I hit 122,000 a little while ago. Does that count?

 

126k miles on my RX8, same motor too. I just change the oil , regular maitnance and drive her like the way she was meant to be driven.

9k a day keeps the mazda mechanics away.

 

2004 Red loaded performance package - 150k hit today!!! What an amazing car. All Stock - all original. Had my problem with flooding in the beginning but other then that just great.

Had all three types of rx7's prior to moving to the 8 in 2004.

Last month pulled into a parking spot and the concrete stopper on the ground was too high - crack my front bumper... ugh!!! Going to replace that now. Other then that - no accidents, no major engine changes, no major part changes.

Have decided it is time to sell and upgrade to a newer year.

 

Wow, Glad to see people who care for their engines properly . I just picked up an 04 MT thursday of last week. has 46k on it at the moment, but one of these days, you'll se her with over 200k This is my second rotary, the first being 89 rx7. had to get rid of it around 170k to get a bigger vehicle, which I just got rid of to get the 8.

One question to you high mileage people, how often have you decarboned? or have you just properly driven it to take care of the carbon?

 

I'm at 170k, I've never had a decarbon process done on my engine... I try to hit red line atleast once a day... and every once in awhile I'll drive at red line for 10-20 seconds to really clear things out.

I'm still pulling strong, considering the mileage... the last 9 months or so my mileage has been a bit lower... I used to get about 20.5 mpg, recently it has been more like 18.5 mpg but there are a lot of contibuting factors like slugish O2 sensors and the fact that I can no longer find gas that does not have ethanol in it. Also contributing is the bike rack on the roof, lol.

But even without the roof rack my mileage has been down atleast 1mpg... will be intresting to see what I get when the winter formula is back and the roof rack is off.

 

Please give us some more info...Year,A/T or M/T , What service and parts has the car had? How long did you get out of parts, spark plugs, coils, fuel pump etc...Have you been having any other problems. What mods have you got?

 

Hey Old Rotor,

Off the top of my head, not going to remember everything... but in general:

2004 M/T GT took delivery at Sept 2003 as I recall (I'm a Nordic Green so I believe we were one of the last colors shot for 2004 model year).

Every recall for the first model year applied to me and were done (though I would often skip a few fuel maps before getting reflashed). A couple of TSB's were applied including the A/C module and the new Starter with Battery (didn't really need this but I complained I did and they did it... what a difference).

Car has only ever been flooded once to the point where it needed to be towed (thank the Ex who was being nice and moved my car three times 20 feet to clean it and shut it off immediatly all 3 times.... didn't help the next day was really cold and I was still on the old battery/starter at the time).

Have replaced the plugs probably every 35-50k and the wires once. Oil changes every 3-5k, more on the 3k side when it was under 100k, and saddly I have been less diligent recently.

As I mentioned, Oil cooler lines have been replaced twice. Reverse switch 3 (maybe 4) times... about every 35k until recently think I've gone close to 65k on the current one. Tail lights have been replaced 3 times on one side and twice on the other (water in the lense) along with new bigger gaskets... (all under warranty of some kind) most recently I did dry them out and put in the latest gaskets and so far dry!

Rear 3rd brake light needed a new wiring harness (replaced with my own harness).

I did do a set of coils at one point... one did not seem to be working up to par (swapped it from leading to trailing for a shor time), a couple of the others looked like they were fatiguing heavily, so replaced them all, probably about 80k?

Other than some steel brake and clutch lines I'm pretty much stock without any real mods to speak of.

Fuel pump, clutch, engine all origional.

I have a number of other minor things that are all covered under TSB's (except I was past my warrantee, even with the extended one they gave the early 8's). Nothing that is real bad, but things like the sunroof rails don't slide correctly when you open the sunroof.

I would say the cooling fan giving out (and blowing the fuse which lead to neither cooling fan operating) along with the oil cooler lines are my only "big" gripes...

I have some agressive rust killing my rear quarter panel and inside my wheel wells, as I said earlier, New England weather and a partially heated garage is not helping. I did work about 1.5 years ago, including some fiberglass inside the wheel well to correct the rust but as is to be expected, it is back. Hope to take a second pass at it this Thanksgiving.

I do drive year round. I have 17 inch rims for the winter with studded hakkapeliitta... best tires in the world, swear by them. Car goes great in the winter (when equiped with the correct sneakers).

Hope that helps!

Oh, and if the car is moved a short distance, I let it warm up a bit then rev to 3k for a few seconds take my foot off and as the needle drops I turn it off... if the car has been at operating temps, I usually just shut it off.

I have done a lot of highway driving and a lot of semi-city driving (anyone who knows rt 3 in Mass will know that it may look like a highway but it is mostly like city driving many days).

 

I'll add, when the cooling fan gave out, it was winter and very cold out... so I didn't really notice it as the car didn't show any temp issues (other than an odd smell which later I realized was the electric motor seezing).

This makes sense as I was moving most of the time... then a few days after it seized (and looking back I do know when it happened) I sat in my driveway for a few minutes talking on my phone... no cool air flowing... things over heated... (oh and not buzzer just the needle suddenly was pegged and steam was comming out from my hood...

It is about this time I think my mileage dropped... it seemed to be like 16 MPG when I got the car back, then climbed to where it is today... may just be a fluke, one bad measurment on the 16 as I think my trip was reset when they did the work (have to pull the battery). And then it may just be that my mileage had been gradually dropping and I only became sensative to it after the work was done. But it seemed to be about 17.5-18 for several months, then it was back up to around 19-19.5, which is where it seems to be now (minus a bit for the roof rack that is on the car this year for my bike). But I'm certianly not able to hit 21-22 mpg which I used to be able to do on long trips on the highway.

 

I've been told the O2 sensors are responding slowly and it is a real pain to get the fuel trims back to where they should be if you reset them... especially around idle where before it can learn what idle should be, it stalls... once retrained everything is fine. (had to retrain it twice now... once 1.5 years ago when I did the first rust work, don't ask... and again after the work for the cooling fan).

I should also add I recall getting an engine mount done, but it was under warranty (perhaps the extended one we got in the old days?)