I have never had any major problems with my car aside from a coolant seal loss in an engine a couple of years ago. Why do you guys think it is we see so many threads about so many random problems? Is there that many jacked up 3rd gens out there? Whats the deal?

 

I think it's due somewhat to a lack of knowledge by new owners and also a disregard for normal maintenance.

-Scott

 

That and no-one is going to talk about how their car is running normally. Other than that, yeah pretty much what Scott said.

 

True, but it definitely seems the new crowd has a whole lot more issue than there were a couple of years ago. I guess cars get old and break. Unless you keep up with it that is.

 

I believe that part of it, is because of these cars getting older and older, but for the most part it's the owners and their lack of knowledge/ carelessness with these engines, and thinking they can treat them like how they treated their conventional piston, motor ie: not letting it warm up , and cool down before driving it and turning it off, not doing oil changes frequently enough, etc etc... plus its a turbocharged sports car, what else do you expect? there is a trade off for everything.

 

You'd be surprised how many there are.

 

I think it has to do with a few things.

1) Getting older, new OEM parts are expensive so you might see more ghetto rigging with cheap low quality aftermarket parts.
2) Mods - when done carelessly they can cause lots of problems to any car
3) Newer owners have bought FD's that already have problems because that's a reason why the previous owner was selling it.
4) It's a sports car. Many new drivers are gonna neglect the fact that it's a delicate sports car and drive the **** out of it when they first get it.
5) Most people dont come on here talking about how they're car is running great and has been for years. So only one side of the story is usually told, and thats the "jacked up 3rd gen" side

 

#3 and 5 apply to me

 

Improper tuning.

 

It's mostly anecdotal evidence. We're on a forum, so most people will post about their problems or abnormal operation.

No one talks about normally running cars. My FD has over 200,000 Miles! Normal, boring (well, not so boring) daily driving operation.

No major repairs needed.

 

 

Alot of people never post here unless they have a problem.

 

I agree... I posted about my problems... I got advice and I fixed it. After that it ran fine, and I made one post on my original thread saying everything seemed ok. It's been about a month now and my car is acting up. I didn't make a post every day saying "it's running good", but now I'm posting asking "why is it running bad?". I think it has alot to do with people asking for advice, which is the reason the forum exists if you ask me. Showing off your car is nice too, and I love looking at what people have done with them, but I love this place as a tool to help me diagnose problems, which these cars seem to have alot of.

 

I have a problem....not enough money to spend on my 7.

 

I think I am very good about upkeep on my car, but the age is definitly catching up.

In the last year:

Starter solenoid went out
bushings gone bad
drivers seat worn and torn badly
one radiator fan motor died
e-break cable is going, barely holds the car still anymore with it tightened the full way down, and now ebrake light stays on (even though i hear the solenoid clicking)
bad paint chipping ect so i got a new paint job.

my car only has about 75k on it too. 3rd engine (when the first two blew i was not in the same state as the car)

Ive already done the 5th syncro
Stock sequential system had failed before i got the car

so yeah, basically every "usual" rx7 break has happend to my car. It takes literally every penny i have to keep her running, and my list of **** to do never seems to end.

 

I'll be the first to admit that some of the problems that I've posted about are due to my own lack of knowledge/accidental screw-ups. For instance I had accidently touched my throttle cable to my alternator and that cause a whole butt load of issues like ruining most of my sensors. Also running my car too hard constantly caused my turbos to blow but at 58k and revving high I expected it.

However my clutch and transmission are severly screwed which was caused before I got a hold of the car so that I can't say anything about. Same gos for the knocking sound in the rear that is suppose to be caused by the pillowballs being worn out.

So yeah I'd say that lack of knowledge and running the car at it's full potential kill the 7 the fastest. Soon I shall have an NSX though and will never mod that car but I wonder how differently it puts up to the stress of driving the car how it's built to be driven compared to the 7.

 

 

My car is running great and has been since new. Never had a serious problem. I just thought I'd throw that in so we're "fair and balanced."

 

i can totally understand that and i knew what i was buying into before i considered buying the car. i myself am a new to rotaries and the FD...but years of research, my old age with responsiblity, financial stability, and a totalled car pushed me to actually getting a 3rd gen.
3- agree'd i've had my FD for 2 weeks...brought it to RRR (rotary reliablility & racing) for an inspection...and i just spent 5500 for a rebuild
5- reading about other people's problems give heads up to new owners as well as others considering like me

 

Dave, I assure you there are still a good number of nice, reliable FDs still in the hands of long-term owners. But for the most part, I think 99.99% of the problems arise due to lack of money, or people being cheap, or both.

