Overheating and more?

[julybighouse]

First Post here at Mazdas247 and its a bit depressing.

So my wife and I purchased a 2003.5 mazdaspeed protege in December and the car is in seemingly perfect condition. About four months ago we were getting it inspected and as we are waiting in line, smoke starts pouring from the hood. We find out later that the coolant is filled too high, and the smoke we saw is just steam from the coolant reservoir overflowing. No biggie. Few months later this happens again as the car is going through a traffic jam. We pulled over, waited about half an hour for it to cool and then continue driving.

Two weeks ago I got the Thermostat replaced (probably a little late, but we weren't having any big issues) and we noticed that it was still overheating, next day take it to a different garage who informs us 1) the previous guy didn't put the oil cap on correctly and oil was leaking out the top and 2) Our fan relay was bad. They went ahead and fixed it, we got the car back last week. We topped off the oil (put in slightly more than F on the dipstick) yesterday since my wife wanted to drive it for a trip.

My wife took the car to go to a friends house about 6+ hrs away and about 5 hours into the trip the engine stops and she hits the clutch and pulls over immediately. She checks the dipstick and apparently it is Bone Dry!

Question is, What sort of damage am I possibly looking at? The oil we had in there was Amsoil, and then we topped it off with full synthetic oil (since we couldn't get our hands on any more Amsoil before her trip).

Also, any ideas as to what should be checked to determine the failure? I'm concerned that garage #1 did something to mess with the oil flow.

 

[thecrash91]

check to make sure your oil pan plug is still in tact! check for oil in the engine bay, and next time try to notice if theres any oil while driving being left behind, how big of a puddle etc. when you get the car back to your house this is what you do.
put BRAND NEW cardboard under the car, the full length. in the morning check the cardboard for oil, if there is any BINGO you now have a lead. if there is no oil, start the car and let it run for a bit, but make sure theres still oil in the car before doing so, and rev it a little here and there to make sure the engine is moving and pushing plenty of oil. again check cardboard and if you find oil then you found gold!

also try and notice if there is smoke coming out of the car, itll be a blueish tint if you burning the oil.

 

[julybighouse]

Thanks.
The kicker for all this is that the oil shouldn't have been touched by any of them! The thermostat replacement only really touches the coolant (which is why I was surprised to hear that he touched the oil cap at all). The Coolant Fan replacement and A/C Charging shouldn't have touched the oil either.

When we filled the car yesterday we did notice some bluish smoke but I wrote it off to some of the oil that I spilled on the engine block (didn't have a funnel at the time). The smoke seemed to go away after we ran it around for a few trips last night.

 

[kamon8404]

Well if she ran it out of oil and the motor stopped running you could have just ruined your motor. Oil is the life line and without it, everything will lock up

 

[julybighouse]

One of my buddies who knows more about Mazdas than I do was saying that Mazda has a fail safe in their engines that when oil is below a certain threshold (somewhere below the bottom of the dip stick) that it will freeze the engine before any damage occurs.

He thinks that since the car was pulled over as soon as the engine stopped, no clanking noises or sounding rough at all, that it may be alright and we just need to get oil in it and obviously get the oil leak fixed and we should be good.

Has anyone else heard about this Mazda fail safe? It would be absolutely awesome to hear it be confirmed.

 

[hornsfan10609]

Never heard of a safety feature, at least on the Proteges but I bet your engine is fine. There is still oil inside the block coating the moving parts, just fill it up and watch the level closely.

 

[Preferio]

One of my buddies who knows more about Mazdas than I do was saying that Mazda has a fail safe in their engines that when oil is below a certain threshold (somewhere below the bottom of the dip stick) that it will freeze the engine before any damage occurs.

He thinks that since the car was pulled over as soon as the engine stopped, no clanking noises or sounding rough at all, that it may be alright and we just need to get oil in it and obviously get the oil leak fixed and we should be good.

Has anyone else heard about this Mazda fail safe? It would be absolutely awesome to hear it be confirmed.

Does not exist on your car...

 

[kamon8404]

Yea the msp definitely does not have that.

 

[julybighouse]

still haven't heard back from mazda, will let you guys know more when I do

 

[Preferio]

Yea the msp definitely does not have that.

You'd be surprised how many clients bring their car into my shop and say the same thing. "I was driving and my car was getting hot, so I kept driving until it quit. A friend of mine said that there was a device on my car that would shut it down before it did damage." Same thing with oil. Some cars -Saab- come equipped with a pressure relief valve that is triggered if the oil pressure get's too high. It will ******* spray oil every where. I've never really understood that. It was on mid to late 90's V6. I'd rather have too much oil pressure than a relief valve that just dumps oil if the pressure is too high.

 

[julybighouse]

Aaaaaand they just got back to us. Car is completely dead. New engine or "trade it in". We've had the car for 6 months. About 75,000 miles on it, and worked beautifully before that repair store got to it.

Looking online, a used engine is about $3-4K (not to mention the labor to put it in)? Does anyone know someplace to get a better deal? I just can't believe that this car, which was so much fun to drive, is now dead. Unbelievable....

 

[Maxx Mazda]

Sounds to me like they just want you to trade it in, so they can give it the cheap fix, and sell it for a big profit.

 

[kamon8404]

Yeah I'd recommend towing it to another shop and getting a second opinion but like I said earlier, I wouldn't be surprised if you ran it out of oil.

 

[TURBOJ1]

Rebuild your engine,go with AFTERMARKET parts they're alot stronger than OEM,call a reputable performance shop in your area see what they say, there's a lot more things you can add to make your ride more reliable I'm sure there's someone on the forum that's in your area. If you're just doing a simple rebuild it may be cheaper that you think, good rods and pistons are even sold on this forum for a bargain sometimes..if you think your ride was fun then see what 6-10 psi will do for your DD and your smile....my 2c

 

[julybighouse]

yeah, it would be great to get it rebuilt, and I'd seriously consider it even more if it wasn't two states away. I'll have to look into options, maybe it can be rebuilt there and we make another trip to go pick it up. seriously ticked at the cut rate shop that bungled a simple job! Shows what happens when you "don't have time" and trust a shop to do it.

 

[kamon8404]

If the oil loss is the shops fault they will owe you a new motor. That happened to one of my ex gfs before. She got an oil change and they put a bad filter on, so they put a new motor in for her

 

[julybighouse]

How do I prove that it was their fault? I've got circumstancial evidence (personal accounts and such) I'm working to get a signed statement from the Pep boys station who confirmed a loose oil cap caused by the first shop, and I've got the receipt from the first shop which shows nothing about touching the oil, except for a "complimentary multi-point inspection".

I plan on getting a statement from the second shop and the mazda dealership if I can. Other than that, I can hope that when I go in to talk with the idiots, that they'll fess up, and make things right. I expect them to deny, deflect, and try and run me out. At that point my last chance is small claims court which I'd rather avoid if at all possible.

 

[hornsfan10609]

http://www.speedcircuit.net/product...d/172?osCsid=9ea68493424e9628446f0d2563546f07

In case you need the car on the road.

 

[julybighouse]

Thanks! We're going to be replacing the engine. It's actually cheaper than buying another used vehicle (and lets face it, we couldn't get anything as fun to drive at this mazdaspeed!) and we'll be pursuing several options to get the engine paid for by someone else. I'll know more in a few days, but apparently it could have something to do with putting Amsoil in the car shortly after we bought it in December. The car was on Conventionial oil for it's whole life and we replaced it with Amsoil. Looking at their site, they have a warranty that just might apply here. Fingers crossed!

 

[Maxx Mazda]

Switching to synthetic from a Dino oil will not cause any harm to the engine.