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When pulling away from the Dartford tolls the other morning my TS2 (143) went haywire and enveloped the whole plaza in white smoke! As i'd just come off a night shift I thought I might have down changed in error, but the car ran rough for a few hundred yards but then picked up again before I had the chance to pull over. All seemed fine but it's since done it again but not as dramatically. The oil levels are fine, and the car was serviced at 12500 (now at 15000) There were no warning lights so I assume the ECU did not recognise a fault! Has anyone else had this problem and resolved it, or is there a known problem (aside from engines disintegrating elsewhere in the forums!) Performance seems normal, and the engine is running fine.
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pat
Turbo failure. A little young for the usual lubrication issue; but I wouldn't rule it out.
Straight to the dealers.
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Back to the dealers today!!
The oil was too full! As my variant has a Diesel Particulate Filter, the engine oil is used as part of the filtering process! So if you use the vehicle around town or on short journeys then the volume of oil increases. There is an upper and lower mark on the dipstick, also an X above them. If the oil rises above the X level (as mine did) this causes oil to be burnt by the engine as there is nowhere else for it to go. The dealers can't say why it didn't do this for the 1st 12500 miles before service, or why it has increased by 1 litre within 3000 miles. But I now have to check the level weekly, and get it changed if it rises above the upper mark. (Can't do this yourself as it invalidates the warranty) This basically means that a car that I bought for the fact that it has long service intervals will probably need an oil change + associated unpaid day off work every 3000 miles at £80.00 a throw. Not happy but what can you do, I'm now locked into a spiral that won't stop until I trade the car in, which I'm seriously considering! NEVER AGAIN!
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As you said that the oil levels were fine in your opening post; where has this extra "oil" just appeared from?
All that utter carp about the DPF is worthy of nothing but complete derision. Are there no depths to which Mazda won't descend in their cover up of the MZR-CD disaster?
If the oil has indeed risen [and it's not even Easter] then you have a diesel leak into the oil - possibly injector-related.
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They were fine, but that was before I read the owners manual (yes I know!!)
There is a note which states...'if the engine oil level is close to or exceeds the X mark on the dipstick, replace the engine oil' Allegedly the DPF cannot work at lower revs and the particulates are recycled into the engine oil increasing the volume. However the question I now have for the dealer is 'If the stated oil capacity in the manual is 4.1l, how did you manage to cram (and make me pay for) 5.1l on the service bill? I smell a whole shoal of mackerel. I'll update when I get an answer back.
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Dealer finally replied..."We definitely put 4.1 litres in, the Mazda supplied service software came up with 5.1 litres by default on your car which has now been resolved, blah........however as this may have given you the impression that we overfilled your car we will credit you the 1 litre of oil and the cost of the 2nd oil change"! So not out of pocket, but when I mentioned any engine damage that may have occurred the usual "we're sure we put the correct amount in etc". The waste oil has been disposed of so I can't get that tested for contaminants from the DPF. Lesson Learnt...
1: Don't buy Mazda Diesels
2: Always read the Manual
3: Check your car before AND after service.
4: I'm off to buy an Alfa...just as unreliable but they look great!
I'll post elsewhere on the non-existant software glitch that overcharges customers!
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pat
I'm still searching, without success, for anything to back-up the dealer's assertion that the DPF, halfway down the exhaust, somehow manages to transfer exhaust soot into the lubricant and thus increases it's volume?
Both the methodology - and the logic - have so far escaped me.....
The, far more plausible, scenario was that the dealer overfilled the sump [now admitted?] and the engine sucked in the excess through a breather hose.
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"As my variant has a Diesel Particulate Filter, the engine oil is used as part of the filtering process!"
Well that sounds total nonsense to me. Would you use the engine's lubricant to filter anything?? No.
The DPF regeneration does use extra diesel to burn off the deposits on the DPF. When it does this additional diesel is dumped in the exhaust to increase temperature and kick of regeneration and power loss occurs when it stops fuelling the engine.
I think the dealer is telling porkies - they probably did put too much oil in. If I can I'll find out how much oil was put in my Mazda6 yeserday but it's a lease car so I don't see the invoices.
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Checked oil again today, the oil is approaching X on the dipstick again, the car has done less than 1k miles since the last change. I don't know whether to trust my dealer on this or escalate it....any ideas?
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Despite the handbook's reference; I can still find nothing to corroborate it. I will therefore stick with an injector leak - as they are rather well known on this engine....
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Hi folks
Am a bit surprised at the lack of experience of this. I've seen it mentioned elsewhere on this forum and I'm told by a dealer that all Mazda 2.0l 143ps diesels suffer from rising oil levels to a greater or lesser degree, whether fitted to the Mazda 3, the Mazda 5 or the Mazda 6. They explain it as the DPF Regen cycle resulting in diesel ending up in the sump. Personally I'm not quite convinced by this thinking that it is more likely to be due to the effect of the multiple injector openings as part of modern CR injection cycles such that neat diesel passes the compression rings on the compression stroke ending up in the sump, and of course diesel does not evaporate - net result - oil level rises.
My reasoning is fuel injected in the exhaust stroke during the regen cycle will preferentially go through the open exhaust port rather than force its way past 3 piston rings, plus with regens every 250-400 miles our contributor with oil changes every 1000 miles is reporting an awful lot of diesel passing the rings in circa 4 cycles, but compression leakage will occur at every compression stroke. I have no proof of this, it just seems logical. Anyone know if this happened on the pre DPF fitted 2.0l Mazda CR diesels? If not, then Mazda could well be right.
