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Mazda MPV: Problems & Solutions
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Comments
Also, if the tranny is from JATCO, does that mean that the Mazda tech will now have to convince a JATCO tech? This could get quite silly...
Time will tell...
...a serious engineering effort...yes, testing does involve experiment control, monitoring/data acquisition and repeatibility...
the same environment used for verification and validation of the system design would be used for diagnosing the problem.
maybe notasoccermom - you've locked onto another variant problem and they are sending one of their reps to make some field observations.
I feel bad for all those experiencing the hard shifitng becuase it should not happen and it is a safety issue. I woudl recommend all those on the board who have the hard shifitng problem to try to duplicate it like notasoccermom, then take it to the dealer to get it on record. Just in case down the road there is a transmission failure.
Good luck.
1) Engine drivetrain at maximum operating temp. (e.g. at least 50 miles of highway driving or 1 hour in stop & go traffic)
2) Repeated engine on/off driving cycles (such as when driving between different locations during the day) with 15-20 minutes between cycles.
3) Under situations 1&2, moderate throttle acceleration between 2000-3000 rpms as from stop or slow crawl, when engine upshifts between 2-3 gears.
It never happens when:
1) Drivetrain cold/not fully warmed up
2) Downshifting during rapid acceleration
3) Engine RPM above 3000 or below 2000
It would be interesting if others with the "hard shift" problem could confirm these circumstances.
The dealer's inability to reproduce the "hard shifts" stems, in my opinion, from their unwillingness to spend more than 1 hour (or even more more than 20 minutes in most situations) in driving & evaluating the vans, as well as not listening very carefully to customers.
"1) Engine drivetrain at maximum operating temp. (e.g. at least 50 miles of highway driving or 1 hour in stop & go traffic)
2) Repeated engine on/off driving cycles (such as when driving between different locations during the day) with 15-20 minutes between cycles.
3) Under situations 1&2, moderate throttle acceleration between 2000-3000 rpms as from stop or slow crawl, when engine upshifts between 2-3 gears.
It never happens when:
1) Drivetrain cold/not fully warmed up
2) Downshifting during rapid acceleration
3) Engine RPM above 3000 or below 2000"
This is very close to my experience. It happens to me every day when I have about 20 minutes of highway driving to pick up my daughter from school, stop about 10 minutes to gather up her stuff, then start the car again and have mostly city driving to go get my son from a different school. It will typically hard shift from 2nd to 3rd about three times between my daughter's school and home. It almost never happens at any other time.
MAZDA CANNOT TELL CUSTOMERS THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO FIX IT. THIS WILL JUST HURT MAZDA SALES AND KICK AWAY PROTENTIAL BUYERS AND EXISTING OWNERS.
Mazda may be aware that word of mouth is crucial to sales.
???
We have less gov't regulation now that any other country short of the 3rd world (they have the opposite problem - the rule of law is tenuous at best).
Can anyone confirm just what gov't OK they might need, given that there's no official recall ?
I'm doubtful on this one, somebody enlighten me.
-brianV
My guess is that a software modification will only mask the root causes (e.g. programming in more slippage, engine retardation etc. at specific shift points).
I'm thinking that the best hope for the beast is using synthetic ATF which has better shear properties.
Any thoughts?
Right now my van is on day #3 at the dealership. They are working with the Mazda techs in Japan via phone & fax and doing some testing & troubleshooting. They are mostly messing with the TCM and checking the error codes. It's weird if they know the problem why they are bothering, but maybe they just like to confirm their results with the fix they supposedly have in place. At least our dealership swapped the original loaner we got, a VERY stripped down Ford Escort with power-nothing, to a Protege with power everything & a sunroof. Not that we will be using it this time of year! But they are trying to keep us happy while they mess with our MPV.
One technique that seems to work somewhat is to immediately let off the gas when the engine suddenly revs up as you accelerate. If you don't it will slam. It will try to slam again if you push back on the throttle, so this has to be kept in mind. After about 2 or 3 times it seems to settle down.
Am interested in learning what others are doing to minimize the "salmming."
My dealership says they have another 2004 in for the same problem, but only the 2 so far. I told him I'd heard this problem went as far back as the 2002 models, but he said this is the first they've heard of it and only on the 2004's.
but then, maybe your problem isn't the same problem being experienced by others...
hopefully, you'll receive some documentation as to what your dealership tried over the span of the period that they had your van. this information might be helpful to others trying to get to the root cause.
for example, did they merely try to modify the programming of the TCM or ECM or whatever? did they flush the transmission?
if your dealership is sympathetic, and if they didn't try it, maybe they'd perform the flushing operation to see if it mitigates the problem...in the interest of true customer focus...for you, and the other '04 owner.
good luck.
p.s. i find it somewhat interesting, if the problem is so difficult to replicate, but in your case it is repeatible, why they aren't asking you if they may take your van (or a part of it like the transmission) to be used in further diagnostic testing or dis-assembly / inspection.
We've already consulted 2 atty's and they both said we definitely have a good case. The 3 repair attempt rule doesn't even come into play because Mazda already admits they can't fix it. We've got that in writing directly from Mazda and through our Mazda dealership.
My DC was in the shop for a week when it went out and Chrys. was nice to give me another mini to use...so I guess the word is patience..grrrrr.
My approach at this point is that if I go to my next oil change without any more clunks, I'll consider this a "learning" mechanism of the onboard computer and that it's adjusted to our particular driving style.
I hope I am one of a few unlucky ones. I have one of the first 2000 MPVs, bought it in September, 1999. It is a 20th anniversary Mazda Miata blue ES.
