7 ms·

Mazda is one of those companies just don't stop revolutionizing. First they got rotary to be actually usable. Now this.

IgorPartola 9y ago
Did they get the rotary to be usable? I thought even at its best, it was finicky and temperamental. I have never owned or driven one, just doing some idle reading online, so asking this as a serious question.
- quake 9y ago
  More or less usable. They did have a tendency to blow apex seals after 80k miles, which was could end up as a full rebuild of the engine. As far as how finicky a rotary can be, the biggest thing to do is let them warm up before driving, and let them cool right down after you're done. They were never an engine to replace the standard fourbanger, but they weren't any more finicky than say a BMW or Audi at the time of the RX-8
  - IgorPartola 9y ago
    Heh. I mean an engine rebuild at 80k seems kind of crazy. I am both continually amazed at the ICE and at the same time can't wait for it to die out. It's such an archaic technology. Hell, a turbine engine would be so much more fun to have in a car!
    - ynniv 9y ago
      ... as long as it isn't directly connected to the wheels? The rotational inertia would make for a very uncomfortable drive.
      - linksnapzz 9y ago
        Chrysler made several generations of turbine cars in the '60s. http://www.allpar.com/mopar/turbine.html http://www.allpar.com/mopar/turbine.html It was not, in the end, a production car, but there was a lot of data gathered as to performance and reliability in real-world settings. Not too long ago, Jaguar had a concept CX-75, which was a hybrid mid-engined supercar where the piston engine was replaced with two Bladon Jets micro gas turbines. After 2008, they didn't want to commit to an expensive limited production vehicle, too bad. https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/18-october-2010/jet-power-bladons-microjets-enable-jaguar-turbine-hybrid/ https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/18-october-2010/jet-pow...
        IgorPartola 9y ago
        Damn. That sounds like they almost made it work. I wonder how those cars would have done with corn ethanol. Electric boost for initial acceleration and better heat exchangers would have probably completely eliminated the remaining problems with them. Thanks for the link!
        linksnapzz 9y ago
        Dunno about corn ethanol, but agave worked: http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a33239/that-time-the-president-of-mexico-rode-in-a-turbine-chrysler-fueled-by-tequila/ http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a33239/that-time-the...
        kalleboo 9y ago
        If anyone wants to see a turbine car in action, Jay Leno owns one and has a YouTube video on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2A5ijU3Ivs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2A5ijU3Ivs
    - quake 9y ago
      Turbos are definitely taking hold in the American auto industry as well, with stuff like the Chevy Sonic and Fiesta/Focus really making good use of them with tiny engines. The 2015 Focus had an option for a 1L, 3 cylinder engine with a turbo for commuters. Great stuff.
  - ynniv 9y ago
    weren't any more finicky than say a BMW or Audi at the time of the RX-8 YMMV, but my E46 BMW has been very reliable compared to an RX-8 bought at the same time. Audi was still in the process of applying the lessons of the RS4 to their everyday cars, but I still wouldn't call the RX-8 reliable compared to its peers. As you hinted, there are a couple of problems that lead to full rebuilds before 150k miles.
    - busterarm 9y ago
      09-11 RX-8s are rock solid dependable.
    - _archon_ 9y ago
      Mazda shot themselves in the foot reliability-wise with the first generation RX-8 because they: * Underspec'd the ignition coils * Didn't do enough on-road reliability testing * Lowered the oil pressure and removed OMP ports * Designed the oil filler breather in a way that allowed oil into the intake In '04, the first wave of RX8s were coming in to the dealerships after 30k with severe misfire from the coils going bad. Mazda didn't have this failure mode in their factory service manual, so the cars got replacement engines (poorly reman'd in Mexico, not made on the Mazda Japan line). These didn't last because of poor manufacturing. Once the coil issue was figured out, the 8 became much more predictable and reliable. As noted by Busterarm, they fully got their act together with the series 2 update. [I own an '04 RX8 with ~130k miles)
  - busterarm 9y ago
    My FC has 112k miles on the engine without a rebuild. Still has good compression, but on the low side of good. Pull and rebuild is pretty easy though.
    - _archon_ 9y ago
      My 8 made it to 127k before compression mandated a rebuild, and one of the previous owners is a documented idiot. Been solid ever since.
- mchannon 9y ago
