My engine replacement nightmare
 

I had been experiencing loss of power and rough idle/stalling symptoms for about a year, and the dealership finally followed the latest TSB and decided I needed a replacement engine. This was almost 3 weeks ago. Last week the dealership informed me that one of the reasons it was taking so long was that the rear main seal in the remanufactured engine had blown, and oil was leaking all over the place. Mazda NA told them to replace the rear main seal, clean it up, and give it back to me.

So today I picked up the car, and 10 minutes into my drive home I am getting a flashing check engine light, lack of power symptoms, and plumes of smoke coming from underneath the hood. I pulled over and could see a puddle of oil forming quickly as it dripped from the engine. I called the dealership, and they told me to bring it back. Sure enough, the tech could quickly see that the rear main seal had failed again.

Now they have to wait until Monday to call up Mazda for instructions on how to proceed. Chances are that they’re going to ask the dealership to install yet another rear main seal. Shouldn’t it be pretty obvious at this point that there is a serious problem with this remanufactured engine?

Anyhow, before this is all said it done, it will have been about a month that I’ve been without my car. I am really not happy about the situation and I have absolutely no confidence that the replacement engine will be very reliable. On top of that, I have tried to get rid of the car and the best trade-in offer I can get is almost $3000 less than KBB value. I am really beginning to regret my decision to buy this car almost 5 years ago.

That sucks man. I hope they can get it straight soon for you.

I got about 12k on trade for my 04 with 30k on it (new engine just put it). That was with getting an MX-5 PRHT at invoice. There is not a lot of storage room in the car, enough for some groceries or a small suitcase though. It is a blast to drive.

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The best trade-in offer I could get was ~$10k (I have an '04 with 50k miles). At this point I'm seriously considering just taking that offer when I finally get the car back.

I like what I've heard from that band. I played in bands for many years, but right now I'm just doing my own thing. I started recording YouTube cover videos and was surprised at the response I received:
My YouTube channel

Nice playing man. Very tight. I need to practice more! We are writing for another album.. but that is taking forever...

What are you looking to trade for? If it is another Mazda, they did mine before the 8 was out of the shop. I never touched it again except to pick my stuff up.

If you blow a rear main while driving, most likely it will soak the clutch disc and that will need to be replaced as well. Be sure to check on this while they do the service. Likely when it leaked in their service bay it did not run long enough to hurt the clutch.

As an engine builder I cannot really think of a reason for this to happen, unless they are failing to install the rubber o-ring under the rear stationary gear, which also holds in oil. Even so, it would be a slow seep, and not a sudden gush. I have never had a rear main on a rotary (they are all the same) leak in such a sudden manner, it is a one piece seal that hardens and seeps slowly but does not "blow".

Remans come with a flywheel already attatched, and so your original flywheel was not reused. It is possible that there is some defect on the inner mating surface of the reman's flywheel, that is chewing up main seals, since the main seal rides on the flywheel mounting surface. Surely they would have noticed a defect the first time, but then again these are the same people who have had 2 defective main seals, which is 2 more than I have seen in the hundreds of engines I have built.

Good luck with it.

Damn sorry to hear that, how the hell can that happen ?

Also, I thought MNAO never allow any dealerships to open their engine up. maybe they worried that something like this will happen.

Most dealership are loaded with morons who cant even build Lego right.

You should tell them to give you another Reman, cuz this is ridiculous.

The dealership called on Monday and told me that Mazda would be sending them a new remanufactured engine. I'm not familiar with the details, but they said something was wrong with the first engine in terms of how the rear main seal fit.

BTW, they also told me on Monday that the seal had not failed during my drive home, but that oil was simply leaking around the seal due to the poor fit with the engine. Seems very odd to me, but whatever.

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