Moderators put this where you see fit. I couldnt think of a good category to put this.

I work at a nissan dealer and we recently sold a used 06 RX8 with 85k miles. The owner called saying his check engine light was flashing and car wouldnt go over 10mph. So long story short he was in limp mode. Being the only one at the shop who knows rotaries I had to deal with him. I strongly advised him to tow the car to the shop.
About a week later I get the keys and was told he drove the car about 12 miles to the shop and on the highway infront of the shop it started smoking badly. I went to the car and had to unflood it and got it going. In the process I heard a faint metallic sound bouncing around the engine while cranking which stopped once I got the car to 4k revving the car to get it running. I had to keep my foot down and drive it into the shop smoking badly.
Compression tests led to front rotor being about 70psi and rear was 0-10 psi. I came to the conclusion one of the rear apex's broke due to the sound I heard when cranking the car.
Simple so far now comes the fun. Any RX8 owner should be aware of their 100k mile engine warranty so we towed it to mazda. They said the ecm showed a catalytic converter code and it had to be fixed before mazda would warranty an engine.. Wierd since when engine compression goes and it's still dumping fuel it fries a cat but whatever mazda didnt wana hear it, the customer agreed and we replaced the cat. The cat was hollowed out. I had to blow pieces out of the muffler and to my surprise an apex seal came out all twisted and tangled!
The car was then towed to mazda to have the engine put in. We get a call 2 weeks later saying it's done but it's running like s**t. It's going to need new plugs, coils, wires and an O2 sensor... Since when does a new engine not come with plugs and since when does warranty not cover new plugs even if the engine doesnt come with them?!?! Then when I told them I found an apex seal in the exhaust that blew out the cat. converter I was told theyve put over 25 engines in over the past few years and apex seals are hard rubber and would be burned in the engine before going through the exhaust. I was like wtf??!! I really didnt know how to respond to this. How do you respond to that? I mean how could the seal get burned up in a rotor with no compression to generate heat... Also how could a rubber seal hold up to combustion temp and pressure but be burned up in the combustion cycle...
Needless to say we're towing the car to mazda in the next town over where I know the rotary tech there for a 2nd opinion.

I figure someone would get a kick out of that. It made my day.

 

Oh yeah he must of blown the head gasket and bent the valves.

Those hardened rubber apex seals are like race car tires they are very very nice and very good. Lmao

 

 

a) what you found in the muffler couldn't be an apex seal, the peripheral exhaust would chop it up like a food processor before it made it out of the engine. earlier engines could eject at most 2/3 of a whole seal but a renesis, no, small tiny bits of a seal.

b) engines come completely bare. no plugs, no sensors, no injectors, no intake or exhaust. all they come with is a brand new mazda water pump.

c) the limp mode likely was caused by other issues which weren't the cause of the failure. the 13B-MSP usually takes out a number of things with the engine, ie cat, plugs, and the ignition was probably already faulty.

d) anything outside the short block is considered a wear component and is not subject to the engine warranty. ie plugs, cats, O2 sensors and ignition components are NOT part of the replacement process.


and hopefully they cleaned out the intake and all the port actuators, IMO the amount of carbon that builds up in those intake manifolds can cause premature failures. i usually collect at least 20 grams of carbon from the secondary ports alone. not a great idea to do a decarb on a new engine but if they didn't clean out the intake it may be wise to have them do a "zoom zoom intake decarb" treatment on it.

i just cleaned out a 13B-MSP intake(installing an 8 reman at the moment) and it is a pain but it is a necessary step for reliability. i doubt the dealers are bothering with this step and likely why the remans only last as low as 30k miles.

and last but not least, the people you are talking to on the phone at the dealer are "service advisors". most of the time they don't even have technical experience and don't know what in the **** they are talking about, but they are also used to talking to people who know even less than they do. i've stood in the reception area shaking my head on more than a few occasions while listening to conversations(when i still worked at the dealers), doesn't mean the people doing the actual repairs are as inept.

the most likely scenario with the renesis is a failed coil pack(s) caused the engine to run on 1 rotor, customer limped the car around and caused damage to the firing rotor while fuel washing the dead chamber, backfiring took out the cat and O2 sensor. the plugs were probably already worn. the factory interval is 100k on the plugs which they rarely ever make it to, recommended interval is 30k miles on plugs, wires and in some cases even the coils. the coils on those cars are garbage.

 

I'll stick with rx7s after reading this post.

 

sorry i meant side exit exhaust porting, not peripheral.

 

While that dealer is ridiculous by saying that apex seals are made of hard rubber, here is my biggest issue and why if I were Mazda, I would not honor the users warranty to the fullest:

If a check engine light is flashing in a car with OBD, you are supposed to turn off the engine immediately as serious engine damage can occur. This is not the same as a steadily lit check engine light where there is an issue, but the car may be driven to be serviced. This information I would expect to be in the owners manual of every car.?

OBD-II Background Information

 

the 100k engine warranty is literally just the engine core. the cat is 7/70 emissions. the coils and plugs might be 7/70 as well.

all of these parts are normal failure parts on the Rx8.

 

+1 on a dying/dead coil being original root problem...seen it fry a few cats on Rx-8's.

also, a flashing CEL is more specifically for imminent or occuring damage to the catalyst, not the engine.