The Truth about this 50K rebuild claim. It is the Rebuilders looking for more ££\'s??

[boomin]

Ok. an American story-teller is in the house:

I\'ve been in the Uk for 5 years now and have watched the RX7\'s as my dad had the old RX3 back in the early 70\'s.

He bought a 1992 RX7 Turbo second hand with 60,000 miles on it in Florida.     I virtually drove the thing 6 feet under every time I went home for Christmas   ( including losing it sideways at 140mph on the Highway trying to cut across 3 lanes to make an exit.... ah  the good ole days.     What a car!

Anyway.. to the point.   He drove it to 240,000 miles before the tan leather had all but completely peeled away  finally giving it to the local scrap yard for $50 2 years ago.   During this time he went through 1 transmission ( probably thanks to me ) a couple of clutches.. one new paintjob...

BUT.,......  no new engine/tips.  yes that\'s right.. no engine rebuilt.. and it passed emmissions every 2 years.

I drove it 700 miles at 180,000miles on the clock and it still seemed very quick passing cars like they were farm tractors on the way to KeyWest....

SO..  What\'s UP,  with this british fascination with rebuilding these engines every 50,000 ... ?  I bet there are plenty who rebuild every 35,000 just to be safe!   Just seems like middle-aged bed-wetting...

Feel free to let loose with the American jokes.  But please,,  ultimately,  enlighten me.

*** WOW.  some good Reading.  I think we have a well rounded picture now.   Ultimately, It appears we are DOOMED,  and should enjoy the smiles in the time these beauties  continue to pump them out  :p   ***

[MikeLMR]

yup I agree it\'s a load of bull, people seem to latch onto numbers and quote them as gospel.

[Ada7]

I\'ve got a feeling this could go on for a while!! lol
Starter for 10 anyone?

[MikeLMR]

well to expand further US engines are going to last longer due to the nature of US roads BUT the idea that 3rd gen rx7 engine will only last 60K between rebuilds is nonsense.

[clive]

Hi Boomin and thanks for the post.

I have known these cars do this mileage in the States and know of an FD with 215k miles on it out in California, but then you Guys tend to start em up an drive them looooooooong distances which the Rotary obviously loves.


But with the FD over here we seem to lose them at around 60k !

This seams mainly due to water seal failure rather than anything else, and this l personally put down to the stop start nature of using a car in the U/K and all the constant heating up and cooling down that goes with it.

[chrisBoid]

Is it do do with the majority of of UK RX-7\'s being modified in some way, increasing the stress on the engine and thus shortening the life?

Or the nature of their origin?  The vast majority will come from Japanese auctions where it is never easy to find out how stressed the car was by it\'s previous owner.  I\'ve heard a few stories of imports going pop early on because the importer wasn\'t clued up on the rotary engine.

"I bet there are plenty who rebuild every 35,000 just to be safe!"

I wish we could, but not at £2-3k a rebuild

[James S]

one of the reasons for these engines going pop early could be put down to modifying them without adjusting the fuelling, therefore causing the engine to run lean and consequently it goes bang

[MikeLMR]

do you think what we are seeing is accurate ? we only got 120 somthing FD\'s originally so we havn\'t seen a great deal of them until recently. (like the last 3 years) is that enough experience of properly built and maintained engines to be certain?

if we we\'re loosing them due to the heating/cooling why doesn\'t it do the same with the older cars ?  I\'m not trying to be argumentative, just interested in whats going on.

I personally don\'t like the arbitary number stuck on the engines life (as you may of guessed
:rollin )

[Carl]

In my experience as an engine builder over here I find that very few engines are rebuilt other than because they have actually gone wrong.It is pretty irresponsible to get people to spend their hard earned money unneccessarily in my opinion.
I also think that alot of the mileages on the imported cars are very dubious,not all, but some cars with supposedly very low mileage do seem to be very tatty.On the other hand,the cars that have low mileage maybe going wrong due to that very fact,a lack of use in Japan with long periods of inactivity.
Too,at the ports these cars can lie for months on end not being used and suddenly they come here only to be thrashed hard with the inevitable happening.
Many Japanese also drive their cars quite conservatively to,not using them hard as we do,which could also contrbute.
The engines in the States would be used in a different way from the use over in both Japan and here.
I am convinced that the water seal failure is caused by lowish compression and low battery power,at the docks the car gets moved a few yards and switched off,the next person comes along to move it and floods it,then the petrol seeps into the water seals and corrodes them,car arrives here and in a short time the seals give out = rebuild time.Water seal failure is largely in the bottom of the engines.
Regards
Carl

[gsb876]

Interesting thread,

i guess if your engine goes pop theres no alternative than to rebuild, i think the person with best knowledge on this here subject will be the person who has had a rebuild and then had to do another rebuild on the same car without any other owner in between.

