Mazdas (2012-2018) recalled for potential issues with diesel engines

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Mazda Akera 2.2DE Auto 2015
Dunno if you guys has seen this

I guess mine is affected (wow)

https://www.caradvice.com.au/799235/mazda-3-6-cx-5-recalled/

Several model lines recalled for potential issues with diesel engines sold between 2012 and 2018.

Mazda Australia has issued a recall for 35,476 diesel versions of its Mazda 3, Mazda 6 and CX-5 model lines over concerns build-up of carbon deposits could cause premature wear of certain engine components.

According to the Japanese brand, "The affected vehicles may accumulate carbon deposits in the intake shutter valve".

If the condition occurs, the following issues may be presented:

A gradual drop of engine power
Multiple warning lights to display on the driver's dashboard
A gradual increase in vehicle stopping distance
Potential engine stall with no restart
Smoke may emit from the engine compartment
Mazda says all of the above symptoms pose a hazard or accident risk to the vehicle's occupants and other road users.


Affected vehicles were available for sale between 26 January 2012 and 10 August 2018. In terms of model years by model line, the Mazda 3 diesel falls between MY14 and MY16, the Mazda 6 diesel between MY12 and MY18, and the CX-5 diesel between MY12 and MY18.

There are a total of 35,476 vehicles affected across all three model lines a VIN list is available here.

Owners of the recalled models will be contacted by Mazda Australia, and instructed to schedule an appointment with their preferred dealer for repairs once parts become available. A software update to the ECU will also be completed all free of charge.
 
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Had the recall service done on mine a week or so ago.

For my Akera 2.2 it was pretty simple, just a replacement fuel return hose and clean the intake shutter valve. And a software update.

The dealers mechanic said the work required depends on the VIV number of the car, earlier ones require further work. If major damage is detected they are replacing the engine free of charge even if the car is long out of warranty.
 
There is no specific recall for overheating - more than likely, the head gasket failure that some CX5’s (actually very few here in Aus) experienced may well be associated with the core issues covered by the recall I mentioned earlier, if they are left unattended.

Where cars have been dealer serviced in accordance with the recommended schedules, Mazda in Australia have been very supportive with free repairs (even complete engine replacements) even if the car is loooong out of warranty when failures related to the core reasons for this recall have occurred.

Australia does have very strong consumer laws with an implied warranty that can be enforced even if an issue is well outside the manufacturer warranty period.

I have said if before on this forum and I will say it again - there is no plethora of diesel CX5 Engine failures here in Australia. They sold and continue to sell heaps of them here, and if they all had failed as some would have you believe, they would be lined up out the door of Mazda dealers for many kilometers. Lawyers would also be having a field day with class actionsuits. And, neither of those things are happening.

Even where the vehicle has incomplete service records or where there is evidence of lack of servicing or use of incompatible oils, Mazda has often helped in at least some way.

What we do know, and what Mazda and many other diesel passenger car makes will tell you, is that diesels are not suited to continually just doing multiple short trips where the engine does not have time to get up to normal operating temps and maintain that for some time.

Where short trips are typical of the vehicles use they will actively steer people towards petrol (gas for ‘Mericans) or advise them to take the diesel car for a 30-40 minute drive at highway speeds about every fortnight.

It must be noted that like all Eu compliant diesel cars, these Mazda diesels have very exacting requirements for the engine oils to be used, which must meet JASO DL-1 or ACEA C-1 standards, and they are full synthetic, low sulphur, mid SAPS, and are relatively expensive.

If they are not used, and if they are not changed at the recommended service intervals, be that by distance or time, the engine will almost certainly suffer DPF failures as well as excessive clogging in the intake shutter valve.

Diesel fuel quality is also an issue with these engines. They do not do well on crap high sulphur diesel.

One suspects that the lax attitudes towards vehicle servicing, poor fuel quality and not understanding the impact of using the wrong oil is not well understood in some 3rd world countries. More than likely these are the reasons why Mazda has withdrawn them from sale there. Not the hot weather conditions etc.
 
There is no specific recall for overheating - more than likely, the head gasket failure that some CX5’s (actually very few here in Aus) experienced may well be associated with the core issues covered by the recall I mentioned earlier, if they are left unattended.
Based on Mazda Taiwan investigation, your assumption definitely is false.

