Citroen XM Forum

I agree Dean, seems you would be better off with an Alfa V6.
Those cars you found on eBay look like really good clean cars...just very broken!
I had no idea they are this bad....quite surprised.

Its a shame with the rotary engine as its so power efficient as it just spins rather than the power lost having to start and stop pistons at each end of their cycle. A brilliant idea.... but I think the problem with the rotor tips comes from their very small contact area with the cylinder wall and the explosive forces being acted upon them. Just a weak point eventually.....bit like head gaskets and compression i suppose....once a weak spot appears it gets blown to smithereens.

Well. I hear it runs after replacing a duff coil and resetting the engine ECU but sadly it runs rougher than a rough thing with lots of vibration..

Interesting about rotor tip failure Dean. One plug is apparently showing signs of being contacted on a regular basis so that's likely to be it..

It is very much feared the engine is not in a good place...

Oh dear, why I am I not surprised!

Wankel engines are FAR simpler... No valves no cam shaft, and the engines are designed to rev..

The higher they rev the SMOOTHER and less protest you get from them, this much that in the original RX7 there was a buzzer to warn of over revving due to it smoothing out so much!

Im too, suprised at the RX8 issues! Very suprised. Thought it was well sorted at the end of RX7 eira...

citroenxm wrote: Im too, suprised at the RX8 issues! Very suprised. Thought it was well sorted at the end of RX7 eira...

No, it seems it's a very common problem Paul. They are a lot more robust than they were in the old Comotor days (GS Bitotor and NSU Ro80 for example) where the engine was replaced as a service item almost but it seems 70 or 80K are about their lot...

They're a bit like a 4HP20 autobox in that they're a timebomb. You know they're going to die and there's not a lot you can do about it really - just wait for the inevitable and have the spanners ready when it happens...

EDIT: Forgot to say, that don't rev that highly. the RX-8 redlines at 8.5K and that's not huge really when you think the ES9 redlines at nearly 7K and that has six big pistons going up and down...

I took my MX5s to Rotechniks Mazda specialist near Reading a few times for bits and pieces. They have a warehouse full of RX8s, some are for sale "as new", and some are awaiting repair.

All have, or had, ruined engines. One of their main lines of income is buying dead ones then putting factory new engines in them with new clutches etc, and then selling them out at between 5 and 8 grand each, depending on spec.

There is, I believe, 2 causes of engine damage on these things. Wrong oil, or letting it run low and faulty coils are the most common. The apex seals will be toast. A rebuild kit is available, at a cost, with all the bits you might need. I believe it's recommended that you replace all the coils with new after a rebuild in case the coils failing caused the original issue (weak spark at high revs causing unburnt fuel to wash oil off the rotor tips and accelerate wear). Using the wrong oil doesn't help - indeed, the chap at RT said a dealer history on an RX8 is something to avoid. Wrong oil being listed on the computer and the generic bulk-buy stuff out the dealer's oil filler system being used instead of the synth stuff they should have, which comes in little bottles.

This one did indeed have a duff coil Mike and as an added ruination when the ECU decides a coil is duff it also deactivates its mate which makes things ten times worse. When replacing coils it is also vital to clear all ECU faults else the new coils won't work either...

Oil I believe is a very hot subject in RX-8 circles...

Well, as you may have read in another thread the engine is out and once cleaned to within an inch of it's life and all ancillaries stripped it's coming here to be rebuilt. If it's actually rebuildable that is

When one rotates it by hand it makes some odd noises...

We'll see...

All I know is working ion an RX-8 makes an XM look like child’s-play...