I have never owned a rotary, but I am seriously contemplating buying this model, especially after reading everyone's not completely unbiased opinions. I do have a few questions that maybe some of the more technically proficient can shed light on:

1) What kind of gas mileage city/hwy will the new engine be able to achieve under "normal" driving conditions?

2) I read that the old engine had excessive oil consumption, will this be a problem with the new model?

3) If the base model arrives at $25k, what will the turbo run if indeed they release one?

4) How long after the normally aspirated engine arrives will the turbo hit the streets?

Any help/insight would be greatly appreciated.

Miles

 

1) What kind of gas mileage city/hwy will the new engine be able to achieve under "normal" driving conditions?
Since it's a new design altogether, we don't know what kind of mileage it will get.

2) I read that the old engine had excessive oil consumption, will this be a problem with the new model?
Same as above. I would expect it to consume some oil, but that's the nature of a rotary.

3) If the base model arrives at $25k, what will the turbo run if indeed they release one?
4) How long after the normally aspirated engine arrives will the turbo hit the streets? That's anybody's guess at this time. They might not even offer a turbo, especially if they plan on making another turbo RX-7.

---jps

 

As Sputnik already alluded to, we don't really have that much detail. I would just be totally guessing on gas mileage, but I bet it won't be worse than the 350Z.
If there's a turbo, which I doubt, I'd expect it to be at least a year and more likely 2 after the RX-8 is released. They may make an RX-7 with a turbo, but again I'd expect it to be at least a year after the RX-8 hits the streets, and likely longer than that. They claim that they won't even make a decision on whether or not to bring back the 7 until they know the 8 is a success, so it seems to me that 2 years would be the minimum.

In other words, it's my opinion, based solely on speculation (90%) and a very small set of facts (10%), that you shouldn't worry about a turbo for a while.

 

Since no one has the "real" answers yet, we can only guess. What I can give you however is general information about previous rotary engines, and hopefully that would give us a ball park figure or round-about answer you might be satisfied with for now.

1) What kind of gas mileage city/hwy will the new engine be able to achieve under "normal" driving conditions?
The 3rd gen RX-7's city/hwy mpg is 17/25. Since it's been written that the Renesis is 30% more efficient we can guess that the mpg will be higher. 17/25 +30% = 22/32. I think that's unlikely. It would be nice tho. My guess is 21/28.

2) I read that the old engine had excessive oil consumption, will this be a problem with the new model?
I think Mazda says this just to set customer expectations. According to the RX-7 owner's manual the expected oil consumption rate could be as high as 500miles/qt. My friends and I have all the RX-7 generations. We have never experienced anything that bad. Sometimes we go on long trips, Orlando to Atlanta, and experience no oil consumption at all. Then again on other trips Orlando to Miami I needed half a qt.

3) If the base model arrives at $25k, what will the turbo run if indeed they release one?
I wish I knew this one! I've been looking for information on the turbo protege for a while, and I haven't found much on that till recently and that car is coming out in a few months!
4) How long after the normally aspirated engine arrives will the turbo hit the streets?
My guess is 1-2 years. After the MP3 mazda introduced the Mazdaspeed Protege a little over a year later.

Well I hope other people can come up with information too!