In Taiwan ROC Ministry calls for Mazda to respond to Safety Probe
Hi DJ,
fyi!
From 2017,mazda Taiwan has stopped selling CX-5 or Mazda6 model equiped with 2.2D Diesel engine due to there were hundreds of cases reported on Mazda CX-5/Mazda6 2.2D
having head gasket blown issue,the obvious symptom is overflowing/boilng coolant from sub-tank caused by overheating of the engine.

According to the RIDICULOUS announcement of Taiwan's Mazda(https://www.mazda.com.tw/news/offers/20180906/), the Skyactiv-D 2.2-liter diesel engine model is easy to increase the combustion pressure and temperature inside the engine if it is driven at a high level on a 5% steep slope. The investigation found that if this driving mode is continued,
high-pressure combustion gas will enter the engine coolant line through the cylinder gasket, which may cause the coolant to overflow from the sub-tank cover.
To prevent this from happening, Mazda Taiwan is currently preparing to change the engine's internal combustion pressure and temperature without excessively increasing through the engine control program.

It seems that Mazda is trying to fix this HW design issue through changing the SW(uhm).
however Mazda cannot commit 100% to fix it.
further more, based on our statistical data, one-third of the CX-5/Mazda6 2.2D users could encounter this issue ,especially, when the milage is >100000 km

Currently in TW, regardless of whether the vehicle is still in the warranty or not, mazda would replace a new engine for free, a new engine with the same design flaw, that's why we have someone here driving his Mazda6 2.2d with it's fourth engine.

One suspects that the lax attitudes towards vehicle servicing, poor fuel quality and not understanding the impact of using the wrong oil is not well understood in some 3rd world countries. More than likely these are the reasons why Mazda has withdrawn them from sale there. Not the hot weather conditions etc.
Since I’ve been in Taiwan many times and Mazda Taiwan has stopped selling popular CX-5 diesel there since 2019 MY, I can comment that your speculation of maintenance issues on Mazda diesels in this ”3rd world country” of Taiwan is totally false too. About using the wrong oil, firstly, Mazda recommends ACEA C3, not C1, for its SkyActiv-D 2.2L diesel. Secondly, ACEA A5/B5/C3 motor oil is available everywhere, even at any supermarkets in Taiwan under any name brands you can choose. Most CX-5 owners use Mazda dealers in Taiwan for routine maintenance as they have to do this to keep factory warranty intact. That’s why Mazda Taiwan has never mentioned using the wrong oil and poor maintenance are the reasons causing the sudden overheating problem.
Low sulphur diesel is also used in Taiwan. If poor diesel quality is the problem for diesel car owners, why Mazda is the only import car company withdrawing popular diesel market from Taiwan, but others keep selling well due to the fuel saving nature and cheaper price on diesel?


1BEF6E15-977C-44B1-9FE4-F6BD375DEC9D.jpeg
 
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C1 or C3 oil in CX5 diesels depends on the MY. Until KF series, C1 or JASO DL1 was the recommended oil. Since KF, C3 is recommended. At least here in Aus that is the fact.

If there is such a problem with the Cx5 diesel, then why only stop selling CX5 diesel in a few selected non-developed countries? (Neither Thailand or Taiwan are classified as developed by the World Bank).

If its really is due to uphill driving, then presumably that is related to engine load, so why has the towing rating not been changed?

There was a well documented head gasket issue with early 2012/13 models and similarly with soft camshafts sround the same time. One can only wonder if those issues were not addressed by Mazda in Taiwan or Thailand as they were in Eu UK and elsewhere.
 
