner and you have a recipe for disaster.
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Originally Posted by delhi
(Post 2968858)
Problems of RX-8s are mostly due to first year (2004), automatics, neglect or little maintenance & hot climates. Add a totally ignorant owner and you have a recipe for disaster.
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I am a recent purchaser of a Copper Red 30k mile '06 Shinka. (Frickin' love it! Gorgeous color.) The car is an AT and in great running condition and I would like to keep it that way. I have been lurking around this site for years reading up on everything that I can so that when I bought one I could keep her in top form.
I travel 20 miles interstate daily for work and know enough about cars and general maintenance to get me by. When it comes to red-lining the 8, you guys are telling me to shift to manual and get on it from time to time? Thanks all. |
^yes.
you should immediately notice the engine idles and revs smoother after a nice thrashing :) |
Originally Posted by exigent
(Post 2968966)
I am a recent purchaser of a Copper Red 30k mile '06 Shinka. (Frickin' love it! Gorgeous color.) The car is an AT and in great running condition and I would like to keep it that way. I have been lurking around this site for years reading up on everything that I can so that when I bought one I could keep her in top form.
I travel 20 miles interstate daily for work and know enough about cars and general maintenance to get me by. When it comes to red-lining the 8, you guys are telling me to shift to manual and get on it from time to time? Thanks all. Go into first, second, or third (depending on where you are), bring it up until you hear the beep, and keep it there for a bit before shifting or letting off. That's what I've been doing with mine. You really can't reach the 9k people stated since the AT is limited to about 8k or 8.5k (I forget), and you'll just bounce off it. |
I wondered if anyone has changed their engines other than 04-05 owners. Since Mazda screwed up on those batches and fixed the other years (06-?), wouldn't those cars be in terrific condition?
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Sounds good. I will do that first thing tomorrow.
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Originally Posted by shazy
(Post 2969049)
I wondered if anyone has changed their engines other than 04-05 owners. Since Mazda screwed up on those batches and fixed the other years (06-?), wouldn't those cars be in terrific condition?
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Originally Posted by JinDesu
(Post 2969015)
Yes, that's what I read from all the other threads about maintenence.
Go into first, second, or third (depending on where you are), bring it up until you hear the beep, and keep it there for a bit before shifting or letting off. That's what I've been doing with mine. You really can't reach the 9k people stated since the AT is limited to about 8k or 8.5k (I forget), and you'll just bounce off it. |
Originally Posted by shazy
(Post 2969049)
I wondered if anyone has changed their engines other than 04-05 owners. Since Mazda screwed up on those batches and fixed the other years (06-?), wouldn't those cars be in terrific condition?
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I guess that this is another similar thread having to do with renesis engine life span. I have started one also and many people will do the same.
I think that you cannot compare renesis life span with a classic piston engine. In this point somebody will quote me an example that the 4.0 liter piston engine died at 20K. Yes all the engine have the tendency to wear and die but you should take a representative sample if you want to compare rotary with piston engines concerning life span. So people still searching to find out, what is wrong with renesis engines died early. Is it the maintenance ? Is it the difference kind of treatment and use? Some say the OMP is a failure and you need premix. Some premix after 2 years and it is already late. Some premix from the first day and still their engine dies early. Some just change often their oil and the engine lasts more than 100K. Some say to redline everyday. I know people that redline everyday and they were left with no apex seals. Some say no to red line but yes to WOT in order to burn the carbon. A lot of people and tech ones also say a lot of things. MAZDA say nothing !!! Just produces a Face lift with better lubrication to the apex seals. So what do you do? You premix, you redline, you change your oil every 3K, you change your plugs, coils every 30K, you have to take care for your fuel pump filter and someday after all these you measure your compression and you find it low or near the min specs. I believe that they are so many factors that affect the renesis life span that it is not possible to account all of them. You maintain according to your knowledge of the rotaries and this is the key to the equation. More knowledge about how renesis works better maintenance. This entails premix, frequent oil changes, careful use at high temps, good fuel quality, WOT to blow off carbon, care for the ignition systems that means, plugs, coils, etc, care for fuel supply and fuel filter. Welcome to the Rotary World. |
So there is no specific reason why running the rotary engine hard most of the time is better for it than babying it? I can understand why you'd want to blow out the carbon for it every now and then, but run it hard all the time? Hocus pocus!
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Originally Posted by amacrx8
(Post 2969538)
So there is no specific reason why running the rotary engine hard most of the time is better for it than babying it? I can understand why you'd want to blow out the carbon for it every now and then, but run it hard all the time? Hocus pocus!
So use premix to protect your renesis at all times and WOT at 6000rpm.to burn the carbon Good fuel quality and change at 3k your oil. Change your plugs and coils at 20K and do not abuse the engine at high temps. This will probably make your renesis to last for a lot of miles. |
Originally Posted by carcrazy95
(Post 2965576)
Reading the various threads on premature 'engine failures', I'm wondering if there is a correlation between early engine death and poor maintenance (and long life with good care), more so than would be seen with "conventional" engines.