What scares me most is diesel fuel is a solvent so what happens to the oil quality due to this (although oil quality is monitored by the EMS)? That said, there are an awful lot of these engines out there with a lot of miles on so perhaps the effect is negligible. Why it is only this engine that suffers baffles me though.
Returning to another question on the Mazda 6 forum, I believe the Mazda 2.0l unit is different from the Ford/PSA one. Ford/Volvo/PSA state their engine is 'all alloy' whilst as far as I can tell the Mazda unit has the cast iron block of the original 2.0l 90bhp diesel used in the 323 (one of which gave me 140,000 trouble free miles except a sticking EGR valve which cured itself after 24hrs).
Hope this is useful
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Thought I'd give a final (I hope!) update on this. Car has been into dealers for 3 day investigation,with Mazda Tech support at the end of the phone. Absolutey nothing wrong with the vehicle (computer says yes!) The engineer at Mazda has a 5 dci, he advises a 15 minute run every week at over 2k RPM, which should cause regeneration. Still not happy that I was sold a vehicle, in the London area, which won't work in London! I will be allowed to carry out interim oil changes myself (if required) as long as the servicing is carried out by Mazda.
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Surely if that much extra fuel was being injected it would lead to hydraulic lock and engine failure within a handful of rpm .... also if the diesel can leak past the rings on the "power" stroke, sump oil would also be forced up on the inlet stroke ...?
Oil volumes can and will increase with moisture / condensation, especially if the engine doesn't warm up sufficiently, and as diesels do run cooler, I would have thought this was far more likely?
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I`m struggling to grasp what`s going on. I had always assumed that with regeneration on diesels, that fuel would be injected outside the cylinders, in the exhaust manifold by a separate injector.
So are the `normal` cylinder injectors putting a spray of un-burnt fuel into the cylinders on the exhaust stroke?
I can visualise the normal burning of diesel fuel in high compression due to heat - but to spray it into the cylinders not under compression - as a means of getting it down the exhaust manifold, wetting cylinder walls and getting it past the rings into the sump in the process? Surely I have that wrong somewhere?
regards
Edited by oilrag on 19/09/2008 at 18:59
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Hi folks
I'm reliably assured that it is the normal injectors that open during the exhaust cycle to facilitate the burnoff of soot in the DPF during the regen. I too originally thought there must be 'something extra' in the exhaust, but with electronic control of injectors you can do what you like. So yes, inject neat fuel into exhaust stroke wetting bore. Both the system on the Mazda 3 1.6D and the Mazda 143ps 2.0D have systems where there can be 7 injector events per cycle. However the 1.6D (also seen in the Focus, Peugeot/citroen (various) & volvo) don't suffer from rising oil levels.
Again, I'm am assured the 'extra' volume is diesel fuel. There is never any sludge or emulsified oil in sight, and that much water from condensation etc. really would have dire consequences.
Pat22090: I've been doing some thinking: You say you had no problems in the first 12500 miles? The first service on this engine does 'something' to the injectors. One dealer told me they are replaced (but I don't agree - the service is far too cheap!!) but another says the injector seals are replaced (I'm not quite sure which ones these are). To me there are a couple of avenues to explore: 1) there is a cause and effect between what happened before and after the service so 'something' seems to have gone wrong/changed. 2) Other correspondants reference injector seal problems on this engine and they should have had attention at the service: Has it been done correctly? 3) Even if the engine design does suffer from diesel in sump, filling from max to 'x' on the dipstick every 1000miles is excessive to say the least - 12 oil changes in the service interval. Whoah!
Final comment: The AA report seeing DPF failure due to short journes/low speed motoring and indeed you do need a lot of heat for a regeneration to occur (so a journey to clear it out is a good idea) but I really don't see that a clogged DPF will result in rising oil levels to that degree. You may have more frequent regenerations whilst the system tries to clean itself out, but even if they occur every 100miles, I struggle to see that 10 regenerations can fill your sump between full and 'x' on the dipstick. A 'regen' will last (by my experience), under normal circmstances, between 5 and 10miles and when they are occurring you may feel a slight drop in power and see the current MPG figure on your trip computer increase - maybe double - for the duration of the cycle. Equally I wouldn't expect any fault codes to be generated by this problem as all the 'bits' are doing what they are supposed to, you just get diesel in the oil, and in your case, an awful lot. I think you will find the only time you see a fault code associated with this issue is when the oil quality deteoriates or the sump gets too full. For reference, I've seen one car with no extra oil after 10k miles and another with a third more after 4500miles and I'm told some motorway drivers suffer from this, some dont. Some owners don't need a change between services other do, but that all of these engines show the problem to some degree.
If its still happening, have you considered an independant engineers report? It might cost, but if it saves replacing very expensive DPF oil every 1000 miles at £80 a shot, its got to be worth it.
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Thanks for the reply. One of the first checks carried out was the injectors (obviously a known problem!) and this accounted for a whole day. As stated they are within tolerance. I was possibly doing more motorway miles when I first got the vehicle, but town driving still accounted for 90%+ of the mileage. Mazda ask a number of questions about driving syle and average journies, so I suspect this was always going to be the conclusion! I'll monitor the oil levels over the next month and post again. I'll trade in in May as I've had enough of the brand, which is a shame as the car is probably one of the best diesels I've driven (apart from the obvious!) It would be iteresting to know if dealerships are advising potential customers of this innovation!
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