  Owned one. Enjoyed the heck out of it. Lots of torque, lots of pep, though from what I heard, the US version (mine) had substantial increases in pollution controls which hobbled the car. Always first off the line when I wanted to be. Yes, it burned oil by design. I'd add a half-quart of non synthetic 5W-20 maybe every 1000 miles. The rear bumper required additional car washes, as it'd get a black film, no doubt from cold starts. That wasn't much of a problem. The big issue it had was flooding the engine. To trigger the condition, turn on engine, let it run for less than 1 minute, and turn it off (like pulling it in or out of a garage). Unless you floored it in neutral before shutting it off, the car would end up near-bricked. The fix was to have it towed to the dealer where they'd clean out the engine for a few hundred dollars. Later I learned you could tow-start it if you could get it up past 20mph. It'd put all kinds of foul smoke out the back when you did that but in terms of hassle, it was much better. The car had a POS OEM fuel pump under the rear seat. On hot days you'd get a vapor lock. Not the rotary's fault. Took years to find that problem, and didn't get very long with the fixed version before the stork came and the rotary had to leave.
  - toast0 9y ago
    > before the stork came and the rotary had to leave One of my friends had an rx-8, the backseats were useless for adults, but glorious for car seats.
    - _archon_ 9y ago
      I have an 8 (and am involved in sports car things as a hobby) and I find the back seats to be superior to almost all sports cars and most mid-sized normal cars for seating adults.
  - busterarm 9y ago
    > The fix was to have it towed to the dealer where they'd clean out the engine for a few hundred dollars. Later I learned you could tow-start it if you could get it up past 20mph. It'd put all kinds of foul smoke out the back when you did that but in terms of hassle, it was much better. You don't need to do all that. You can just pull the EGI INJ & EGI COMP fuse, crank it for a few seconds, replace and start it up. Many folks put a bypass switch inside the car so they don't have to get out and do it. Works great.
mikestew 9y ago
The rotaries leaked oil and got terrible mileage, and good luck finding someone to work on them. Other than that, they were zippy. "Usable" they might have been if you keep a low bar, but "practical" they were not.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- clone1018 9y ago
  They didn't leak oil did they? They burned oil as part of the strokes right?
- busterarm 9y ago
  Huh? My rotary doesn't leak oil. Mileage is an issue but not significantly worse than other sports cars of that era or even today. I also could probably connect you with a good rotary mechanic (or several) in all 50 states plus Puerto Rico (hell, especially Puerto Rico) The biggest issue with the FCs isn't the engine, it's the reliability of the electric systems and heat (as a distant second). With the FDs it pretty much the twin turbos. And with early RX-8s (04-early09) it's a lack of proper engine lubrication due to a design flaw.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- jsight 9y ago
  Rotary engines do not "leak oil", they burn oil a modest amount of oil by design. If you think about it, there really wasn't another way to lubricate them. Practicality was pretty low, though, as you rightly point out.
  - busterarm 9y ago
    Excluding the Miata, when are sports cars ever practical?
maxxxxx 9y ago
Rotary is actually a good example for "revolutions" that turned out to be inferior compared to existing solutions. We will see how the new engine will perform in the real world.
- Animats 9y ago
  Wankel engines work fairly well, but the geometry is so constraining that they can't be improved much. Can't change the shape of the cylinder head. Can't change the valve timing dynamically. That's all fixed by the geometry. They got as good as they were going to get decades ago.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    Wankels are cool but they really don't have an advantage over regular engines other than vibrating less as far I know. And they have a few distinct disadvantages.
    - sliverstorm 9y ago
      Better power curves & higher RPM capability, so you can use a smaller, more underpowered engine for the same application. But that never overcame their mediocre gas mileage (lack of compression/poor combustion chamber shape), oil burning (oil-lubricated apex seals), and need for frequent rebuilds.
flavio81 9y ago
The rotary was never invented by Mazda, it was invented in germany and applied first by NSU. Then it was licensed to many manufacturers, among which there was Mercedes-Benz, which was the manufacturer who got solved first the apex seal problem, and in the late 70s with the C111 prototype car, the first manufacturer to create a side port wankel engine (which mazda would only show on the RX8 decades later) and a 4-rotor engine (which mazda would only show on the 787 racing car in 1991. Then MB ditched the wankel engine because of low fuel efficience, something that ultimately led to mazda doing the same... in the 2000s.
twblalock 9y ago
Compression ignition is more an evolution than a revolution -- it's an iterative improvement on an existing technology. Skyactiv exists in the first place because Mazda does not have the money or engineering resources to build a hybrid or electric car by themselves. I suspect that in a decade or two, Mazda's decision not to start building hybrids and electric cars when the other major brands were doing so will be regarded as a serious mistake.
- calafrax 9y ago
  investing in high efficiency gasoline engines is a much better bet. the world will be running on gasoline for decades at least. even if europe (doubtful) or US (very doubtful) pull out of gasoline there will still be billions of potential customers around the world.

