Has your engine died?

kevo26

Member
Hey my engine went with only FMIC and turbo back exhaust with 8500 miles. Suburban Mazda of Farmington Hills, MI is denying me of my warranty. If your engine has gone please let me know the specifics. I just want to hear from those who have lost an engine or know someone that lost one of the DISI engines.
 
you guys are doing a great job of reinforcing my decision to remain bone stock for a long, long time :)
 
My bet: Pre-ignition

Sounds like your car was one of the cars that needed the fuel pump replaced and/or ECU reflash. It was one of the recalls for some of the MS3s, depending on their manufacture date. There is another member who had a similar experience, low miles, but with no mods at all. Covered under warrenty.

You need to prove to them that it wasnt the FMIC and exhaust that caused the failure, but rather it was Mazdas fault with a bad program and/or pump. If you search around, you should find a thread in regards to this, your serial number must match those within the recalled cars.

I wish you the best.

you guys are doing a great job of reinforcing my decision to remain bone stock for a long, long time

Me too. Stock car = 60k miles/5 years of no paying out money for any broken powertrain parts! I still find it a struggle not to plan anything.
 
Just curiosity on my part, but these ecu and fuel pump issues that have cropped up, will these problems become more pronounced as these cars accumulate some serious miles?

Ie. what will be the normal failures of such components? will you have time to react and bring it in for service, or will there just be a bang and it's too late type of scenario?
 
Super Unique, from what Ive gathered (in the few days Ive been a member...), there are no warning signs, and happens with very few miles on the motor, such as kevo's 8500 miles, and the other thread I read, it too had very few miles.
 
what I was getting at was these issues are related to problems with the tuning, and or assembly of the engine, well with time all these components begin to drift from the tight initial specs as they wear, so many miles down the road things aren't nearly as precise, so when say our fuel pumps are not @ 100% of their new level of performance, how will that affect the tune of the engine, and will there be more and more failures due to this when the cars get well worn? many naturally aspirated engines live a long life, even burning oil like crazy etc... so how will the speed3 motor handle being a senior citizen?
 
I really dont know whats haywire with the OEM tune that causes the failure.

I think that when Cobb comes out with the AP, the tainted MS3s who need to adress the recall still, will not have to worry with the AP tune, it should write over the OEM tune to the extent that its as effective as doing the recall flash since Cobb will have rewritten all the timing and fuel tables. Now, when somebody with the tainted car pulls the AP tune, he best have the Mazda flash lined up really soon.

With a good tune, the MZR should run for a very long time as long as Mazda R&D'd the motor well enough to withstand high miles. There are many old turbocharged Subarus still on the road, so I dont think our turbo motor will age too badly.

Pre-ignition is a silent killer. Often times, you cannot detect it. Its different than detonation, much different. Pre-ignition starts as the piston is on its way back up, but early during this stroke. As the fuel is now buring as the piston is traveling upward, the piston heats up and the rod is stressed. Broken rod, or blown piston, neither are much fun. Any motor can suffer from this if not tuned properly. the error is in Mazdas factory tune. Now, as to why Mazda tampered with a perfectly good tune, I dont know.

With all that said, with the proper tune and maintenance, the motor should last a long time if its not beaten on, just like any other quality motor (you know, some motors are just garbage from the beginning).

Fuel pumps dont usually slowly die. If this were the case, there would be many, many engines that suffer a pre-ignition death. As motors age and tolerences loosen, they arent nearly as sensitive to imperfections. Cylinders will lose compression, oil may leak through certain seals.
 
Sounds like your car was one of the cars that needed the fuel pump replaced and/or ECU reflash. It was one of the recalls for some of the MS3s, depending on their manufacture date.

There is no recall for the fuel pump. If there was a recall, people would have received a notice in the mail.



You need to prove to them that it wasnt the FMIC and exhaust that caused the failure, but rather it was Mazdas fault with a bad program and/or pump.

That would be difficult to prove. His modifications would have substantially increased the peak boost pressure. The ECU wasn't programmed with a turboback exhaust and FMIC in place.

