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by ynniv
3235 days ago
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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. |
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* 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)