ok so its monday now..

on saturday i decided to change my oil as the previous oil was getting really black and yucky..

i went to the closest auto shop, and i asked the clerk which oil was best for my rx7 series 3 ..
at first he gave me a synthetic oil and i told him that i prefer non-synthetic ones as mazda recomends it..

so he gave me another one (penrite was the brand i cant remeber the weight) and he said this one was good for high reving engines.. ok fair enough so i bought it and an oil filter.

i went home and changed it.. all was good..

and now (monday) aftrer driving to college.. the friggen temp wouldnt go up!!.. well it did go up but very very little.. its like the motor is staying cold!

usually after i warm her up for 3-5 mins.. the temp would go up a notch then i would start driving for 10 mins and it will go higher..

now.. its like its not moving higher to a noticable level!

i know rotaries like being hot.. so im guessing this is bad right..

what should i do?!

thanks guys for the help

cheers

 

Thermostat could be stuck open.

On a side note, what do you mean by "rotaries like being hot"?

 

why will it only get stuck when i done the oil change? is the thermostat anywhere near the oil filter or the bolt sump at the bottom of the car? or any place where i can accidentally tamper with it?

the thermostat does move.. but not as much as it used to..

like it will hardly move! i have to like stare at it closely to see the difference.

what i meant is, you need to warm her up before u can go.. and now without an indication the motor is hot, i have to rely on the time i take to warm her.. unlike before when i see the needle above a safe point.. i just take off and go..

 

Did you disconnect the temp sensor under the oil filter by mistake when changing filter???

 

**** so the temp sensor is near the filter?!

**** maybe i did..

ill take pics tonight and post it then u guys tell me if its disconnected

 

It's a single wire you can't miss it.

 

theres heaps of wires.. i may have to take a pic of it and let u guys point out which one it is

 

Does the gauge move at all? If not that's definately the problem. The sensor is next to the oil pressure sensor under the oil filter. You should be able to find a wire that plugs into the sensor.

 

When I got my first car, I wasn't much interested in cars, knew next to nothing about them, so I bought an old diesel VW Golf. About a year later I was complaining to a friend about my car being very difficult to warm up in the winter, had to drive it very hard and very fast to get warmth. I mentioned that the temperature needle would climb very slowly and mostly not at all. I was astonished when he told me that it was so supposed always rise to a certain point and then stop there. It turned out my thermostat was stuck open, and all this time (and many many kilometers) I had driven it hard when cold to get warmth! Amazingly the car just kept running until I later sold it with 385000km on the odo (about 220K miles)..

The point is, the slow rising of temperature was exactly what I was experiencing, so perhaps your thermostat is stuck too?

 

I'm betting the wire was dislodged from the nipple (its just below the oil filter tower to the left on the block), or you spilled oil on it when you removed the filter.

 

guys..

UPDATE:

i drove back from college and the needle rose at the level it NORMALLY does...

so i guess everything is fine..

confusing..

 

my needle stays pretty close to the cold side as well.. it warms up like normal, but doesn't go too far past the second cold bar. maybe my sensor is going out, or maybe the front mount oil cooler is the shiznite!!

 

That stock sensor is very innacurate... Also consider the years of oil changes and leaks that'f dribbled oil and **** all over that wire connection and messed up the accuracy even more.

DO NOT rely on that sensor.

 

yea I'm changing mine soon. Once I get the cash to get a second temp sensor and gauge.