Most RX-7 owners own more than one vehicle as well, but that is irrelevant. I was referring to the inability/unwillingness of Lexus owners to wrench their own cars.

That has nothing to do with reliability! You choose where you drive the car, rough roads, smooth roads, it's your choice, not a fault of the car!

Once again, the problem lies with the owner, not the vehicle. You can't blame the design of sports car for the unwise choices of its owner, and the lashed he/she puts it through.

Please copy&paste first hand, factual information/experience here please. Owners need only reply, not friends of a buddy's uncle that had problems.

I was comparing stock to stock, apples to apples. I should have emphasized the 1.3l vs. 2.0l.

All I heard was bashing, but then again, it's never seen as such.

Yes, you and I know what the lay term "uses" means. But to the uneducated reader, they would think that use, means "burn".

They would never think to investigate that it "uses" oil as a part of the mixture during combustion. More so than a piston engine, but understanding the "extra use" should never be seen as a negative. It's designed that way.

Thank you for your response MM, I hope you see these last few posts as purely conversational. As I enjoy reading your reviews!

 

True, a car can't dictate what roads it's driven on, but my point was that the early-90's vintage RX-7 had a somewhat under-built chassis, suspension, and steering parts to keep the weight down...a key reason, along with the light engine, for its great handling on the track. But those lightweight aluminum parts had a tendency to bend or warp on road surfaces that many other vehicles routinely drove over with little or no problem, even some of its competing sposts cars like the Supra, 300ZX, 3000GT, etc...

In the early 90's, I was still driving Mazda sedans myself (I hadn't switched yet to Toyota/Lexus and later Subaru). I saw, in the Mazda service bays, some of those RX-7's with bent underbody parts getting repaired.


Thanks, More reviews are coming up. The VW CC is the next planned one, and then the Audi Q5 and the new Lexus RX when they are available.

I probably won't be posting any more reviews till after the Washington, D.C. Auto Show next week....that will be my main priority. I'll spend 2-3 days there as usual (especially with my free show passes ).

 

Again, comparing a rotary engine to a piston engine is not apples to apples.

 

Correct! This is an often misunderstood slam that comes up again and again, mostly from rotary illiterates. Without oil injection, the combustion chamber and the seals would self-destruct after a few revs. Capillary grooves are machined into the walls of the trochoid chamber which in turn trap the injected oil providing lubrication to the walls and the seals. As long as the owner changes the oil (conventional btw, not synthetic) regularly, the life of the engine can easily surpass or match piston engines - and therein is the principal cause of most seal failures, I suspect. So yes, the engine does burn residual oil during as part of this cycle - but not as much as some would believe. I was only adding one quart at most halfway between changes.

 

amazing cars but totally unreliable. new engine every 60k or just about. the FD is a dream: super light, powerful, 50/50 weight distribution. i would have one if they were more reliable. i had a buddy that was a mazda tech... even he would blow his FD engines (he had one in every color) every once in awhile.

 

there used to be a Mazda dealer we would take our Millenia Supercharged to in Escondido ca. They had at least 20 bays. Guess how many had RX7's on them during our visit in the mid'90's. Pretty much all of them! It was quite a sight. At the time I was drooling over the cars, but the mechanic told me, unless you want to visit me all the time do not buy that car (and he worked for Mazda!).