Hi,

I don't really know a great deal about cars so please bare with me, but I've read a lot of good advice on this forum so I hope you can help me out!

Anyway, without further ado, I'll add to the rapidly expanding list of people having complete engine failure with the MZR-CD 2.2 engine from the Mazda 3/6/CX5/CX7 etc etc. This is rather a long story, but I'll try and keep it as brief as possible:

6 weeks ago today exactly, my 3 brokedown with no warning whatsoever. I hadn't driven it on the Monday previous, and on the Sunday night it was absolutely fine, the only thing I noticed was the airbag light flashed on then off on the dashboard.

I pulled away from my house, and within 2, maybe 3 miles, it started rattling and chugging away like a helicopter, which was soon followed by the oil pressure light. I pulled over, but as soon as I slowed down the engine died completely and wouldn't start again. I checked the oil level which was easily above the X mark for overfull, and had my car recovered by the breakdown cover included with my warranty. By the time they arrived it was 10pm, so they took it to overnight storage, and delivered it to a local garage on the Wednesday morning.

I gave them a call just after lunch to see if they had any news, and the lady explained that at first visual inspection, without taking anything apart to properly check, it was sounding like it may well need a replacement short block engine, at a cost of £4500. I left it with them as they were going through the motions with the warranty company (Abraxas Mapfre), as I was going away for a week on the Saturday. They eventually called me on the Thursday while I was away, to request that I approved £600 worth of diagnostic work to strip the engine and find out what caused the failure. I didn't confirm straight away, as I wanted to get home and phone the warranty company to confirm that they had actually asked me to approve the diagnostic cost in the event that they decided it wasn't a warranty issue. The reason being the garage I left the car with was the garage that serviced the car at the end of November last year, so I was a little conscious of the possibility they had done something wrong at the service, and may be trying to get out of covering any costs if it was found to be their fault.

The Monday morning after getting back from holiday, I gave the go ahead for the garage to begin the work, and asked for a rough estimate of when they might have some news. He suggested by the end of the week, so I gave them a call back on the Friday afternoon, and was told that the report was not ready yet, and they should have more information by the Monday. I left it until 4pm on the Tuesday before I rang back again, and this time the same guy answered the phone and told me his colleague had been dealing with this case, and she was currently with another customer, so would call be back shortly (leading me to believe they had some news). Wednesday lunchtime and still no call, so I rang again, this time getting straight through to the lady I needed, who said that there was still no news, they were waiting for the report. She eventually gave it away that they weren't actually the ones doing the work on my car, they had sent it away to an "engine specialist", and it was them who we were waiting on for the report.

This raised my first question - no one ever told me they would be sending it away to a third party, are they allowed to do this? I had no idea it was happening, let alone gave them my permission?

As it happens, the garage they sent it to do seem very good and knowledgeable, and I'd actually much rather an independant third party, with no previous history with my car, did the diagnostics and work, as they have nothing to try and hide.

I then left it for two weeks and a day, and rang the garage I'd originally left the car with to find out what was going on, as I hadn't heard anything for so long. Her response was that the engine specialist thought they could repair the engine, without replacing it, and the reason it was taking so long was because it "is a nightmare" to get prices for the mazda parts they would need. She told me she was hoping to have a quote to the warranty company by the end of the day. For the first time since this all started, they actually lived up to their word and she rang me back later that afternoon to confirm they had sent off the report to the warranty company. She suggested that we could try and speed things up a little by getting the third party garage to order in the parts they need, so that as soon as approval was gained they could start the work on the engine. But obviously this relied on me confirming I'd be paying up if the warranty company refused. Quite frankly, the reason I have a warranty to cover engine failure, is because I can't afford a new engine, so I kindly refused the offer, but asked how much it would cost anyway. Her response was a little unnerving- something along the lines of: "Hmmm well it's hard to say, worst case it would be around £4500". I didn't say anything at the time, but this just seems ridiculous.

At this point, 5 weeks into the process, and they still can't give me a definitive price of fixing the vehicle, so what exactly have they told the warranty company? And why would they try and repair it if it's the same price as replacing the short block engine? I also asked why the engine failed, and she tried to tell me that no-one really knew what caused it. As this didn't make any sense, I rang the third party, who were pretty reluctant to say much because technically I'm not the customer, the original garage is. She did suggest that I ring back the next day to give her some time to speak to the service manager to find out the details, but she was sure they did actually know what the problem was.