By definition, if you're here on this forum, then you're into cars, and almost certainly give your car much higher than average care. Gearheads are into cars, we like to drive them and know how to take care of them. But that's not most of the population. Most people could care less about changing their oil or doing anything else to take care of their car. So many people I know do nothing but put gas in their car - ever (my mother in law was shocked when her Chrysler's engine blew at 24,000 miles; when I asked her how often she changed the oil, she was incredulous, and honestly surprised and said "You mean you have to change the oil in the engine?!?"). My old secretary got her first oil change on her Toyota at 30,000 miles - after I had a seizure when she told me she had never had it changed (I wouldn't want to buy that car, it was a miracle it was still running). The rotary is more sensitive to and needing of admittedly simple maintenance than the typical piston engine. I'm thinking mostly of the need to periodically check and add oil. Most of the (non-car) people I know have literally never checked their oil in their cars, and don't even know how to do it. A Toyota might go (for a while....) without ever checking the oil and changing it every 10k miles, but, not a Wankel. I wonder if there is a correlation with rotary engines failing in the hands of people who treat them "like any other Japanese car", never check the oil, and try to drive them for many thousands of miles between oil changes - which in a rotary will result in a dry sump and a fried engine. I'm sure there are people here that have fastiduously cared for their cars and still had engines die, but I'm curious if anyone thinks there is a particularly strong relationship between more "casual" treatment of this particular engine and early rotary death? The corallary, I wonder if those that have the highest (trouble-free) mileage from their engines might be the ones that are also particularly meticulous about checking oil level and other maintenance? Why's that, you ask? Because I don't believe Mazda, or any other auto manufacturer, would extend the warranty on an engine from 60,000 miles to 100,000 miles if the reason there were issues were due to poor/lack or maintenance by the owners. Mazda would NOT lose as much money on the Rotary rebuild/replace program as they are if it boiled down to "poor maintenance" by owners... Not to mention, there wouldn't have been several different oil metering revisions over the years to the ECU, because if the engines were just failing due to people not taking care of their engine, there wouldn't be a need to change the rate of oil injection... While I'm willing to bet SOME engine failures have been user error, I don't think any car company in the world would voluntarily increase the warranty period and replace engines without questioning if they could use "poor maintenance" as a reason to deny a claim. |
Originally Posted by amacrx8
(Post 2969538)
So there is no specific reason why running the rotary engine hard most of the time is better for it than babying it? I can understand why you'd want to blow out the carbon for it every now and then, but run it hard all the time? Hocus pocus!
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Originally Posted by Renesis07
(Post 2966146)
Standard oil change interval on ANY car is 3-5K miles
(psst... "standard" intervals are almost ALWAYS 7,500 miles. "severe duty" intervals are almost always 3,500 to 5,000 miles...but whether people want to believe it or not, MOST people are NOT "severe duty" drivers) |
Originally Posted by amacrx8
(Post 2969538)
So there is no specific reason why running the rotary engine hard most of the time is better for it than babying it? I can understand why you'd want to blow out the carbon for it every now and then, but run it hard all the time? Hocus pocus!
Originally Posted by amacrx8
(Post 2969174)
Is this based on some sort of engineering principle? I still haven't heard anyone explain it.
http://www.tocmp.com/manuals/engine/...taryTheory.htm It's somewhere in there, regarding the cleaning of the plugs when the engine reaches higher RPMS. If you don't redline (or at least get the engine to a good RPM), it could foul the lagging set of plugs. |
The Renesis is very sensitive to carbon build up specifically around the apex seals and around the intake port valves. Some high RPM in any engine tends to burn off excess carbon deposits and the rotary is no exception.
I would like to warn people however that high RPM without proper engine warmup may damage the engine and negate the benefits. Also running the engine hard just before shutting down may result in damage as well so bit of easy running before shut down is probably a good idea. Run it hard but look after it and it should last a long time. P.S. Hey, post 3000 |
Out of curiosity, how much does an out of warranty engine replacement cost at a dealership?
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Geeze I can type for weeks on this subject....mostly personal opinions though, if you ask any of our supervisors at work they would tell you this especailly after getting my last review a few weeks back(good review but yeah I am a arguer).
My opinion is simple, design changes, exhaust ports were moved to the intermediate/front/rear housing as opposed to the rotor housings from previous motors, apex seals get carbon and cant push it out and the small exhaust holes on the walls dont help the side seals out too much either imo. There are those people who dont maintain there rotary though and that is a significant amount of the engines we get. There are a lot of people who bought the car and dont know the engine at all, they dont rev it up at all..so on. Just a few things that people already said as usual. As for the increase in the warranty mileage, I dont know the real answer but my way to defend the idea that its due to the engines being poor is that it could have been a competitive move towards the other sport cars that all got the 100k miles warranties that started a few years back when hyundai did that 10yr/100k miles warranty or whatever they did. It may have been a sales move. I know that the rx7 remans run $3-4k at a dealer core charge is in that price but I dont know how much they give for the core at a dealer, the 09's are brand new engines as of right now if you buy a 09 reman but its different wiring, I wonder if we will ever get around to building them but they haven't had any issues with them on the road outside of road damage to the enigne and non internal issues. |
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