Did they get the rotary to be usable? I thought even at its best, it was finicky and temperamental. I have never owned or driven one, just doing some idle reading online, so asking this as a serious question.

quake 9y ago
More or less usable. They did have a tendency to blow apex seals after 80k miles, which was could end up as a full rebuild of the engine. As far as how finicky a rotary can be, the biggest thing to do is let them warm up before driving, and let them cool right down after you're done. They were never an engine to replace the standard fourbanger, but they weren't any more finicky than say a BMW or Audi at the time of the RX-8
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  Heh. I mean an engine rebuild at 80k seems kind of crazy. I am both continually amazed at the ICE and at the same time can't wait for it to die out. It's such an archaic technology. Hell, a turbine engine would be so much more fun to have in a car!
  - ynniv 9y ago
    ... as long as it isn't directly connected to the wheels? The rotational inertia would make for a very uncomfortable drive.
    - linksnapzz 9y ago
      Chrysler made several generations of turbine cars in the '60s. http://www.allpar.com/mopar/turbine.html http://www.allpar.com/mopar/turbine.html It was not, in the end, a production car, but there was a lot of data gathered as to performance and reliability in real-world settings. Not too long ago, Jaguar had a concept CX-75, which was a hybrid mid-engined supercar where the piston engine was replaced with two Bladon Jets micro gas turbines. After 2008, they didn't want to commit to an expensive limited production vehicle, too bad. https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/18-october-2010/jet-power-bladons-microjets-enable-jaguar-turbine-hybrid/ https://www.theengineer.co.uk/issues/18-october-2010/jet-pow...
      - IgorPartola 9y ago
        Damn. That sounds like they almost made it work. I wonder how those cars would have done with corn ethanol. Electric boost for initial acceleration and better heat exchangers would have probably completely eliminated the remaining problems with them. Thanks for the link!
        linksnapzz 9y ago
        Dunno about corn ethanol, but agave worked: http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a33239/that-time-the-president-of-mexico-rode-in-a-turbine-chrysler-fueled-by-tequila/ http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a33239/that-time-the...
      - kalleboo 9y ago
        If anyone wants to see a turbine car in action, Jay Leno owns one and has a YouTube video on it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2A5ijU3Ivs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2A5ijU3Ivs
  - quake 9y ago
    Turbos are definitely taking hold in the American auto industry as well, with stuff like the Chevy Sonic and Fiesta/Focus really making good use of them with tiny engines. The 2015 Focus had an option for a 1L, 3 cylinder engine with a turbo for commuters. Great stuff.
- ynniv 9y ago
  weren't any more finicky than say a BMW or Audi at the time of the RX-8 YMMV, but my E46 BMW has been very reliable compared to an RX-8 bought at the same time. Audi was still in the process of applying the lessons of the RS4 to their everyday cars, but I still wouldn't call the RX-8 reliable compared to its peers. As you hinted, there are a couple of problems that lead to full rebuilds before 150k miles.
  - busterarm 9y ago
    09-11 RX-8s are rock solid dependable.
  - _archon_ 9y ago
    Mazda shot themselves in the foot reliability-wise with the first generation RX-8 because they: * Underspec'd the ignition coils * Didn't do enough on-road reliability testing * Lowered the oil pressure and removed OMP ports * Designed the oil filler breather in a way that allowed oil into the intake In '04, the first wave of RX8s were coming in to the dealerships after 30k with severe misfire from the coils going bad. Mazda didn't have this failure mode in their factory service manual, so the cars got replacement engines (poorly reman'd in Mexico, not made on the Mazda Japan line). These didn't last because of poor manufacturing. Once the coil issue was figured out, the 8 became much more predictable and reliable. As noted by Busterarm, they fully got their act together with the series 2 update. [I own an '04 RX8 with ~130k miles)
- busterarm 9y ago
  My FC has 112k miles on the engine without a rebuild. Still has good compression, but on the low side of good. Pull and rebuild is pretty easy though.
  - _archon_ 9y ago
    My 8 made it to 127k before compression mandated a rebuild, and one of the previous owners is a documented idiot. Been solid ever since.
mchannon 9y ago
Owned one. Enjoyed the heck out of it. Lots of torque, lots of pep, though from what I heard, the US version (mine) had substantial increases in pollution controls which hobbled the car. Always first off the line when I wanted to be. Yes, it burned oil by design. I'd add a half-quart of non synthetic 5W-20 maybe every 1000 miles. The rear bumper required additional car washes, as it'd get a black film, no doubt from cold starts. That wasn't much of a problem. The big issue it had was flooding the engine. To trigger the condition, turn on engine, let it run for less than 1 minute, and turn it off (like pulling it in or out of a garage). Unless you floored it in neutral before shutting it off, the car would end up near-bricked. The fix was to have it towed to the dealer where they'd clean out the engine for a few hundred dollars. Later I learned you could tow-start it if you could get it up past 20mph. It'd put all kinds of foul smoke out the back when you did that but in terms of hassle, it was much better. The car had a POS OEM fuel pump under the rear seat. On hot days you'd get a vapor lock. Not the rotary's fault. Took years to find that problem, and didn't get very long with the fixed version before the stork came and the rotary had to leave.
- toast0 9y ago
  > before the stork came and the rotary had to leave One of my friends had an rx-8, the backseats were useless for adults, but glorious for car seats.
  - _archon_ 9y ago
    I have an 8 (and am involved in sports car things as a hobby) and I find the back seats to be superior to almost all sports cars and most mid-sized normal cars for seating adults.
- busterarm 9y ago
  > The fix was to have it towed to the dealer where they'd clean out the engine for a few hundred dollars. Later I learned you could tow-start it if you could get it up past 20mph. It'd put all kinds of foul smoke out the back when you did that but in terms of hassle, it was much better. You don't need to do all that. You can just pull the EGI INJ & EGI COMP fuse, crank it for a few seconds, replace and start it up. Many folks put a bypass switch inside the car so they don't have to get out and do it. Works great.

