MY first engine replacement came from Japan
The second engine replacement was a regurgitated one.

 

I was just talking to my Mazda Tech. and he said it would be about $1000.00 labor to tear it down. But I think that was taking it out of the car also.
But if it was just sitting on the bench, I could have it apart in about an hour. Putting it back together is another story.

 

I would at least like to be able to pull the oil pan to inspect the oil pump pickup screen before installing a reman engine.

 

ugh, that was annoying....

I have an idea, Erick. I think we should have a get-together at Jeff's where we can all tear down your engine when you get your car back. Or at least pop-off the oil pan....

 

They won't let him have the motor. It goes back to Williams Technologies for a tear-down and re-build.

Mazda has a specific and stringent edict in place that no motor removed from a vehicle under warranty will have its integrity compromised.
Once the motor is out, they tag 'em and bag 'em and back out the door they go.
Now, when people start paying for motors out of pocket, then we will see some interesting things.

 

Interesting in what way?

All the doom and gloom on this forum about engine longevity even has me wondering if a v8 swap wouldn't ultimately be more economical should something go wrong with my motor. That's quite a statement considering the only reason I bought the 8 was because of the rotary engine. Maybe I'm just day dreaming about easy hp.

 

rigth - that's enough of that bickering from BOTH SIDES. lets just get on with the topic shall we?

abbid get them to give you the actual compression figures-0,0,0 is ridiculous the car wouldnt have started and driven "fine" if the rotor had failed. there must have been 0 lubrication and there for no sealing at the time of the test.

 

My father's 04 MT recently went in for issues he was having, namely, on the highway, 4K RPM, flooring the gas pedal would produce no power. Started fine, idled fine, didn't sound funny. Tech took 02 readings, called Mazda and they said replace the engine. He had been in for a compression test some months back and everything was fine.

Car has 22K on it, still under warranty and he takes excellent care of it considering my background in rotaries. Engine is being pulled and shipped out without a teardown (not a surprise) but I've told him to insist on a new engine. He's naturally pissed and it'll probably be the last Mazda he ever buys. With those who had new engines as replacements, what steps did you take to get the new as opposed to the remans?

 

There are no steps that I've heard of, it's reman only now. The "lucky" few who actually got new engines from Japan got them before it became a prevelant enough problem for Mazda to move to reman.

I'm sure you'd have to pay to get mazda to send a brand new engine at this point.

 

I think a lot depends on luck of the draw...at a certain point the reman stock runs out and they send over new shortblocks from japan in the meantime until the reman program catches up. They only do it when they have to though; the reman satisfies their warranty at a much lower cost.

 

Actually, no.
When Williams Technologies got backed up last month, the flow of engines simply stopped.
There were people with their cars up on the rack for 3 or 4 weeks.
Mazda will not ship a new motor to the States even if you pay for it right now.
That might change at some point.

 

Well your all not gonna believe this,,,
The third engine is bad,,



Here comes #4

 

this might be a dumb question but can't you sue or do something about this problem?

don't they test these engines before they send it out?

this is scary.

this reminds me of all the xbox 360 repairs that's been going on. it takes about a month to get your 360 console back. my 360 broke for the 2nd time in 1 year and i'm way pissed off about it. i'd go in to psycho axe-murderer mode if this happened to my rx8.

 

Well, I'm unsure where you get your "inside information" so to speak, but mazda has to satisfy their warranty issues in a timely manner, so if the reman stock runs low they *have* to bring over new stock in the meantime. They lose money on the warranties to begin with, I am sure they don't want to compound the issue and lose more money on a daily basis when those cars sit in the service bays waiting on transplants. Sure, they are slow about getting them shipped in, but I doubt it is like you say it is.

 

We know people who know people etc.

The 3rd engine is bad? This is beginning to look like a bad joke Erik. I hope that they are paying Karl for each motor install!

 

Looking specifically at the engine situation, I am beginning to wonder about the test and troubleshooting procedures being used by this dealer. Speaking as someone who has built hundreds of rotaries, I can say that it is honestly not that hard to do correctly, given a clean organized work area, clean parts, and some new parts of good quality. It is not all that complex an operation to assemble the parts correctly so that the engine will last for quite some time, so having these failures right there in the bay raises a red flag for me.

I have honestly built engines out of just whatever was laying around the shop solely to put them on my engine test stand and experiment to see what happens under different circumstances, and rarely have I ever seen an engine combination that failed on startup that was not an oil system issue, even when purposely using substandard parts.

 

OK now,, before you all start blaming everybody. Would you like to know why the engine is bad?
It seems that when the Tech
( whom NO one will ridicule or demean, he has always done a stellar job)
was installing the transmission on the engine.
For all of you who don't know this they remove the sub frame and front suspension with the Automatic Transmission.


So as I was saying,, he was bolting the trans to the engine, and the upper left bell housing bolt hole, right below the oil filter mount ( it has an"EAR" there) cracked through the threads and viola a piece of the cast iron falls off.
Now the tech is basically unable to use the engine due to a trans mount issue.
Now, why the cast piece cracked and fell off is a mystery. I, and you, can speculate all day. But I'm not going to. I have a few thoughts on the situation which I will keep to myself.

So due to a broken rear cast iron plate, I have to get another new engine.
So technically the engine never ran and so it didn't fail internally.

 

A couple of things:

1) When WT got behind on the remans, the cars did indeed sit. There were cars caught up on racks for weeks, sometimes months. In more than one occasion, the cradle got put back into the chassis so it could be pushed out of the bay.
To get a new motor takes an act of extreme measure, as is the case with Easy_E1, who will, for his fourth motor, get a new, in-crate first build.

2) There is no testing procedure. The motors are assembled and they go out the door. Once at the dealership, there is no testing allowed for in the billable, so why/how would the tech do it? In a case like Easy_E1, the tech is going to lose a ton of money because the time he spent getting this last motor ready to install will not be counted because...

3) The mounting boss on the end plate was missing before he even touched it. It just happened to be the last tranny bolt he got to. The casting piece was sitting in the shipping container, already broken off.

 

That's terrible luck, you deserve a medal for your patience. I hope the dealership really takes care of you.

 

how you're not in a murderous rage is beyond me, prof.

 

Wow Easy, I'm sorry to hear about the latest setback!
Hey, at least you're getting a whole new engine.

 

Just talked with the dealership. They are telling me that Mazda is sending me a BRAND NEW ENGINE from Japan. This is a slight consulation in the mess that has been made.
Mazda also sent me an E-Mail last night, They are very sorry for the itrouble and want to help in anyway they can.
So the waiting game continues.
Again I will state that Berge Mazda has done an exceptional job in gettng this rectified. Especially my Technician, Karl (Rotaryman25).
I say, THANK YOU!





Now I'm going to go out and KILL something!!!

 

lots of open desert, just make sure you dig deep.

 

Well, Alabama, actually. Not sure when it got here from Japan because it was already in the distribution channel before it got diverted to you.
You better start pre-mixing on that thing!

 

Maybe Mazda finally picked up the plot.