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My daughter has a Mazda 6TS2, purchased in April 2008. It has just been in to the local Mazda main dealer have a few faults fixed under warranty one door lock not working, shuddering when braking (they skimmed the brake discs), handbrake release which didn't work, (replaced the handbrake). These have all been fixed but the major problem is with a high oil level. When the car was returned to her, someone had written on the service report 'oil level high, dangerous, do not drive'. This was not mentioned by anyone on collection, which really annoyed her to say the least. Next morning she went straight round to the garage and asked why was the oil level so high, actually on the 'X' as her husband checked it. She hadn't put any oil in so thought it must have been overfilled by one of the technicians. (All this is before I logged on to your website and discovered that others have had the same problem.) In my opinion they should have drained some of the oil out of the engine so it would not have this high level before they wrote 'dangerous' on the report. The service manager told her that because it has a DPF the oil level does increase as it requires a service - it is due a 20,000-mile service. Any comments?
Asked on 19 June 2010 by TP, via email
Answered by
Honest John
Presumably this is a 2.0 diesel, and if so it has a DPF problem. With this engine, DPF regeneration is aided by extra fuel being pumped
into the combustion chambers to create hotter exhaust gases and burn off the particulates collected in the filter. But if the car has done too many short runs from cold and too many short runs generally during which the DPF did not regenerate, it can become blocked and the extra fuel pumped into the engine sinks down into the sump, contaminating the sump oil and raising its level. In extreme cases, if that level gets high enough, the engine can run on its sump oil and self-destruct. That was the reason for the written warning. The garage mechanic did his job. Negligent of the service manager not to have heeded it and told your daughter
into the combustion chambers to create hotter exhaust gases and burn off the particulates collected in the filter. But if the car has done too many short runs from cold and too many short runs generally during which the DPF did not regenerate, it can become blocked and the extra fuel pumped into the engine sinks down into the sump, contaminating the sump oil and raising its level. In extreme cases, if that level gets high enough, the engine can run on its sump oil and self-destruct. That was the reason for the written warning. The garage mechanic did his job. Negligent of the service manager not to have heeded it and told your daughter
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