clumzy

My intention is in no way to start a flame thread. I'm just curious to hear your experiences with the reliability of your rotary engines for daily driving.



I just found out today that my mechanic, Rick @ RT Motorsport, who I goto for all the work on my Honda actually spent years under a RX7 specialist. He worked for years solely on RX7's because the shop owner was an "RX7 King".



I just wanna say that I trust Rick and hold him in high regard because of his high customer satisfaction, excellent service, straight up assessments and advice, and generally being an honest, reliable and friendly mechanic. Ask anyone at the Toronto Prelude Club, Civic and Accord clubs ... he's a great guy and does great work.



Naturally, since I have been considering purchasing a TurboII I called him as soon as I heard that he had rotary skill. He was very honest with me, as he always is, and said "My recommendation is to stay away". He went on to say that in his years of RX7 work his customers were plagued by blown engines on non-race daily drivers. Reliability was very poor even with replaced engines lasting only 30,000km's.



Now I realize this may be similar to a doctor saying everyone is sick because all day long he sees sick people. But I'd like to hear your take on this "Reliability vs. Rotary Engine" thing. I've been reading this board alot and know that you people have rarely spoke of poor reliability.



Your responses are appreciated.

ILUVMY88CABRIO

Well, like you said, he doesn't (didn't) see any of the cars that ran well because people bought their cars to him to fix. I've got a 88 NA, and it runs sooo damn good! The only real engine problem I've had with it was a little smoke on start up, not a big deal. And the tranny is a little messed up. I've owned that car for almost 3 years, and put almost 40k on it.

Now my AE, that is a different story. I won't take it on any long drives, because I don't trust the car yet. It still has a few bugs to be worked out. So I think it comes down to how well the car had been taken care of before you bought it.

Turbo II

I trust my car more than my chevy.

13BAce

I think that the guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I've seen plenty of RX-7's run WELL past 100 K miles without any manjor problems. the only problem with Turbo II's is people getting old cars and beating the crap out of them. My old TII ran for about 160 K miles.

sidewinderx7

I have a 84 GSL-SE that still runs great at 160k miles without a rebuild. I also have a 91 TII that has given me problems other than small things that i created when messing with stuff. I'd have to say they require a little more maintence than something like a ... "h word", but then again.. i havent met any "h word" owner who works on there own car. you know.. other than clear tail lights...

isamu

My 82 has a 186,000 miles on it and it runs great. My 86 had 135,000 when I sold it and it also ran great. Hell I test drove an 88 that had over 200,000 miles on it and it even ran pretty good even though the car was thrashed! I think the TII would be a great a car, just make sure its always getting oil and do the proper upgrades. Someday maybe, just maybe, I'll have a TII too. :bigok:

raised-na-rx

I have experience with 2 my 86 N/A got rebuilt at 190,000 miles and has about 50,000 on it since then and my dad's 79 has 320,000 on it and has never been rebuilt but has been taken care of real well. Rotary's are just like anything else if you take care of it, it will take care of you.

89 Rag

Beating the crap out of them, exactly, similar to some of the early mustangs and the camaro's. Everyone who gets one (only people

lacking common sense) seemed to think they are race cars and

drove them that way. The RX-7 isnt an exception, most of them

you see on the road and in the paper are ********, a bunch of

dumbfucks that did very little service or none at all and ran the

living **** out of them.



Yes they may need a little more attention than some other sports cars, however as you can already see reliability isn't an issue as long as business is tended to. responsability, laziness, or a lack of mechanical knowledge, will cause an rx-7 to become unreliable. mechanical failure exsists everywhere, however in my opinion, it only accounts for a small portion of automotive problems, service and maintenance can prevent

(most)mechanical failure( in stock applications of course)

Rob x-7

My convertible has 152,000 on it, runs like a top, gets decent gas mileage, ice cold ac, passes emissions, never let me down, and besides oil and coolant changes, the only other thing I have done to it since I owned that wasnt voluntary was a starter, not bad for a 1988 huh? I think alot of people in the late 80's bought these cars and didnt take care of them at all, beat the living hell out of them also. Now people are wiser as to the ways of a rotory. I have 2 other sevens right now, had a 1985 GS that I owned for 2 years and it didnt break down on me not once, I can safely say this about a rotory- they are reliable, but most mechanics do not know a thing about them, so every little thing back then was brought to the dealer. TII were beaten to death, and now people are buying 10+ year old cars, taking them to tracks, beating the hell out of them- its going to die, no 2 ways about it, doesnt matter if its a 1989 TII, a Z-28, a Trans Am, a Corvette-- you will kill it if you abuse it.

vosko

you can't blame a car for being bad reliability wise when less than one percent mechanics and people actually know how to work on them..... that would be like making a ferrari cost $20k new and then have them break alot and say they are unreliable.... because they are ferrari's and for some of the service you have to take down the whole engine!! anyway you guys get my point