Rotary longevity?
 

Replacing an Audi TT with 170K miles since July 99. What is the longevity history of the rotaries? RX7 or RX 8. Caaertainly expect to incurr expenses equivilant to a major TT service - Timing belt etc. ~ $1200-1500 @ 90k miles.

:eek: :eek: :eek: That's a fair bit of mileage!

To answer your question, no one's sure exactly how long the Renesis will last since it's relatively new.

One would hope it should last the same mileage as your TT if it is properly maintained.

Some older rotary engines have lasted the same mileage so all we can do is keep our fingers crossed. :o

Where the HELL did you drive to? Mordor????

Yes yes...discuss...I would love to hear old rotary tales....

Let us know you Rotor Heads...

:D If I had a TT Aragorn I could definitely understand how you could put 35km per annum on it....great driving and fun. Hopefully the 8 will go the distance as well.

I have a 74 Rotary pick up with 179K on it

Considering that I'm, if everything stays the same, going to keep my next car (INSERT RX8 HERE GOD WILLING) I hope the 8 will last me at least 80,000 to 130,000 miles.

I only put like 10,000 a year on my cars...sometimes less...

Cool! What's the secret to the longevity?

1990 turbo with 127k on rebuilt engine

there is NO timing belt to replace on a rotary engine :D

and with proper maintenance (CHANGE YOUR OIL RELIGIOUSLY!!!), the renesis should outlast all the previous rotary engines.

FC RX-7 Turbo, original engine went for 150K before replacement, new engine went for 60K at 10psi before the car was wrecked, 2nd engine was fine at that time.

FD RX-7 TT, not so good luck with the original engine, but that was my fault for improper tuning.

Any NA rotary should last longer than 175K if properly cared for.

Rotary Crazy thanks...but the "REBUILT' in your statement does not offer confidence. Why did you need to rebuild it?

I really hope the Renesis will be good to me!

14psi Wihtout Tuning, if rou leave stock boost level no problem.

My fd had 67,000 before I chage the speedometer (mazdaspeed 300 km now).

If kept well lubricated and not allowed to overheat, an NA Renesis should outlast a modern piston engine... I fully expect to see 150-200k miles if I don't boost it. And I change my oil every 2500 miles for insurance :)

Cool! What's the secret to the longevity?


Drive the hell out of it,and change the oil regularly.Oh yeah and don't let it over heat.

I have not had the REPU it's whole life,and I can'y guarantee the engine is the stock one,but I believe it is,but regardless these engines(Rotaries in general)are strong.

Also I have a 83 RX-7 with a used 12A from a junkyard in it.When I got the car it needed and engine so I got a junk yard one,and installed it 7 years ago.It is still running strong to this day.It had 80K on it when I got it and now the engine has well over 140K on it and still runs great.The normally aspirated engines last a good long while when they are even moderatly taken care of.I have beaten the hell out of the RX-7 as well so I would say these engines are very durable.

The 12A is the bastard child of the rotaries,but I think they are the most durable of them all,but what do I know.Buy the 8 you will be happy,and oh yeah check and change the oil.

I'll refer you to a story I posted a few years back. Be warned it's a long post.

Have the 8 and extremely happy....but it's only got 1,000 clicks on it (that's km where I live) so it's finally broken-in. Up-coming high revs soon...with regular oil changes as stated hope it lasts cause I'm about to kick it's butt :)

I sold my '90 RX-7 with 147k miles on it about 6 months ago (original engine and trans) and it was running exceptionally well. As far as I know it's still running fine to-date. Unless you don't keep up with normal maintenance (oil changes, basically and then the odd things like coolant flushes, etc) then I would expect to see the Renesis last at least as long. I have 19k on my '8 so far (since July '03) and it's been trouble free. My breaks sqeak a little but not enough to be an annoyance to me...

I had a 1981 RX7 with 140,000 miles when I got rid of it. The engine was still running fine but the body was starting to rust pretty bad. I got $600 as a trade in on a new 1989 Mustang 5.0 LX.

I've seen many 86 to 88 NA RX7s reach and exceed 200k miles. Will the renesis do as well with it's smaller apex seals and wider side seal clearances, exhaust heat applied to new areas, not to mention higher revs? It remains to be seen.
I hope so.

As long as you put oil in them, they'll be fine.

I had a 1982 RX-7 with 150K miles on it when I had to part with it (it was 16 years old). The engine was still running strong though the car had some cosmetic issues by that age.

Gave me the confidence to grab an RX-8 and look forward to another 10+ years!

I've owned 5 RX-7's and all went well over 100K with no engine problems. The 81 had over 150K and I abused it pretty severely (I was 18). I bought an 83 with a seized motor (owner overheated it several times) and replaced it with a junkyard motor which ran fine. If you maintain the car according to the owners manual, you can get well over 200K out of a rotary. Severly abuse and/or neglect it and you can expect a 150K blue smoking machine.