Ppl simply DON'T want to spend the proper amount of money it takes to address ALL the issues necessary, as necessary. In fact, I'd argue that MUCH of the bad rap the FD got for being "unreliable" was due to lack of knowledge/experience/cash, and so ppl wanna "do it themselves." Sure, there are individuals like yourself who actually KNOW what they're doing, and turn their own wrenches. But even you know what you can and can't (or wouldn't like to get stuck troubleshooting hehe), so you take it to the pros (Ray). Plus, you've had tons of exposure and help from the best FD shop for YEARS... the PFS crew.

On the flipside, you wouldn't BELIEVE how many backyard mechanics we have who are just kids, never really worked on cars, and are trying to run w/ the big boys, working on a car that left MASTER MECHANICS at Mazda A properly built, modded, and tuned FD should not give you many problems. That's my firm belief. Sure, when it does give you problems, it's very expensive to fix, but if you try and skimp, you're immediately setting yourself up for greater expenses and a much larger headache in the long run. I learned that within the first few months I've had my FD. And since then, my FD has had *the* most minor problems, despite me beating on it HARD. I know my limitations, and the stuff I can't do, I leave to the pros. In turn, the car thanks me for it, and runs trouble-free for quite a while.

So the bottom line is, I think w/ FD's becoming so affordable these days (to buy... not keep haha), ppl are simply losing sight of the basic principle: You gotta pay to play. If you can't pay, you prob. shouldn't be playing too hard and expect everything to be all happy-happy joy-joy...

~Ramy

 

In stock form the FD is below average for a mass produced sports car. Our turbo models have a below average engine life around 80-100 between rebuilds. In modded form they fail with much worse than average frequency, and I'm not talking about blown motors. Just about everything in the power train is subject to failure. You just have to face it they are high maintenance.

 

The cars are 13 years old. Any 13 year old car is going to have problems.

BTW, mine runs great. No problems

 

Fixed

Thats the simple fact of the matter. Anyone thinking otherwise is making excuses for the cars shortfalls due to their love affair with it.

How many other cars on the road had totally stock cars engines blowing up before 60k like the FD does? There is your proof right there. These cars are high maintenance, and expensive to own/drive.

 

This is still an unanswered and open question for me. There also have been more than a few stock FD engines that have gone 100,000 miles and more without blowing. Such owners have posted on this forum.

Things don't just happen. There's a physical reason. So what's the difference between the 60k engines and the 100k+ engines? I've never heard a completely satisfactory answer.

As I see it there are several possibilities that fall into two main categories.


1.) An inherent weakness in the construction of the engine:

The main suspected culprit here would be coolant seals that really don't last much beyond 60k miles.
(But if that's the case, how do some manage to get them to last into the 100k + range? If I remember correctly, even a few 130k and 140k engines have been reported. Maybe there's a new mileage champ of which I'm not aware.)

Blown stock AST causing engine overheating and deformation of the coolant seals.
(I know there have been sudden blowouts of plastic AST's. Have many lost an engine because of it? By my observation it's only been a relative few.)


2. Maintenance:

failure to change the coolant frequently.
driving with a coolant leak.
failure to change the fuel filter leading to a blocked filter and detonation.

And then I suppose there's the odd case of someone getting some bad gas leading to sudden detonation and engine destruction, but again, I think that's rare.

I'm talking about stock, or very near stock, engines here. The stock engine already gets a lot of power out of a very small powerplant and has a narrow margin of safety. It's easy to see why a modded engine can put itself outside the safety envelope.

I really don't know the definitive answer, but I suspect the 100k engine has had better maintenance and less abuse than one that blows at 50k.

 

But those are my entire point. An AST going bad and causing the engine to fail... still puts the car into an unreliable category.

Having to perform "preventative maintenance" on it 5x more than any other car on the road also puts it into an unreliable category.

Some engines will last a short time, some will last a long time. Its statistics, plain and simple. Its where the median is that counts,(median is probably 60-70k) and the FD rx7's is very low compared to most every other car made in the last 20yrs. You will always have deviations from that median. Some engines blew up at 10k miles, some last to 140k miles. By far neither of those are the median nor the norm though. a car that has major issues before 100k miles is definatly in my "unreliable / poor quality" category.

I still love my FD, I just dont make excuses for it....