Lol, 47K and you haven't had any engine problems?..... and that's something to brag about? You must have low expectations! You do realize most modern engines would do three times that mileage and not have problems either....

Unsurprisingly, proper maintenance does wonders for the longevity for most engines. Can't help but think you're just looking for excuses for the unreliability of the Renesis, without acknowledging the facts and the elephant in the room.

Heck, it's a pretty obvious issue when even long term Mazda rotary owners acknowledge the Renesis is an embaressment, or Rotary workshops love the RX8's only cause they keep them busy with rebuilds...... but hey, if it makes you feel better on your purchase, lets all keep pretending these issues are simply related to improper maintenance :icon_tup:

Your mileage is relatively low, though. Any wear from the lack of centre injector may not be apparent yet.

New York isn't that hot from what I have looked up. Idling in the middle of Texan/Californian (40+C/104+F) summer is a different story.

As for "Americans can't check oil level", I don't think our friends on the other side of the pond is particularly better.

And heh, the Owner's Manual does say 8k miles between oil changes are fine, at least in certain regions. Even the Canadian schedule says 5k miles...

Put it this way: I call BS on the whole "50k miles and the engine is toast" thing, but you have to admit it has some poor design decisions, and that's fine. Every car does. Does it get in the way of me enjoying the car? No. I still like it.

Either way, OP has an RX-7. If he can put up with an RX-7, an RX-8 should be no problem.

S1 radiator core is quite a bit thinner than S2 unit, though.

TBF they addressed some issues with the Renny. There are some good design choices.

Really, the big problem is that the emission laws are getting more and more ridiculous, to the point that companies have to either cheat(VW is not alone now) or come up with untested technology to meet over-the-top standards.

Even reliable cars like Honda isn't much better off nowadays. Google "Honda VCM lawsuit" and "Honda 1.5T oil dilution". What an embarrassment to the company that built the legendary F20C.

They may have addressed some issues, but they obviously didn't address enough, and then created more.

Sure, emissions compliance is the big reason the Mazda rotary evolved into the Renesis. But its the same playing field every other manufacturer were/are playing in too. Plenty of vehicle manufacturers have managed to still design and fit performance engines to production vehicles that have shown to be vastly more reliable, and needing less ongoing, specialized pampering, compared to what the Renesis does...

Don't get me wrong, I'm a rotary guy through and through. Have been daily driving and racing rotaries long before they were even mainstream popular. Probably built over 50 engines, from stock 10A through to ported and turbocharged 20B engines fitted to dragsters, and then everything in between. So I'm not hating on the rotary, but just trying to be honest and pragmatic with what Mazda did with the Renesis, which was take a design that already had a shaky reputation for reliability and simply made it even worse - not by a little bit, but by a lot.

It's funny then to read forum posts where people try to justify the fragility of the motor on every other possible aspect, other than the obvious fundamental and inherit flaws in the design. In this day and age of technology, advanced materials and quality control, it's simply not acceptable to me that a mass produced engine could be so consistently unreliable, given what they should have learnt from their earlier motors.

Yeah so to the original poster: if you're OK with our little theater here, then welcome aboard! This is rotary ownership.

Lol, that was great. if you really want to see some heated debate hope on the 7 club and look up if OMP is better then Pre-mixing. I honestly believe Mazda should have the OMP use 2-cycle or similar instead of the oil from the pan. They maybe able to improve emission with the correct oil.

I honestly believe that the RX-8 would look a lot better if people stopped comparing it to a FD. IIRC the FD sold for about the same in 1993 and the RX-8 did 20 years later. Which is Corvette money. The RX-7 people should be comparing it to is the S5 (89-91) NA FC with the back seat or 2+2. That car was rated at about 150hp or so, you couldn't fit any adults in the back seat, where as the RX-8 has the most roomy back seats of anything that is a sporty coupe.

Well, considering the intelligence of an average car owner, they had to use 4-stroke oil. Some lubrication is better than none(running out of 2-stroke in a separate reservoir).

And yeah, 8 isn't comparable to FD at all. The FD was possible because before the economy bubble burst in Japan, a lot of Japanese car makers were making cars before they even consider the possibility that these cars probably won't sell. The 20B-REW Eunos Cosmo is a perfect example before Mazda actually went on and made the Amati V12 car they had in their plan...

On "design issues":

Consistently short lifespan would point to either:

1. Insanely bad design -- like, the kind that the most basic testing regime would catch -- or
2. Sacrificing longevity for some other goal, on purpose, in a calculated way.

Pretty clear that neither is the case with the Renesis. Mazda is neither incompetent enough for #1 nor foolish enough for #2.

When engines are troublesome, it's because of some combination of the following:

1. The design and development process didn't properly simulate real-world conditions
2. The design itself is too sensitive to something or other
3. Manufacturing problems

When those things happen, you don't expect all engines to die early. You expect variation. Many engines would die early, but some would last a long time. The same is true of any complex manufactured part.

That's exactly what happens with the Renesis.

I would be one to agree, but diesel engine use DEF now and owners seem to be ok with that. It would really get rid of the whole though process of, "rotary engine burns motor oil, that means the engines are poorly made."

IIRC Mazda had an issue with quality control for MY 2004-2006 because Ford was involved and it was causing problems. I was told that is why you should buy a 06 or newer, and stay away from the 04's like they had the plague.

People had issues when trying to Turbo the Renesis, and I am not really sure if it is truly do to the side port exhaust or because they are trying to turbo a 6 port engine. If you look into how hard it is to turbo a FC RX-7 6-port engine and make good power you may understand. I never tried but from what I have read it is not that easy. I am not sure if it is a tuning issue or what.

I believe a MSP rotary could be better if it have housing exhaust ports that could be opened at higher RPMs to increase power but be closed at cruise to improve emissions however; I have no idea how it should be built or implemented.