.... so what is better rebuilding the engine before it pops or wait till it dies on you???...

 

if it blows it might throw a apex seal out the exhaust port and take your turbos out on the way. It might also score the rotor housing or rotor therefore making them useless too. I'm getting a rebuild B4 the motor blows.

 

Refreshening is cheaper...

If you wait other stuff can get damaged..mainly rotor housing..which are quite expensive...

but there is no guarantee you might not need them anyways..

 

Depends how you drive and what condition it's in at present.
If you beat on it all the time you will most likely be better off doing a pre-emptive rebuild. It it's a daily driver and you're easy on it probably not. They CAN go a long time if properly taken care of and not trashed. The difference in the rebuild price can be thousands of dollars, and that's just the stock stuff.

 

hmm. somthing to think about

 

Remember that a certified remanufactured engine is about the same cost as a rebuild - assuming all the housings are OK. It can be a lot cheeper if any housings need to be replace. So unless your current engine dies very dramatically (most don't) there isn't a lot of reason to go through the expense now. Of course there are other factors, like if winter is a convenient time to lay up the car, or you want to modify your engine, or have $$ eating a hole in your pocket :-)

When I lost my o-rings I got a reman (stock) and it has been fantastic - now I pull between 18-20" of vacuum at idle. Before my old engine died I would get between 15-17". So I probably lucked out, but Mazda *is* doing a good job remanufacturing these engines.