Whats really funny is in the classified adds people
say " mazda rx7 4 cyl, ac,etc,etc " even in the autotraders. I mean don't they know,if they owned it !!!

 

Wow,,Daddy, is that a mazda 'supra' ??

 

I've never been asked if my car was a Porsche, but several people have told me something along the line of, "That's a sweet Jaguar! What year is it?" Then I correct them by saying, "It's actually a Mazda Rx-7. It's got the Rotary engine." Usually, I get a response like, "Huh?" or "Thats got that Wankle engine. Then...silence."

 

Think I'll put BMW badges on the front and back of mine. Their plastic chrome badges are only like 8 bucks each. That should confuse some people.

The worst comment I get is:

Oh, that's a rotory. Those have all sorts of problems and leak oil and run way too hot.

Then I reply, no. I have 550k miles combined on 3 cars and only have had to replace 1 engine due to a water pump/overheat problem. Mine doesn't leak a drop of oil and actually uses less than 1.5 gallons of coolant.

Then they reply. That' not what I hear. Then they walk away.

Or I get the reply. That's just because your the exception.

Then I say. No, I have owned three cars and have two friends which own them and have had the same success.

Once again, they walk away.

 

I have decided to upgrade my car by adding an RX-7 to behind my 1996 Porsche 911 badge. That way I will get status and performance.

Should I keep the rotary badge or will having a round two rather than a flat six confuse people?

 

When I tell someone that my car has a rotary I find that most guys perk up in an inquisitive sort of way..... It's like "Oh.... it's got one of those rotaries.... neat!" They usually don't have much to say after I give 'em my enthusiastic schpiel(sp?) about how fun the car is and how rotaries have only 3 moving parts..... hehehe.

 

When I had my second gen, everyone always asked if it was a 4 banger or v6.... now that I have the first gen... i have to tell ppl it has a rotary... and they are like "wow... I didn't think they put them in the old ones. wth???? Its the same car, just diff body style.

 

Correct, rotaries only have three moving parts; the head. a hand and a heavy right foot.

The rest moves by magic.

 

haha, I like that one...

 

I remember when I wanted my first RX-7. I was 16 and went for a ride....had to have one. It took me 4 years before I bought it, but I'll never forget how much resistance I got. I couldn't find one family member, friend or mechanic that told me a single good thing. No one could ever substantiate their claims though.

So I went to the library and pulled every article I could. Low and behold, the truth was there. Turns out, GM, did a nice little study with a dozen or so rotary engines from Mazda and came up with some data that the engines developed serious wear in only 20k miles. They published the data, ran some nice ad campaigns against it and pretty much slandered the powerplant.

I even have the old Popular Science magazine which shows the rotary that GM was building (onyl had 1 spark plug per rotor, ha). When they couldn't get it to work then they said no one could.

Any ways, I chose the engine less riden and have been happy ever since.

 

Are you sure the GM wankels were from Mazda? I know GM did in-house rotary development (half-assed, like most of their engineering programs - brilliant engineers forced to work with next to nothing for R&D budget because the accountant CEOs can't commit to a program)

 

No, GM didn't buy Mazda's for their cars. They couldn't develop their own in house so they did the next best thing. The slammed the engine so hard, it turned people off from the idea. They took the Mazda rotaries and said they did testing on them. Their testing was erroneous. They concluded that the Mazda engines developed serious wear at only 20k miles and that the engines had no practical reliability.

I have found numerous research studies conducted in the mid 70's that prove otherwise. One such research showed that the rotaries (when properly maintained) developed only 50% of the enigne wear that the equivalent piston engine did at 50k miles and 100k miles.

The problem with the early rotaries were the drivers. They didn't change the oil and they drove them hard to redline often before the engines even warmed up. Everyone was so used to a V8 and V6 that they over drove the poor things.