Glyphon

put this way, based off the Nov 05 sales figures, over 36k rx8s have been sold in NA alone. and guessing* a high number of 1000 engine failures (i think it actually closer to 300-500*) that gives a failure rate of 2.8% (probably closer to 1-2%) for the renesis. hardly epidemic proportions.

* the guesses are based off of ~200 engine failures this summer, of which a good portion were from 2 dealerships in NV

VOODOO8

I appreciate your attempt at clarification brice, but my point remains that of the several 100K of RX-8 units out there in use on the roads today, the important fraction I'm a member of is the 60K odometer club on an unmodified Renesis engine. At this moment in the lifespan of the RX-8 model, there is not enough evidence to prove whether I am an unlucky outlier or the harbinger of things to come for others.

Just as a follow up, the dealer I am working with on the repair has now initiated actions on his own stock of 8's on the lot to test them for compression, he wants to see if new vehicles in their possession are also unable to meet the factory spec. He is doing this because he wants to know if I am an outlier or not for his own concerns in the matter.

brillo

yes this is what I meant, sorry if I was unclear.

Voodoo8, I don't mean to make you sound like just a statistic, I know your issues truely, truely suck, I had a friend with a Honda which did the same thing at 50,000mi on his Accord. Being that yours was unmodified makes it even worse. Sometimes though, all you can really blame is DFL.

My point was to inject a bit of reality before people start flying off the handle worrying that they are next. In addition, I've seen so many high mileage FB and FC rx7's that NA longjevity just based purely on history was a non issue.

I spoke with every rotary expert at Sevenstock (Rick Engman, Rob Golden, Everyone at Racing Beat, Jim Downing, etc....), all were in agreement that the Renesis was one tough engine, with better seal design than before. The issue with the FI folks poping engines was poor tuning and not properly adjusting the ignition advance due to our high compression ratio. Pettit told me they actually detonated their engine several times while testing their supercharger (they had the intercooler fail) and the engine survived.

Voodoo8, I wish you all the best and I hope you get the engine fixed for as little $$$ as possible.

Cam

iTrader: (1)

Question for those that have blown an engine (NA only).

How much oil did your 8 consume per 1000 miles. Ive only had to add a quart of oil every 1500 -2000 miles. I hit redline at least 2-3 times while driving and and an aggressive driver, so Im not babying it.

Some members have stated a faulty oil metering pump may be while the engines have blown/died. Ive got almost 20K miles, no problems, perfectly maintained (by dealer), but am growing concered seeing all these posts regarding blown engines.

What kind of milage per quart of oil were you seeing?

swoope

iTrader: (5)

this kinda is relitive to your ????

i was one of a few whos car didnt use much oil at all... less than the 1.7 qt difference between the top level and bottom of the dipstick in 5k miles.

i had the mop replaced at 30k miles, it now uses about a qt every 2500 miles.

have not had engine blow yet.

beers

rkostolni

Why was your oil pump replaced?

swoope

iTrader: (5)

not the oil pump, the metering oil pump it is in charge of adding oil as the engine is used harder.

cel....

beers

Cam

iTrader: (1)

Thanks Swoope.

If your MOP delivers a quart every 2500 miles Im ok.

VOODOO8

Here are a few updates for those interested:

First, as my dealership promised they took the time to compression test the motors on two other vehicles to determine for themselves and their own concerns what was up with their test equipment and the compression specs in the Workshop Manual. They tested one of the new 8's they had on their lot and they tested another used 8 that was in for some minor body damage from a fender bender.

The brand new 8 tested out just under the factory standard of 120psi @ 250rpm at normal engine operating temperature. The used 8, whcih had mileage in the mid 30K miles range, returned readings that were well under factory specified minimums. The worst reading for a Rotor/Chamber combination on the used vehicle was 81.037psi @ 250rpm and norm op temp. The used 8 readings were even worse than what they got on the remanufactured motor recently installed in my 8 and my original motor that was replaced with the remanufactured motor. So I guess the take-aways from this part of the story are that the factory specs in the Workshop Manual are fairly reliable as far as a new engine is concerned, that their test equipment seems to be working properly using the new 8's motor as a calibration cross-check, and that there are more 8's on the road than just mine which are seeing dramatic compression loss after a period of use.