On the operator error side of things, you cannot neglect coolant and oil as well as any filters (gas, air, oil, etc). I haven't heard any Renesis overhearing stories but it's common knowledge that overheating a rotary is instant or premature death. Neglecting oil will mostly shorten lifespan.

Although rotaries require more maintenance attention, and this may sound strange, but it I've found that you bond more with the car. It's not a maintenance free appliance like a Honda but you can expect excellent quality and engineering.

You can download the owners manual form the mazda website. It has the recommended service schedule. If you're a hyper maintainer, bring the schedule into the service manager at your dealer and ask him to price out the cost of the interval services. That'll be your worst case scenario.

Since you are probably going to use up the warranty in two years you might want to consider extended warranty. Personally, I don't believe in them but others do.

I had a 1988 with 189,000 miles that finally went due to overheating.

Changing the oil every 5,000 miles, doing the regular spark plug, fuel filter, hydraulics, brake fluid etc changes and checks and making sure it doesn't over heat and you should see many many miles problem free.

I think that makes sense...if you love cars, you probably like spoiling them with care. Only a few things in life are truly maintenance free so we should probably not expect that from a car.

"It builds character I tellz ya..."

I took a 1988 Rx7 non turbo to 179,000 miles. I beat the hell out of it, but my mother had it for the first 75,000. I would say any non turbo rotary should last least 175k if properly cared for.

I just cross-referenced this on another thread, but I think it's worth reiterating: Renesis durability issues

My FC has over 148,000 trouble free miles. I change the oil every 3000-3500 miles.
My 8 has almost 11,000 miles so far no problems.

Change the oil!

Yay, my 200th post! http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung...smiley-033.gifhttp://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung...smiley-035.gif

More on this topic, I just saw today that Consumer Reports gave the RX-8 a bad rating on overall reliability (although I didn't find the justification for their rating since they only rated the car poorly on fuel economy and back seat comfort). I didn't get a chance to read through the article thoroughly on the news stand, so if anyone has a subscription, check it out...

I plan to add a turbo (only 7psi probably) onto my 8 when one become available. How does everyone think this will affect the durability and lifespan of the renesis?

With Forced Induction, durability will be compromised. But as long as you properly care for the engine in that scenario, it should still surpass 125K.

Well lets see... The Renesis is a lot more reliable/dependable than the Piston engine due to the fact that it dont have as much moving parts violently changing direction and if the Rotar was not up to task so to speek, I dont know how Mazda could have sold as many as they have in the past and presently.

I have been with Rotaries since 1973. They do not like siting and cold start. So one that drives a lot will last longer than the occasional short distance driver. They actually will require less maintance if you just watch the basics: OIL & WATER (coolant) levels. The rotary makes a lot of power and HEAT. So if the oil or water gets low it can over heat internally and damage seals. Also you should not add water, but coolant as water can increase inside corrosion, especially in the internal hot areas. In normal use the first wear related problem, in most cases, is increased oil consumption. If the user doesn't notice this the oil level can go low enough to cause internal damage. The gas seals will also wear and this is normally noticed by higher starter motor cranking speed (less compression resistance) and posible hard starting. Besides these two areas and normal spark plug, fan belt, and radiator hose replacement there is not much else to go wrong. This of course is ignoring abuse like constant high boost, over reving, junk in gas or oil etc.

My fd went to 88000 on virgin motor and then went through 4 motors consecutively before being sold with rebuild at 130,000

My 88 10th anny went to 133000 on orig engine..rebuilt and upgraded turbo, yada yada yada put down 311 rwhp then sold still on 2nd motor

My 74 repu still on orig motor with 168000...got to love those early 13b's they overbuilt these for sure

My RX8 showing 4300 and still on orig engine......whoopie( jumping up and down in glee with fingers crossed behind back)

For you new guys that didn't see this video from last year (I saved it before the link died)... this is great proof of the rotary's durability. These guys have an FC with one blown rotor and decide to see how long the engine can handle revving WOT at 9k... they both expect it to last less than 30 seconds. This thing ends up going for over 7 minutes (dragging a dead rotor the whole time), and it only died because they left the radiator cap off and the coolant cooked off overheating the motor. Very impressive...

http://huntleyfire.com/pop.wmv

That's insane, I'd never seen that before.

lol i love that video :D oh and this is my first rotary but my lill 8 just passed 26,000 miles on it no problems at all with the engine ( oil ahs been changed every 3000 miles) :D i love this car

AND....G8rBoy answerd the question, no more needed to say...those guys are crazy...and that little sucker kept on going...