Bolting on parts without an understanding of the engine management is a crapshoot at best.
 
Last edited:
There is no recall for the fuel pump. If there was a recall, people would have received a notice in the mail.

Didnt the TSB say that if the reflash didnt work, then replace the pump?

That would be difficult to prove. His modifications would have substantially increased the peak boost pressure. The ECU wasn't programmed with a turboback exhaust and FMIC in place.

I completely understand that. Mazda is going to win this one. But, if his serial number falls under a recalled number, it isnt completely the users fault. It was going to fail, he may have just made it happen sooner.

Bolting on parts without an understanding of the engine management is a crapshoot at best.

Which is another reason I will hold off on modding. I want an efficient, plug and play programmer before I mod. Thats an "if", I dont care to strip this car of its OEM integrity, I just have a modding problem im trying to deal with. (nailbyt)

I was very shocked when I was told that a turboback exhaust works well with our untuned 2.3 DISI motor. A lot of Subarus have failed because people run turbobacks without any sort of engine management. I hate modding without tuning for the mods immediatly with a safe tune, or a good dyno tune immediatly after.
 
Just curiosity on my part, but these ecu and fuel pump issues that have cropped up, will these problems become more pronounced as these cars accumulate some serious miles?

Ie. what will be the normal failures of such components? will you have time to react and bring it in for service, or will there just be a bang and it's too late type of scenario?

When i got the car, no hesitation what so ever. After 20k, hello hesitation :)
Could be just me and maybe didnt notice until now.
 
kevo make them prove that your intercooler and exhaust had anything to do with the dead engine. If it is one of the cars that fall under the problem with fuel pump then it was a defect in build that caused the problem not anything you did to the car.....we need to start standing up for ourselves when they try to void our warranty for s*** that had nothing to do with the problem. speak to a lawyer that specializes in dealing with automobiles and force them to prove your mods caused the problem.....
 
kevo make them prove that your intercooler and exhaust had anything to do with the dead engine. If it is one of the cars that fall under the problem with fuel pump then it was a defect in build that caused the problem not anything you did to the car.....we need to start standing up for ourselves when they try to void our warranty for s*** that had nothing to do with the problem. speak to a lawyer that specializes in dealing with automobiles and force them to prove your mods caused the problem.....

+1

Yeah I'm really sick of hearing about dealers voiding warranties for mods that didn't have anything to do with the problem. Mazda NA needs to accept responsibility and stop trying to blame problems on MODS that had nothing to do with the issue but with a manufacture defect
 
Why didn't you just remove the downpipe and testpipe before bringing it in? This may be a pain in the ass but you wouldn't be in this situation now... This is why you keep key stock parts, and changing the downpipe out won't even let you work this issue out now because it changes boost etc. I wish you luck though, this has already happened to a few people on other forums too. Think the important part here is if your ms3 is modded and it goes boom, take the pain and get it stock before you show mazda what you did...
 
Why didn't you just remove the downpipe and testpipe before bringing it in? This may be a pain in the ass but you wouldn't be in this situation now... This is why you keep key stock parts, and changing the downpipe out won't even let you work this issue out now because it changes boost etc. I wish you luck though, this has already happened to a few people on other forums too. Think the important part here is if your ms3 is modded and it goes boom, take the pain and get it stock before you show mazda what you did...

words of wisdom (iagree)
my delership said the same
 
I definitely would have taken that turbo back off . that really sucks I have 26000 miles and have had no engine problems just a transmission had to have that replaced at 15000 . Seemed kinda quick for a tranny to go just got the fuel pump and flash done yesterday . Seems like there are some duds from the manufacturer .
 
I definitely would have taken that turbo back off . that really sucks I have 26000 miles and have had no engine problems just a transmission had to have that replaced at 15000 . Seemed kinda quick for a tranny to go just got the fuel pump and flash done yesterday . Seems like there are some duds from the manufacturer .

I'm hoping 15k isn't the norm for this tranny as I'm @14k right now...(nervous)
 

New Threads and Articles

Back