The check engine light has always gone on and off a lot. I had it checked out several times but gave up when they never found anything. It would usually go on when I drive uphill on the highway and go off a few hours later. I also noticed that my mileage seemed to be lower than some of the other 2000 MPV drivers. I usually got between 210 and 218 per tank. I think most other people did better than that.
Anyway last week the check engine light starts flashing. I call the dealer and have the car towed in. I was guessing the exhaust system was shot. Not! They tell me to have some hoses replaced and replace the spark plug wires along with the spark plugs. They pull the plug on cylinder number 4 and it is fouled. The Mazda tech rep happens to be there so he tells them he has seem 3 MPVs with the problem in New England. It is always just cylinder #4 next to the radiator. They run the compression test and yeah, I need a valve job.
I have 67,000 miles on the car so the dealer is less than helpful and wants $2500 to do the valve job which will take 2.5 weeks because it is the week before Christmas.
I start looking around quick for another car since I think it is futile to sink more money into the MPV. It is too bad. I really enjoyed driving the car. It was a little more expensive to maintain then I would have liked but it was a great car to drive.
I really didn't notice any problems with the way the engine was running. What I did notice was that my mileage per tank was about 10 gals less than what I had been getting before. There was a gas price war going on in my town so I thought it was just the cheap gas.
Looking back, I had to replace the alternator at around 55,000 and two of the stupid alloy wheels. One wheel over the last two winters. Ouch. I live in New England (pot hole heaven) so I suppose that is the breaks. I had the CD player, radio tuner replaced under warranty. There were little annoyances that got fixed under warranty but I still really liked the car. Too bad. I will miss it.
I will be driving a burnt orange 2003 Honda Element next week. I do dog agility shows and pretty much managed to trash the van carpeting so the spartan Element interior was appealing. I am getting a 4 wheel drive EX for $16,000 with the trade in of the non-repaired van. Had to cut back on the car budget since we had be hoping to get a year or two more on the MPV. Wish me luck.
I looked at several spots on the transmission housing as my aim point, and found a spot near the dip stick tube. Here is the result:
On startup and initial warmup, the tranny runs at about 150F. Fully warmed and in traffic about 160-180F. On the highway after a high speed run 175F. After 1 hour of brutal stop & go and a steep uphill drive 195F. These are actually pretty normal readings, assuming that the housing temp is not much cooler than the tranny internals. I also tested the intake & ouput side of the tranny oil cooler and found that the intake (hot) runs about 160F, and the output runs at 150F. I am somewhat surprised by the small differential, but that could be due to the fact that the test was conducted while the car was stopped, and no airflow was going through the cooler.
Now for the interesting part: I sampled the temperature after several hard shift instances, and found that there is no direct correlation between temperature and the hard shift! One instance of hard shift occured at 175F just as I was getting on a highway, others while in the stop & go traffic 180-190F, and some between 160-175F.
None of these temperatures, if they accurately reflect the internal ATF temperature, indicates that the tranny is running particularly, or exceptionally, hot.
Here is some information about ATF temperature conditions I found on the web:
"Automatic transmission fluid will provide 100,000 miles of service before oxidation occurs under normal operating temperatures of about 170°F. Above normal operating temperatures, the oxidation rate doubles (useful life of fluid is cut in half) with each 20° increase in temperature.
The approximate life expectancy at various temperatures is as follows:
175°F 100,000 miles
195°F 50,000 miles
212°F 25,000 miles
235°F 12,000 miles
255°F 6,250 miles
275°F 3,000 miles
295°F 1,500 miles
315°F 750 miles
335°F 325 miles
355°F 160 miles
375°F 80 miles
390°F 40 miles
415°F Less than 30 minutes "
So what could be the issue? I noticed that most of the time I have a hard shift, its after the engine has run, been turned off a while, and is restarted. I checked the tranny temp after it was turned off for about 20 minutes and the temp came down to 150F, about a 20-30F differential from when it was turned off.
The transmission temperature is an important datum used by the TCM to determine shifting points etc. I learned from research on the web that some transmissions don't actually have a temperature sensor but derive (simulate) transmission temperature from other engine parameters such as engine temp, air flow, rpm, and even battery temp.
So could it be that our MPV derives transmission temp data? Could it be that the algorithms used are wrong, particularly when calculating data at warm start-up? Could it be that this is why Mazda insists that its a software issue?
1. Electronics
2. Software.
Merry Christmas
Tj
Anyways, I'm at 1200 miles on my '03 MPV and I have had no hard-shift problems at all. We haven't been that cold here yet (maybe the lowest low was 20-25 degrees), but as I said, no hard shift problems at all. Also, I asked my dealership about it and they didn't seem to know anything about a hard shift problem (not that this is a be-all/end-all way to figure anything out).
The major deal back then was a shift lever indicator, the driver was not sure whether the lever was actually in drive or not.
John
We are meeting with our local Mazda service rep on Monday and he said "I think I have an acceptable solution to offer you" although he won't give us details yet. My concern is that he's going to switch vans for us, and that's why I was asking if there are any good ones out there. It'll do us no good to give us another one that will do the same thing. Unless he's offering us another one as a loaner until they fix the problem on ours, so that we don't have to continue putting wear and tear on the transmission. I think that would be acceptable. I'll keep everybody posted!
that the front disks get too hot even after
very short drives, say, 2-3 miles, with
not much of brake application (not stop and go).
They are too hot to touch. Is it possible
that the brakes are always being applied
by the ABS (although lightly)?
I recently had
the axle and control arm replaced on the
front passenger side, and at that time,
the mechanic did not properly put back the
ABS sensor (I was told). The ABS light
came on recently, along with loss of
braking action. I got that fixed, and I
was told that the heating problem could
be related to this. But the heating still
occurs.
WOuld appreciate your thoughts on this.