How to completely disable cylinder deactivation?

[pete 06108]

I had a brand new 2020 Mazda CX-5 with cylinder deactivation for five years. Changed it for a turbo last November. Never had an issue with the cylinders. As a matter of fact, I had no clue about this feature until I read on this forum. A big "nothing burger".

5 years is no test unless you're putting 50K a year on it.

 

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5 years is no test unless you're putting 50K a year on it.

Hold my beer! On my first year I put 55.000 miles on the car. Got a job which required an extensive background check which lasted for about 9 month. Until I've got the letter saying I was all good, I commuted to work 5 days a week 167 miles one way, 334 miles a day! You do the math. When I traded that car it had a little over 195.000 miles on board. So yeah, I think it qualifies for a test.

 

[pete 06108]

Wow, that is impressive.

Of course, it could be anecdotal. There does seem to be some sort of consensus around here that CD does cause trouble.

Another thing to consider is that your experience of 2 very long highway (I assume) drives daily is very atypical. If you are gonna rack up miles, this is the way to do it with minimal wear. Your 195,000 miles were were probably more like 50,000 miles of normal driving.

Assuming it still drove well, I would have been inclined to keep driving it.

 

[tomcz]

What I mean is, several things happen with cylinder deactivation. I don't believe you can just remove a solenoid and be done with it. You still have the computer instructing the pendulum damper to activate at specific timing, and potentially tuning changes that we aren't aware of. To really know that each thing is prevented would take some diagnostic work.

Believe me, disconnecting one solenoid only turns off cylinder deactivation. The tuner performed the diagnostics. Your fear is unnecessary. Deactivated cylinders destroy the engine.
Mazda has issued a service document for solenoid failure.

 

[pete 06108]

I have read that deactivation on some vehicles won't occur until the engine has reached operating temperature. I think it was Honda. Maybe someone can expand on this idea and apply to Mazda. Has anyone out there disconnected the wires?

The fix for the Honda V-6 was to put a resistor inline with the temp sensor. This fooled the computer into thinking it wasn't quite up to operating temperature, which was a requirement to activate CD. I did it to my '10 Odyssey.

On very warm days in the right conditions, the CD light would occasionally come on, but it was very rare.

 

[pete 06108]

When will automakers figure out there is only one form of cylinder deactivation that makes any sense.

Hybrid.

Toyota has figure this out and is going all in with their outstanding system, which Mazda borrows for their hybrids.

All of their biggest sellers, RAV4, Sienna and Camry are exclusively hybrid now.

This is for good reason. It is a vastly superior way to deactivate a cylinder.

Wouldn't surprise me a bit to see Toyota go 100% hybrid in the near future with a possible exception being sport models where its still way more funner to row your own gears.