That video brings a tear to my eye :(

Yeah, I agree with the guys. As long as you maintain it well, it will be trouble free. My 1979 1st gen RX7 has 220K original miles on it. It has carburetor problems right now but it still runs!

My other old 2nd gen TII did about 120K miles before it popped. Not well maintained.

I read this cross referenced Thread, and wondering if anyone w/ over 20,000 miles on their RX8 has experienced any loss in hp or excessive seal wear, or any other unusual hiccups??

No doubt it will come down to how owner drives and maintains car. Sure you'll have the slight risk of an early defect causing engine to go, but that applies to all cars. I do think however, for those how mod it, or drive very hard, constantly running high rpms, they will see a shorter life. I do believe the same story will hold true as with past n/a rotaries. If you keep an eye on oil level and overheating, you will see many miles out of it. We will be seeing failing rx8s in future, but that shouldn't worry you, because it's how You treat car, that will determine it's life.

Engine Overheating
 

Talking about the oil fills and coolant, how likely is overheating the engine, esp. living in Southern Cali... driving along in congested traffic in the middle of summer w/ average temps in the 90's?? Are Rotaries, esp. the Renesis, prepared for these??

Rotaries typically run hotter than piston engines, and this was a problem with the 3rd gen RX7's... they had inadequate cooling considering they also had turbos (which added to the heat problem). However I haven't heard of any RX8's overheating yet (just a handful of leaking water pumps), so I think they did a good job with the cooling system and we won't see that problem with the Renesis.

I started with Mazda Rotaries in 1973. There was a big problem then as the "O" ring between the housings, like a head gasket, would burn through in ~ 30K miles and 3 years for the commuters. It was not a problem for the high mileage guys as the "O" ring was only burned during the warm up period when the aluminun housings were not up to temp. Also any cooling system problem caused overheating and "O" ring damage. In 1974 Mazda started using a special coated ring, larger better designed radiator, water pump, and hoses that eliminated this problem. JD Powers made a big deal about the Rxs failing in 30K back in 1973. Mazda fought this report saying the numbers were wrong, but it was accuraqte. Then in 1974 Mazda replaced MANY engines for free to satisfy the customers.

Then in 1974 the energy crises hit as Mazda introduced the RX4, Cosmo, and REPU, so expected high sales. Instead the poor milage (EPA 10~12 guys) caused poor sales and many cars sit at port storage yards near ocean salt water. This caused corrosion to the steel housinga and resulting early wear of the internal oil seals. This was amplified by a oil dip stick that was too long and caused many owners to run the oil too low with resulting rotor overheat - rotor expansion and sever rubbing on the steel housings further increasing oil usage until the engine locked up from lack of oil. The funny thing is that the rotors need little cooling around town, but did need it on the highway. So it was common to see a Mazda on the side of a highway with a locked up engine.

I did have a unusual problem with my REPU once. I had been at Lake Havasu with my boat (20' ski boat). Had been camping out so had a lot of stuff loaded in both the truck and boat, so real heavy. I had done this a number of times so had no worries. But on the way back I got stuck in a strong head wind. So strong that I had to run at full throttle on the down hills let along the up hills. Did over 100 miles at full throttle in mostly 3rd gear. Well no problem on the trip, but after that the engine became hard starting. Since it ran OK once started I ignored it for a while. Three months later I decided to overhaul the engine and found the only thing wrong was the apex seal springs had lost their tension! All else looked good, so just put in new springs and put it back together. The long hard pull must have overheated the springs - softening them.

Another issue you new RX8 people should know about is that the coolant in the rotary needs to be anti-freeze even in Florida! The reason is the steel and aluminum housings are different material and there can be sever corrosion if plan water is used. Any old time Mazda guy can tell you about housings with holes into a spark plug hole or exhaust port!

All these problems were cured by the time the RX7 was released with improved parts, low oil sensors, low water sensors, etc. As long as the owner keep the engine full of oil and water the engine will easily last a long time. There is no timing belt to replace. The Carb on older engines and EFI on newer engines are not that much different from other cars, so should have the same reliability.

great post, thanks for the insight

i just hit 31,000 miles..no problems with the engine at all. she still runs like a champ..power is still kickin' lick jackie chan..and she drinks less oil than gandma:p

only issues i had was my whole evap system had to be replaced b/c teh dealership in ga was full of a buncha sh!t flinging monkeys. ah well. aside from dealership error...nothign has been wrong with my baby:p knock on wood:D

I wont' start bragging about my miles until I reach 100k problem free. I demand and expect it to reach that and beyond. Anything less is unacceptable. ;)

contrary to what non-educated people say, rotaries can last just as long as piston engines.

you just have to take better care of them. i plan on my rx8 lasting over 100k miles (if i keep it na).