thanks for the vote of confidence. I guess I am a little paranoid, always have been about getting cars serviced. Either way a new engine is a good thing, if it doesn't bring down the resale value. I will give them a call telling them thanks for getting the engine taken care of.

 

I am sad to say...

 

still waiting on my engine. They say it will be in by the end of this week. so _maybe_ it will be done by the middle of next week. cross your fingers!

 

what about the thousands of people who never had problems ?

no one will come out and like "oh I don't have any problems ! wOO!"

you can go into any forum and you will always see "omg my engine just blew" thread. does that mean "name of the car" sucks?

 

True but, the number of reports of engine failures on the RX board far out numbers any such threads on other car boards I have seen. The RX has a sever engine failure issue, the real question is how wide spread is it.

 

I've never heard of any engines '06 and on needing replacement from the oil starvation problem. Supposedly the OMP output was increased in mid-'06 to take care of the problem.

Anybody looking to buy a used RX-8 would be doing themselves a favor to stick with late '06 models and newer.

That's the scuttlebutt.

 

Seeing that Mazda never says what the cause of an engine replacement is we have no idea why the new models are failing. The fact that the oil injection system was redesigned with more injection heads in the 2nd generation RX-8 indicates that the issue was not completely solved with the OMP increase.

 

Is anyone here really upset that these engines don't last? I hear a lot of people talking like it's ok since their engine is replaced under warranty. I have an 04 with 140,000 miles. I just had my 1st engine replaced at 128,000 miles last August. The engine came from Virginia and I used a NJ based rotary mechanic to install. I paid out of pocket so this engine had better last. 40-50-even 60,000 miles won't cut it for me based on what I spent.

 

New models?

I don't think it's an open-and-shut case. The re-design can very well be a "hedging their bet" instance.

Until I see an '07 or newer engine in need of rebuild due to lubrication issues, I'll accept the OMP fix as good enough.

Remember that the rebuilds are all 2-port designs.

 

Alright so I got my car back about 4 days ago with a new engine... so nice.
So, the engine came a lot quicker than they thought it would. Went from 2-3 weeks to about 1.5 weeks. They were previously saying it could even be up to a month, so looks like I lucked out. With the new coils and plugs it pretty much starts immediately. There's more power at lower RPMs. I didn't realize it, but I was feathering the clutch before when climbing up the hill from my driveway or in other situations in 1st gear. So I had to change my shifting and launching habits ever so slightly. ...And honestly, It shifts better now too! I dunno what they did, it seems like the guys at the dealership did a better job hooking the engine up to the transmission than the factory did! All in all the car feels like when I first got it. I guess I didn't notice that it's been slowly deteriorating over time, but they were right when they said I needed a new engine! The dealership did a great job. It was Mazda Knoxville, by the way.

One thing concerns me. What's to stop this from happening again in another 34k miles? The guys at the dealership did not have a good answer for me. "I honestly can't say sir." I asked if I could change my driving habits, and they said no, there's nothing I could do, it's just a defective engine and no driving habit is going to help. One of the techs subscribed to the "oil starved and only 5w20 at that" theory. I've had all the ECM updates though.

@Jethro: you mentioned that all the reman engines are "2-port" designs. Is this a good or bad thing? I thought the autos had 2 ports and the manuals had 4. Does that mean the reman engines have less HP? I guess more importantly, you seem to think there is something that's changed in the oil metering post 2006 that will prevent the failure problem. I would imagine that my car is the same now since I have all the ECU updates and just got a new engine - for all intents and purposes my car should fall into the 2006 and up category by your logic.
I think I may have to sell the car though. Can't have things like this dropping on me out of the blue. Maybe a new engine with the oil problems fixed will keep the resale value from dropping. The buyer won't have to assume that his engine will fail at 68k miles.

 

Luck, read the second post in THIS THREAD, RR gives a tip to check if your rebuilt used NEW rotor housings. If they used new ones you have a better chance at 100,000 miles.

 

Yikes. Damn I gues its time to try and sell this car. Love this car more than anything else I've driven, but I can't be wondering when the next time its going to break down will be. Nuts. Got to get rid of it now while it has some miles left.