mikestew 9y ago

The rotaries leaked oil and got terrible mileage, and good luck finding someone to work on them. Other than that, they were zippy. "Usable" they might have been if you keep a low bar, but "practical" they were not.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
clone1018 9y ago
They didn't leak oil did they? They burned oil as part of the strokes right?
busterarm 9y ago
Huh? My rotary doesn't leak oil. Mileage is an issue but not significantly worse than other sports cars of that era or even today. I also could probably connect you with a good rotary mechanic (or several) in all 50 states plus Puerto Rico (hell, especially Puerto Rico) The biggest issue with the FCs isn't the engine, it's the reliability of the electric systems and heat (as a distant second). With the FDs it pretty much the twin turbos. And with early RX-8s (04-early09) it's a lack of proper engine lubrication due to a design flaw.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jsight 9y ago
Rotary engines do not "leak oil", they burn oil a modest amount of oil by design. If you think about it, there really wasn't another way to lubricate them. Practicality was pretty low, though, as you rightly point out.
- busterarm 9y ago
  Excluding the Miata, when are sports cars ever practical?

maxxxxx 9y ago

Rotary is actually a good example for "revolutions" that turned out to be inferior compared to existing solutions. We will see how the new engine will perform in the real world.

Animats 9y ago
Wankel engines work fairly well, but the geometry is so constraining that they can't be improved much. Can't change the shape of the cylinder head. Can't change the valve timing dynamically. That's all fixed by the geometry. They got as good as they were going to get decades ago.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Wankels are cool but they really don't have an advantage over regular engines other than vibrating less as far I know. And they have a few distinct disadvantages.
  - sliverstorm 9y ago
    Better power curves & higher RPM capability, so you can use a smaller, more underpowered engine for the same application. But that never overcame their mediocre gas mileage (lack of compression/poor combustion chamber shape), oil burning (oil-lubricated apex seals), and need for frequent rebuilds.

flavio81 9y ago

The rotary was never invented by Mazda, it was invented in germany and applied first by NSU. Then it was licensed to many manufacturers, among which there was Mercedes-Benz, which was the manufacturer who got solved first the apex seal problem, and in the late 70s with the C111 prototype car, the first manufacturer to create a side port wankel engine (which mazda would only show on the RX8 decades later) and a 4-rotor engine (which mazda would only show on the 787 racing car in 1991. Then MB ditched the wankel engine because of low fuel efficience, something that ultimately led to mazda doing the same... in the 2000s.

twblalock 9y ago

Compression ignition is more an evolution than a revolution -- it's an iterative improvement on an existing technology. Skyactiv exists in the first place because Mazda does not have the money or engineering resources to build a hybrid or electric car by themselves. I suspect that in a decade or two, Mazda's decision not to start building hybrids and electric cars when the other major brands were doing so will be regarded as a serious mistake.

calafrax 9y ago
investing in high efficiency gasoline engines is a much better bet. the world will be running on gasoline for decades at least. even if europe (doubtful) or US (very doubtful) pull out of gasoline there will still be billions of potential customers around the world.