Heeeelp!!!! Sudden CEL Problem

[Col]

I bought a 2002 Protege ES from a dealer 33 days ago (note, 3 days out of warranty). It was inspected and given a basic service before sale, and ran quite smoothly. Until this evening. I am driving along at 60km/h and the CEL comes on. I am arriving at my destination in about 100 meters, I slow down, pull in and there is a slight loss of compression accompanied with a roughness that feels like a tiny misfire.

I check the manual - first thing it says is to check the fuel level. It is low, but not down to empty. Maybe a faulty guage? I do what I have to do and come back to the car in 20 mins. It's -9C outside now, and the car now struggles to start. When it does, it's barely running - almost like there is no fuel. I check the belts are on (I hope that one is the timing belt), then head 200 meters to the Shell garage at an enforced snail's pace. It wasn't fuel. It barely moved the 10 meters to the nearest parking spot.

There is not much I can do at -9 in the night, but I can say that there is oil, coolant and all other fluids as required. Any ideas why I would go from running perfectly to not at all in the space of 310ish meters? The only thing I have changed are the spark plugs - I removed the base level v-groove NGKs and replaced with pre-gapped NGK IX Iridiums, as specified for my model. The car was working really well with these 310 meters ago, and for the previous 100km. My gut feeling is that this has nothing to do with the problem, but I am not a mechanic.

Tomorrow morning I will check the plugs and reseat the cables (if I am lucky it will warm up to about -3C...) - but I would welcome any other ideas in case that doesn't work. By ideas, I mean pre-"take it to Mazda" hints.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that the ABS light came on at 150km/h when I bought the car (you have to test these things, right?). I haven't driven at high speed since and the light hasn't come on - but could there be a computer fault?

Thanks in advance to anyone who is willing to offer any advice.

 

[wannabe]

I bought a 2002 Protege ES from a dealer 33 days ago (note, 3 days out of warranty). It was inspected and given a basic service before sale, and ran quite smoothly. Until this evening. I am driving along at 60km/h and the CEL comes on. I am arriving at my destination in about 100 meters, I slow down, pull in and there is a slight loss of compression accompanied with a roughness that feels like a tiny misfire.

I check the manual - first thing it says is to check the fuel level. It is low, but not down to empty. Maybe a faulty guage? I do what I have to do and come back to the car in 20 mins. It's -9C outside now, and the car now struggles to start. When it does, it's barely running - almost like there is no fuel. I check the belts are on (I hope that one is the timing belt), then head 200 meters to the Shell garage at an enforced snail's pace. It wasn't fuel. It barely moved the 10 meters to the nearest parking spot.

There is not much I can do at -9 in the night, but I can say that there is oil, coolant and all other fluids as required. Any ideas why I would go from running perfectly to not at all in the space of 310ish meters? The only thing I have changed are the spark plugs - I removed the base level v-groove NGKs and replaced with pre-gapped NGK IX Iridiums, as specified for my model. The car was working really well with these 310 meters ago, and for the previous 100km. My gut feeling is that this has nothing to do with the problem, but I am not a mechanic.

Tomorrow morning I will check the plugs and reseat the cables (if I am lucky it will warm up to about -3C...) - but I would welcome any other ideas in case that doesn't work. By ideas, I mean pre-"take it to Mazda" hints.

The only other thing worth mentioning is that the ABS light came on at 150km/h when I bought the car (you have to test these things, right?). I haven't driven at high speed since and the light hasn't come on - but could there be a computer fault?

Thanks in advance to anyone who is willing to offer any advice.

first off, welcome to the forums, wish it was under better cirumstances. second, do you by chance have the CEL code? you can take the car to Autozone to get it read if you dont.

its hard to diagnose without the code...

 

[Col]

first off, welcome to the forums, wish it was under better cirumstances.

Thanks!

its hard to diagnose without the code...

I feared that this would be the answer. I have no idea about reading the codes, would I be right in guessing that this is "plug it into a computer" job? Is this really the only option for me at this stage?

 

[cheapmiata1600]

check your battery connections and grounds.

 

[Diehonda]

Go to autozone or the like and have them run your codes. Sounds like the MAF or ignition coil. I run the Vpower NGK rather than the iridiums.

How is the idle while parked?

Have the brakes inspected also. Do a search on here for ABS, you will find more information on what to look for when the ABS light comes on.

 

[Col]

How is the idle while parked?

The idle was fine until the engine light came on. It felt a little unresponsive unless you floored it, which was the reason I uprated the plugs on Sunday. They seemed to make a bit of difference until the engine light came on. My initial theory was that I may have damaged one of the coil boxes above the plugs or a cable.

However... I just had someone run some basic diagnostics on the car. They didn't have the tools to check the CEL code, but did check the sparks. All four plugs appear to be doing their thing, but one cylinder has no compression. This was in a brake and muffler shop whose land I conveniently broke down on, so I couldn't expect anything more from them. The boss suggests that I may have a collapsed compression ring. He thinks that Mazda would have known that there were compression problems before selling me the car. Is it true that compression rings don't work fine one day and not the next? Could this be why the car was unresponsive to the gas peddle before? I just presumed it was a slow car...

 

[Col]

I have been told that replacing the internal engine parts could cost around $3500 Canadian. I called my salesman to yell at him, but he embarrased me by pointing out that the engine is covered by a manufacture's 5 year/100,000km warranty. I am sure that he told me it was 4 years before I bought it...

Anyway, now I am hoping it is an engine problem so that I don't have to pay for it! Apparently blown compression rings are rare - the service guy said that they don't break, not after only 81,000km. Whatever, it's been sent to the dealership. If you don't hear from me again it's because I have had to sell my PC to pay for the dealership repairs

 

[wannabe]

I have been told that replacing the internal engine parts could cost around $3500 Canadian. I called my salesman to yell at him, but he embarrased me by pointing out that the engine is covered by a manufacture's 5 year/100,000km warranty. I am sure that he told me it was 4 years before I bought it...

Anyway, now I am hoping it is an engine problem so that I don't have to pay for it! Apparently blown compression rings are rare - the service guy said that they don't break, not after only 81,000km. Whatever, it's been sent to the dealership. If you don't hear from me again it's because I have had to sell my PC to pay for the dealership repairs

well heres hoping that everything works out for you.

 

[Col]

well heres hoping that everything works out for you.

I am amazed at how someone could misdiagnose an issue like a collapsed cylinder ring. The car was towed across town to Mazda, and in the morning they started it and said there was no problem! They ran tests based on the previous diagnosis - all cylinder compressions were good. From reading the CEL codes they suspect the EGR is causing a misfire. From what I have read in this forum, it sounds as if I should go ahead and let them replace this (actually, it sounds as if I should replace this myself... but I think I'll keep my hands out of things this time). I'll let you know in case it helps someone else later.

 

[Col]

Yep, one replaced EGR and the car is running fine. Thanks to those who offered their advice.

 

[Diehonda]

Check out the EGR cleaning How To thread to maintain that bad boy.