Relative to my vehicle, the dealership I work with (Werner Mazda - formerly Talarico Mazda - in Manchester, NH) has done everything they could to try and resolve this issue with me. Unfortunately, the Mazda factory rep that works this region of the US has not. He has refused to do anything else to help either the dealer or myself in getting a motor in my vehicle that will return it to standard factory compression outputs. I also tried to appeal directly to Mazda N.American Ops. They admitted they had a case running on my complaint but had closed it per the regional rep. When I pressed them they admitted that they did not actaully have any hard data on my case and could not tell me what the compression readings were on my original motor when it was declared defective or on the remanufactured motor that was installed to replace it. They could not even recite back to me what the factory specs are. What they informed me was that the regional rep is the decisioning authority in the matter and they do not exercise oversight for the decisions of the regional rep. When I asked the MNAmOps customer servcie person to give me his full name for my records he would only say his name was 'David' and refused to give me his last name.

As part of the efforts my dealer made to try and assist me with this matter, they actually chose to eat the entire cost of their labor (the only part of the $$$ equation they had 100% control over) as they know I have been a good Mazda customer, having been a prior twin turbo RX-7 buyer back in 1993 as well as my current RX-8 in 2003. Since I need my car for work and personal use, and since the car had been parked in the dealer's service lot for 3 weeks while this whole scene was playing itself out, I wound up having no choice but to take the vehicle back this week with the underperforming remanufactured motor.

I did note on the invoice copy I signed that this situation was not acceptable to me (so the dealer would have this in their records on my vehicle) and I also presented the dealership with a consumer complaint letter (which is a necessary step prior to filing for adjudicatory oversight in NH). I advised my dealer that I will take the vehicle through a 600-1000 mile break-in ramp (even though the dealer says this is not necessary on a reman motor - same as in the new vehicle owner manual) and will then have it tested at another dealer to get another set of compression readings from a second party to validate against the readings obtained by my dealer on the remanufactured motor now in my vehicle.

On my consumer complaint letter I also added an addendum pointing out that the flooding condition, which is now well documented in both Mazda's consumer information and in the public-at-large, could be construed as being a situation which could be construed as falling under the Safety clause of the NH Lemon Law - finding of same by the NH motor vehicle arbitration board being cause for the sale of the RX-8 to be banned in NH.

Will see what happens from here...

8is>enuff

Holy hell, I thought I had it bad.

Thanks for pointing me here Voodoo. Good luck.

Jasynn

I have an 05' 8 that the motor just blew last friday( going 45mph at approx. 3500 RPM).
At first the dealership said it wasn't going to be covered, cause of my Weapon R intake.
A national mazda rep had to come and inspect the damage. They said there was no compression in front apex and had no idea how this happened. Finally after waiting and missing work for four days, they decided to replace motor (with brand new motor )as long as i bought a new stock airbox

VOODOO8

Jasynn,
Did your dealer provide you with factory certification or similar on the compression #'s for the new motor they installed? There has been discussion here (and elsewhere) that this was a standard operating procedure for Mazda with past RX-7 replacement motors. I'm curious if this was the case with your new motor. It was not the case with my remanufactured unit (which evoked the dealer level testing and the subsequent events discussed above).

Mugatu

iTrader: (1)

do yourself a favor Jasynn, keep the Weapon R intake off. It is nothing but a noise maker and is not worth the trouble and hassle from Mazda.

