exhaust smells bad. is this normal??
 

hi everyone.
i got mine rx8 about hlaf year now, and for some reason, the exhaust smells bad every time i drove her. i took her back to car dealer, and the technician said she was normal cause the rotary engine burns oil. so does all of your guys rx8 has this smelly exhaust, too?
im confused. a couple of my friends who knows more about cars than me just keep telling me that the smell is not normal ask me to take her back to the dealer. well, if you guys think this is not normal neighter, what should i tell the technician about the problem? he wont look at the problem by just telling him the exhaust smell bad.
so, help help plz.

what do you mean by smells bad?

and are you talking about startup time, or all the time?

its all the time, i would say its oil burning smell.

I wouldn't say mine smells BAD.. I've spent some time tweaking speaker setups in the trunk with the car running and never had the thought "damn that exaust smells bad".. Maybe you should take it to a regular mechanic and ask them (they won't try to bullshit you to get you to leave they want your money)

so u saying that there is a smell, it sjust not that strong?

I too get an odd smell when I pull into the garage after my drive home. It's definitely the exhaust, and it DOES smell like a little bit of burning oil.

Nothing to worry about IMO.

Ed

Sound familiar like my 8,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, check your cat............ 99% was burnt & gone............

if your talking like a skunk smell i get the same thing in the witnter since i dont drive it i warm it up 10-15 min everyday and from just sitting their it will start smelling most likely gas build build up when i do get a chance to drive it i drive it for maybe 20 min and red line it atleast once go home and smells gone

sorry to hijack your thread but i have always wondered why ppl dont drive their rx8 and let it sit in their garage for months..y dont they just sell it

These cars are a tough sell. I've been trying to sell mine for a year :(

the guy who rebuilt my engine said the same thing..but why? they are awesome cars..until it starts loosing compression lol

In my opinion, people see the problems these cars have and steer clear. I think the platform is awesome if you maintain it properly. A lot of people don't want to keep up with the maintenance and proper running procedures (warmup, redline, ect.) When they get lazy and dont maintain properly (premix, 3000 mile 10-w40 oil changes, ect) they ruin theyre cars. There are some poor designs in the engine, and that doesnt help along with improper maintenance. I love the car to death, i just dont like the fact that i could maintain the shit out of it, and it could still lose compression out of no where , and cost about $3-5k to get it running again. Or you could sell it as is for less than a 2000 civic :(

I debate on the daily whether or not to keep this car. In the meantime if someone wants to give me what I think its worth, I'd sell mine. People want to low ball me though for a steal. F that. I'll just hang on to it, maintain it, and invest for reliability until someone comes along that appreciates it. All that and hope for the best.

Oh yeah, and mine being a 4 port automatic is a huge steer clear too :/

I still have fun through the twisties with The paddles though :)

i have owned one for just over a month now. I quickly realised that the rx8 has to be treated as a classic car, meticulously maintained and mileage kept to a minimum.
Since owning it, I have used over a litre of oil in a month and my fuel bill has doubled. If you can afford to run this car you could probably wouldn’t own it. Unless you love to zoom zoom

It's not a Corolla, it turns out...

too bad it doesn’t have autopilot to deliver your posts to an on-topic thread

Mine smells bad because of 4 stroke oil being blasted in the combustion chamber, my half quart of premix per tank, and the fact I removed the cat pipe and bashed it out, and put it back. A LOT of vapor until you start driving it, then it's gone. Particularly when it's cold. I wouldn't worry. Generally if there's something wrong that you can notice through the exhaust, it will be in the color of the exhaust, not the smell.