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Want Info on Mazda 6 Engine
lilyedwards8
Member Posts: 3
I was wondering if anyone could confirm whether the following is true: I was recently about to purchase a 4 door sedan and I had narrowed it down to two vehicles (The Mazda 6 and the 2003 Accord). However, I was told by a friend that she had heard from a reliable third party that the Mazda 6's engines were not really reliable and had to be changed after 50,000 miles. Has anyone ever come accross this in any articles or come accross this same info? Please let me know because reliability is definitely a major issue in determing which vehicle to purchase.
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Your friend's "third party" source is wrong. While Honda probably makes the best engines in the business, Mazda's will do just fine. It's possible that someone, somewhere, had an engine failure at 50,000 miles but the odds against such a premature failure are stratospheric.
Now before you get all panicky, the Duratec is damn fine engine.
Let me find the link to the 2.5L Duratec that recently turned 250K miles over at Contour.org, on the original engine, BTW.
http://www.contour.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=gen- - eral&Number=259048&page=12&view=collapsed&sb=5&am- p;am- p;o=&fpart=1
Ok, so while that is one datapoint, it seems to debunk the idea that you need to replace the engine every 50K miles.
BTW, I have 51K on my 2.5L Duratec.
The Mazda engine is a 3.0L version of the same engine. Essentially it is the same block bored larger. Even uses the same crankshaft, IIRC. The heads may be different now as Mazda has a variable valve timing system on the version in the Mazda 6. However, the 3L engine has been in use in the Taurus since about 97, IIRC and you haven't had lots of them going at 50K. (Now with the 3.8L pushrod V6 you could bet on a head gasket failure prior to 100K.)
The one thing you needed to watch in earlier Duratecs was the waterpump. Just like BMW, Ford used a plastic impeller in their pumps and they tend to crack and seperate from the shaft.
Fortunately, the pump is on the "back" side of the engine, driven by a pulley on a front bank camshaft, and you can remove and replace the pump "guts" in about an hour. Napa sells the front of the pump with a metal impeller. Take the battery out, remove a hose and say 4 or 6 bolts, clean up the housing you left attached, and put a new front on. Put any hoses removed back and top up with 50/50 mix of coolant and water, and you are back in business.
Plus, no timing belts to worry about.
Finally, the Duratec made Wards Automotive (an Auto Industry Insider publication, you probably won't find it in your local B&N book store) for three years during the 1995-2000 time period. The engine was a collaboration between Ford, Porsche and Cosworth and was first used in the Ford Mondeo. The Mondeo was reworked for the US as the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique. While those cars had their problems, the Duratec engine really wasn't one of them.
I suggest you pick your friends more carefully, or at least discount their automotive expertise
TB
Design by Mazda? Made in Japan? Reliable?
The 2.3L is finding it's way into the Focus, TODAY even, in those states with stricter emissions standards. I think you can get it in CA, NY and somewhere else as an ULEV (or whatever Ford/EPA calls it) engine. Peep here: http://www.fordvehicles.com/Cars/focus/features/specperformance/ the 2.3L is mentioned as a footnote
But since I don't own one (yet) I don't know much about the 2.3L engine.
However, it does sound pretty sweet in the proposed Mazdaspeed Mazda 6. I like the idea of the lighter 4 banger in the Mazda 6, with a little turbo boost blown through to increase the power output 8^)
TB
Are you saying the new Mazda 6 has the old design plastic impellers?? I hope not after all the Ford failures with this?
I'm sure Zetec waterpumps did/do fail, but not at the same frequency.
From what I understand, in 2000 Ford finally got a new supplier or a new spec for the waterpump plastic. But it is still plastic.
However, given the ease of changing that pump, I'd just say drive a duratec for a couple of years and change the pump with one with a metal impeller when you do your first PM on the cooling system.
If you are a belt and suspenders kind of guy and have a 4 cylinder engine with a timing belt that drives the waterpump, have your mechanic change the pump when you get your belt replaced. You won't add much to your labor costs since much of the work is already done to get there, so why pay for that labor if you believe the waterpump is prone to failure.
TB
as for reliability, im a college student with a '86 626, 126,000 miles on that four banger and it still runs ok. I would bet this new mazda engine is going to last longer than mine.
anybody hear about that mazda 6 4 cyl drag racer that has 1000 HP?
I'm sure the engine on the 6 will be bulletproof, and if it isn't, well... why did you have to shoot a gun at it?
Dinu
I had a 1980 Mazda 626 which had 120,000 miles on it before I got rid of it. I also have a 1991 626 which has over 165,000 miles on it now. The engine still runs good and quiet. But these engines were made in Japan. Wasn't going to consider buying another Mazda until the 6 came out. Need to find out the reliability on the Mexican assembled engine first.
Do you really enjoy changing the oil on an air filter? Do you enjoy washing the dirty, oily filter and having to wait until the water evaporates until you have to re-oil the messy thing?
Those are good reasons that the entire automobile manufacturing industry dropped such filters, in favor of much-finer filtration pleated paper filters, over a quarter of a century ago.
Dinu
The MZ6 3.0 is a sweet engine.
Mark. : )