One of the first things I ever learned about rotaries was how they are known to burn oil a lot.

When I visited a dealership to check out a GSL-SE I started it and noticed some smoke coming out of the tailpipe. The smoke continued for about 5 minutes. I tried explaining to the dealers that it wasn't even close to being worth the $3995 they were asking for it. I told them if it had a freshly rebuilt motor it might be worth $2500 or so. Of course they didn't believe me about the smoking thing so they questioned where I got that information. My mind went blank and I ended up sounding stupid, all I could say was "its all over the internet".

Basicly, for feature reference can someone explain exactly why a rotary starts smoking? I know how rotary engines work but I can't explain what is going on inside the engine that causes the smoking. Okay yeah it's the seals going bad, but why would that cause oil to be burned more?

Those stupid dealers know nothing about these cars. All they could say was, "Runs good". And repeating the fact that it "Only had 2 owners". What if those owners forgot to change the oil every 3k? Do you have maintenance records? Any proof of the care they gave this car? "Uhh, no. We don't have any information like that but it did only have 2 owners!"

That's how my visit went. So yeah I want to sound smarter next time. It's embarassing to go there and be like, "I know because enthusiasts say it on the internet".

 

The seals have gone bad (true) and letting oil inside the combustion chamber. Even my GSL-SE smokes after a day of not starting it and even at every start. When the engine warms up if it's blue smoke then its oil that's in the chamber, if white then its just gunk that build up the last time the engine was ran. I don't know if the smoke is gonna clog the cat, but at start the cat don't do squat, it needs to warm up to a certain temp and that's what the remaining smoke comes out for mins. until the cat gets to temperature and start cleaning.

 

Thank you very much for your answer. So to make sure I've got it, blue smoke would be more of a sign of old age since it's bad seals. White is just the build up burning off so its common and normal?

And of course a bad car would smoke REALLY badly if it hasn't been driven in a long time, like my friends turbo II. It does blow out a huge cloud of blueish white smoke for quite a long time.

 

its normal for the rotary to puff out some smoke when you start it cold (about 30 sec). one test you can do is to start it cold and rev it up to 4-5k rpms and see if the smoke gets worse. if it does it needs to have the motor rebuilt. you can look it the shop manual

mike

 

Thanks, this information will be very useful for me in the future.