Flop

Ok, so I have read through every 'BLOWN MOTOR', power loss, 'MY MOTOR DIED', welcome to the new motor club... thread on this board (I have been following this issue very closely since July of 05'

I can't seem to find the answer I'm looking for (probably because it hasn't been let out what the real problem is with the Renesis), but what is Mazda doing to fix this? How can the average '8' owner ensure that his/her car is going to be okay for the long haul. I, like many others, didn't lease their car and plan on keeping it for a long time.

oldragger mentioned that Mazda is going to be shipping cars with two spark plugs starting soon (to replace the ones that get fouled prior to dealer to the owner), but the blown motors? Is there a connection between poor running due to plugs/wires/coils and the blown motors? I don't think ambient temp is the only problem here (and thin oils), as my car is losing power now and I'm at 3000mi. I'm really hoping for a TSB or something from Mazda to help smaller dealers diagnose and 'admit' there is a problem...

VOODOO8

Temp is certainly not the only problem, and I have seen much speculation on underlying causes - everything from internal clearance issues to factory machining tolerances being too tight to achieve with repetitive success to whatever. My speculation is a combination of all three of these plus ignition system variations and lean burn conditions. But then any speculation is a good speculation when facts are in short supply - and I expect that Mazda has no intention of changing that situation with anything it knows (especially with their turbo charged, hydrogen fired version making its way through the press corp at present). You don't think they are forcing the dealers to return all failed units to get their factory credit on same (even though this is in direct violation of many state laws pertaining to motor vehicle repairs) for nothing do you?

jowettw

VOODOO8 - just wanted to thank you for keeping the rest of us up to date with your experiences. sorry to hear.

Flop

... well I guess I'll be heading down to Mazda to buy the extended warranty before the deadline.

I think the $2500 for the 7 year/100,000 mi warranty extention may be worth it.

dannobre

iTrader: (3)

I won't be able to control myself for 7 years.....need more....power

Brice-RX8

Remember that is only 3 years/50k worth of extended warranty for $2500. It EW starts from the time the car is first in service.

Flop

I know how the warranty works, and I agree that $2500 seems like a rip off (the reason I didn't get it with the car) BUT a new motor is going to be more than $2500. Seems like there is a reasonable chance that I may actually use this warranty.

VOODOO8

This thread is getting a little old, and there certainly have been a number of new ones that have popped up discussing motor failures, but I thought it would be worth giving y'all an update now that I have about 10K miles on the remanufactured replacement motor I had installed at the end of 2005. I'm just passing through 69K miles on the vehicle as of now. (Note: I have had the starter replacement TSB performed on my 8 since my last post of compression test data so the cranking RPMS are higher this time which drives up the tested compression numbers. Also now running T flash, was R flash back at the end of '05.) Latest compression test readings as follows:

At 284 RPMS cranking speed on Rotor 1 - Chamber 1: 8.7; Chamber 2: 9.1; Chamber 3: 8.6

At 288 RPMS cranking speed on Rotor 2 - Chamber 1: 9.2; Chamber 2: 9.5; Chamber 3: 9.4

Comparing these readings to the chart in the shop manual it looks like the Chamber 1 & 3 on Rotor 1 are a bit under nominal but well above minimums. Others are at or above nominal. All readings are showing better health than when compression was tested on remanufactured motor immediately after installation. That means one of several scenarios are manifesting themsleves:
1). The original test of the reman engine was off and I got incorrect readings then.
2). The above test of the reman engine after 10K miles is off and these are incorrect readings.
3). The engine has improved its compression profile over time (due to break-in or other cause - not oil related though as both previous and current tests were done with fresh oil change).
4). Change in flash settings is having an impact (which I personally do not believe is the case).

Any other thoughts???

PerformRX-8

does it matter what year it is? I mean it seems like all the blown motors are 04-04 models..... or is that just me? sorry to hear about your troubles, hey you could have my 8!!! haha

blake182

I also have just recently had my engine replaced on my '04 Rx-8 due to low compression. My vehicle only has 23,000 miles! It's a defective designed engine that everyone who own's an '04 rx-8 will experience sooner or later. I have done the research and have found SEVERAL people with same issues. I will later post a new thread on this site labeled "Engine no start and how to get results." Look for it if you have the same problems I have experienced.

Blake

otherside

We cant wait....

Aseras

2500 will buy you a engine... just bank it incase it does happen, and if it doesn't you are still in the clear.