Any body ?

Gurj

[James S]

i don’t believe the re-builders are out to rob us of money! as Carl says we don’t know how the cars bean treated in Japan.

It would also be interesting to hear from owners of UK FD3\'s as well as owners who have had to do two rebuild on there cars.

[Oedipus Rex]

agreed on the water seal failure. Most people I know who have had a rebuild is due to seal (water that is) failure, rather than chucking a tip or other. I wonder if our climate may have an effect aswell. Not having to have a rebuild and not fully aware of the internal water structure, I\'m assuming that there is a rubber O-Ring sealing the water at some point. As we know cars rust a lot worse in this country than they do id Italy for example (yes I\'m talking about Alphas), I guess the point I\'m getting at is that do the temperature and humidity levels of the climate here help perish the theoretical O-ring that I\'m assuming exists. For instance if you keep your car outdoors and it freezes at night, then you take it out for a spin and it gets hot as **** and then you leave it outside work all day and it is misty and wet and then you drive it home and it gets hot again then freezes again at night, that can\'t help the situation at all.


Would be interested though, as Gurj rightly pointed out, to know of anyone has had subsequent rebuilds on the same car and how many miles / under what circumstance they did between builds.

[babz_audio]

Originally posted by Carl

I am convinced that the water seal failure is caused by lowish compression and low battery power,

Regards
Carl

low battery power? should you upgrade the battery then? i dont know if anybody else has noticed but these jap batteries are tiny, same was in the skyline i had before the rx, uk ones are far bigger in size

im new to the rx scene so explain in full please

[Brett]

I\'m with Carl on this one.
 Lack of use is a killer. My TT in Guernsey had 48,000miles on the clock, but had sat and done nothing for months (it was laid up on the dealers yard for 6 months over winter) lack of use causes your vacuum systems to cease, oil and fuel drain all the way back into the sump/tanks etc. Aluminium starts to corrode and get eaten away both outside and in.  
 Most of the cars that go pop (from my expereince) are the ones that are weekend/sunny day cars and those that are modified both sensibly and and stupidly.  Pretty much any mod will affect engine stress.
 A prime example of how engines go wrong due to lack of use can be seen in the 2nd gens.  Most TII\'s/Egi\'s were purchased as Grand tourers by company execs etc.  In the there first 7-10 years of life they probably covered around 70-100,000 miles with no problems.  Then as they get sold on to the people who aped after one but could never afford a new one (and only used it for a fun weekend car etc) the usage went down.  My current 2nd gen covered 115,000 miles between 1988 and 1998. Between 1999 and 2003 it only did another 7,000 miles.  Hence all the vacuum control systems and the oiling system corroded and took the engine with them circa 125k.
 Thrashing \'em or abandoning \'em = the same.

Blimey, that was a ramble and a half.......... :rolleyes:

[clive]

Originally posted by chrisBoid
Is it do do with the majority of of UK RX-7\'s being modified in some way, increasing the stress on the engine and thus shortening the life?

Hi Chris, yes you have a point, but if you get into the mod debate then all the boingers have the same problem as a Rotary.

Its also worth noteing that  a fair amount of mods actualy make these cars more reliable, by removeing a lot of the junk off the engine and intercooler/ radiator mods also help because you releive the engine of a lot of heat which is a killer with the Rotary.  

l also agree with Mike that its unfair to "tag" the life of these engines.

Aparently a lot of engines in Japan get lost at 40k due to lack of use.

BTW my car is a UK car and l lost the unmodded engine at 53k after three years.




Then with a lot of help from Carl we modded it just a little