I rang back the next day (Friday last week, 8th May) - and the same lady confirmed that she had spoken to the garage who was happy for her to tell me what the problem was, but she couldn't disclose prices as the price they gave was a trade price, and what my garage charged me was up to them. Her reason for the engine failure was that the oil pickup pipe had become blocked, causing oil starvation to the engine, which in turn had caused it to "spin on the big end". This didn't mean a lot to me, so I googled it which brought me to a number of forum threads on this website, amongst others, and I've got a pretty good understanding of what's gone wrong. The only other thing she mentioned which stood out in my mind was that she used the words "if we can repair it" - I just don't understand how there can be any uncertainty, either they can or they can't!

I then left it there again, as it was down to the warranty company to decide the outcome. They had sent their engineer out last Thursday, who had been and taken photos etc, so it was a case of waiting. Yesterday afternoon I had a call from my garage who read out an email from the warranty company which described the problem their engineer had witnessed, ie the pickup being blocked etc etc, but where the report varied was that the warranty engineer had said it was blocked by carbon, which was most likely a case of poor seals on mazda engine injectors, and as this is a common problem with these engines, it won't be covered by the warranty.

And so comes question number 2 - I've not read anything in my warranty documents which stipulates that "common issues" are not covered. Wear and tear / serviceable items that reach the end of their life, fine, I understand they would not be covered, but total engine failure, for whatever other reason, should be covered.

This also rang alarm bells in my head, as no-one else had mentioned anything else about what actually caused the oil pickup to get blocked, so I rang the third party garage back and asked if they had any indication of what actually caused the blockage. This time a guy answered who seemed to be more mechanically knowledgeable than the lady I'd previously spoken to, and he confirmed that no, they had no idea what caused the blockage, as the engine was still in the vehicle, and they had not even looked at, let alone touched the injectors. He also said that when the engineer mentioned injector seals to them, he asked him if he needed him to remove the engine to strip it down and confirm that the injectors were definitely the issue, to which the engineer said no, that wouldn't be necessary as he had everything he needed.

Following this, I rang my garage again to ask for a copy of the email from the warranty people, but due to some strange computer system they use she can only print it for me when I can make it into the garage, so that won't be until later this week. Which also means I haven't spoken directly with the warranty company to dispute the decision, as I want to have a good read of their response myself before making a fuss.

And so on to my final question (I think) - while on the phone to my garage, I did ask why they wanted £600 for diagnosing the fault, as how they described it to me was that the engine would be taken out and taken apart to find out the exact cause, when in actual fact it appeared that the third party garage had simply removed the sump pan and oil pickup, and found that it was blocked. They had also mentioned that the big end bearing was knackered, but I'm not sure how much work it is for them to be able to tell this. Her response was that the third party garage had done what my garage asked them to, which was to remove the sump pan and pickup pipe, as well as the crank and (I think) the big end.

I think this about covers it up until where I am today, I realise I need to get hold of the exact reply the warranty company have given, and I probably don't have much choice other than to argue this directly with them, but I was hoping someone would have some advice on any other options that I'm not aware of?

A few details on the car -

2010 Mazda 3 2.2 diesel with around 80,000 miles on the clock.

I've owned it since July 2013, when it had 55,000 miles on, and it had full Mazda dealer service history. I had it serviced by Mazda in January 2014 for the 62,500 mile service, I also had front brake pads and discs replaced by Mazda a few months later, and then 4 new tyres to pass the MOT in July 2014. By November 2014 it was due the 75,000 mile service.

It did not go back to Mazda, because I rang 4 different dealers, and received 4 very different quotes, including very different things, which was very confusing. The prices ranged from around £900 right down to a little over £400, and none of the dealers could agree with what was included. Some mentioned injectors, others made no mention. I also went onto the Mazda website, did an online service booking request, which found a local mazda dealer offering the scheduled 75,000 mile service for around £400. When I rang them to ask what was included, he made no mention of injectors.

I rang a lot of independent garages near where I live, unfortunately none of them could access the Mazda DSR, so it went to Halfords, as they were the only ones who could do the digital service entry, and I was running out of time. I'd looked in the service manual, and the only thing not included in the Halfords major service was the "Fuel injection inspection". I rang Halfords and asked if this would be included, and whether their major service would keep my warranty valid, and he confirmed that it would. I didn't get this in writing.

Sorry for the huge post, I wanted to make sure I told you everything I could possibly tell you, and I would really appreciate any advice on where to go next!

Kind Regards

Stu