Moonlighter, possibly you can help me with a strategy on how to approach Mazda. I bought a second hand Mazda CX5 2.2 VIN (JM0KE...) at 130K+kms 2016 grand touring model from a Mazda dealer in mar2023. It worked fine, after 6 mths, then got the check engine light and loss of power (safe mode), drove for no more than 50kms before getting it to a different mazda dealer near my house. They swapped out the boost and map sensors (boost was eventually free due to some MAzda directive, why was it not already replaced as this is a known cause of issues). They then took the car for a test drive, where the lights came back on, they then tried another active regen in the workshop, where they discovered the DPF was passing no gas at all. At some point here the engine stops and refuses to start again. If they disconnect the DPF (they still to this day can not explain how they disconnect the DPF as it is bolted to the back of the engine) then the engine runs. So they want to drop the engine and replace the DPF. I instead got it towed from that dealer back to the original Mazda dealer that I purchased it from where it has been now for over a month (2 months all up in the workshops). The main thing that I am concerned with is how can a dealer sell a mazda CX5 2.2 when they do zero checks on the state of the DPF and exhust system knowing that this is one of the most likely failure points in a higher km DPF enabled consumer diesel (they have repeatedly told me that there is no way to ascertain the condition of the DPF or exhaust system. The CX5 has no read out from a scanner on the DPF back pressure or other indicators unlike the isuzu diesel in the BT50 or subaru engines etc. However I can see many examples on-line of scanners being able to see real-time exhaust pressure and differential exhaust pressure readings, these surely would be sufficient ot ascertain DPF state?). Regardless, how also can Mazda design a sensor network such that it shows no warnings of impending doom at all until it is basically too late and the DPF is blocked. That is obviously a sign of some kind of silent sensor failure where the ECU basically is unaware of the increase DPF backpressure. This buildup in issues in the DPF would surely have been taking place for a significant amount of time and the system should have given some kind of warning as to what was going on, so it could have been dealt with sooner. Those are my main issues. The car is just out of statutory warranty and out of manufacturuer warranty. But to me there are grounds for some kind of resolution here. I do not feel the car was in reasonable condition when I bought it and I feel ripped off by the Mazda dealer for selling me a car with such serious hidden issues. Their main argument is that they did not know and their standard checks do not look at the exhaust system, so the car was in good condition when they sold it to me.
 
Seems you can't trust what the dealers are saying. These motors did have injector seal failures as made of the wrong material. Ask them to check the injectors for "blowby" and oil pick-up stainer in the sump. Should be a simple check. My mazda6 had the fault, mazda spent over $10k to rebuild the engine and gave me a hire car for 9 weeks. The car was 6years and 120,000km outside warranty
 
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Moonlighter, possibly you can help me with a strategy on how to approach Mazda. I bought a second hand Mazda CX5 2.2 VIN (JM0KE...) at 130K+kms 2016 grand touring model from a Mazda dealer in mar2023. It worked fine, after 6 mths, then got the check engine light and loss of power (safe mode), drove for no more than 50kms before getting it to a different mazda dealer near my house. They swapped out the boost and map sensors (boost was eventually free due to some MAzda directive, why was it not already replaced as this is a known cause of issues). They then took the car for a test drive, where the lights came back on, they then tried another active regen in the workshop, where they discovered the DPF was passing no gas at all. At some point here the engine stops and refuses to start again. If they disconnect the DPF (they still to this day can not explain how they disconnect the DPF as it is bolted to the back of the engine) then the engine runs. So they want to drop the engine and replace the DPF. I instead got it towed from that dealer back to the original Mazda dealer that I purchased it from where it has been now for over a month (2 months all up in the workshops). The main thing that I am concerned with is how can a dealer sell a mazda CX5 2.2 when they do zero checks on the state of the DPF and exhust system knowing that this is one of the most likely failure points in a higher km DPF enabled consumer diesel (they have repeatedly told me that there is no way to ascertain the condition of the DPF or exhaust system. The CX5 has no read out from a scanner on the DPF back pressure or other indicators unlike the isuzu diesel in the BT50 or subaru engines etc. However I can see many examples on-line of scanners being able to see real-time exhaust pressure and differential exhaust pressure readings, these surely would be sufficient ot ascertain DPF state?). Regardless, how also can Mazda design a sensor network such that it shows no warnings of impending doom at all until it is basically too late and the DPF is blocked. That is obviously a sign of some kind of silent sensor failure where the ECU basically is unaware of the increase DPF backpressure. This buildup in issues in the DPF would surely have been taking place for a significant amount of time and the system should have given some kind of warning as to what was going on, so it could have been dealt with sooner. Those are my main issues. The car is just out of statutory warranty and out of manufacturuer warranty. But to me there are grounds for some kind of resolution here. I do not feel the car was in reasonable condition when I bought it and I feel ripped off by the Mazda dealer for selling me a car with such serious hidden issues. Their main argument is that they did not know and their standard checks do not look at the exhaust system, so the car was in good condition when they sold it to me.
I fell Mazda Australia is more generous to fix those major problems on the 2.2D diesel for free without warranty. Other regions may not have such luck. More common problems on this 2.2D are sudden overheating without warning, and broken oil pump chain where both are
catastrophic.
 
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