Author Topic: Oil pump chain snapped and broken guide for it - Repair cost £5.5k at Mazda  (Read 7781 times)

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Offline N0taN0ther1

  • S Class
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  • Posts: 3
  • Gender: Female
  • Colour: Meteor Gray Mica (42A)
  • Engine: 2.2L
  • Fuel: Diesel
  • Transmission: Manual
  • Trim: Sport Nav
  • Year: 2016
Purchased our Mazda 6 from Arnold Clark with 9 miles on the clock. Warranty ran out on 14/03/2019. 11 weeks later, driving along and the car went into limp mode. after being told it would cost Mazda dealer £95 + vat to diagnose, they came back to us and said the diagnosis was "inclonclusive" as they had noticed the engine was noisy and they needed to strip down the sump to see. Cost now increased to £331.20 to diagnose the problem. A few hours later the garage telephoned and said the car needs a new short engine and gaskets and oil pump at a cost of £5,533.47 and will take 24 labour hours to repair. :o >:( :(

The codes on the ELM 327 OBDC unit were: P2236, P055F, P0524, P2263(00), P055F(00), P0524(00) and P528B(00).

Apparently the oil pump chain snapped causing scoring and there is a broken guide for the chain. This has caused Big End Bearing scarring.

Surely there must have been a fault on the car prior to the warranty expiration date? From what I have read on honestjohn website and Hagansautos it appears this may be a known fault. i note there is another thread on here with a similiar issue.

Obviously we are gutted. We had our previous Mazda 6 TS2 petrol from new for 13 years and it was a brilliant car. It was written off by a white van man and we didn't hesitate to go out and buy another, plumping for a diesel because we thought we were being more environmentally friendly.

The Mazda dealer is putting in a post-warranty goodwill claim but sounded very negative about it in view of not having services done by Mazda. I did point out that under EU Block Exemption Legislation, which has been around for years so Mazda must be aware of it, that a manufacturer cannot force a buyer to have their car serviced by their official dealership network. I have emailed them copies of our service invoices and associated records.


Any advice or experience anyone?

Offline N0taN0ther1

  • S Class
  • *
  • Posts: 3
  • Gender: Female
  • Colour: Meteor Gray Mica (42A)
  • Engine: 2.2L
  • Fuel: Diesel
  • Transmission: Manual
  • Trim: Sport Nav
  • Year: 2016
Just to add there are 66,000 miles on the clock as running at 20,000 per year and we bought the car on 29 April 2016.

Offline apav

  • Takuya Class
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  • Posts: 547
  • Gender: Male
  • Engine: 2.0L
  • Fuel: Diesel
  • Transmission: Manual
  • Trim: TS2
  • Year: 2009
There is a long history of Mazda diesels suffering from oil circulation problems, mainly driven by bad oil quality, but it sounds like yours had the chain of the oil pump snap. This is unusual but never say never.

If this dealer will not cover the cost, there is a high chance that no other dealer will cover it. Because it is not common to have the pump chain snap, you can argue that this is one off and the warranty just expired. But a lot of Mazda diesels are either scrapped or drive around with rebuild engines, depending on how early the damage happens.

You can bypass the problem of the service history if you have done all the checks but the expire date of the warranty is fixed. Of course they expect that after this time problems will come up.

You have many different options, depending on how much money you have.

You can argue with Mazda and find a compromise but it sounds like it will cost you money to get it fixed.

If Mazda does not contribute or cover the cost, an independent garage will end up costing less.

In both cases you will drive around in a rebuild engine. For this kind of money, you can definitely find a used engine and swap it.

The car must be worthy something. If you add the £5K for the repair, you can buy the same car, maybe a bit older but basically the same car. Or just forget about Mazda and buy something else.

If you have comprehensive insurance, you can ask them for advice. Try to run a valuation of your car on Arnold Clark website. The insurance may be happy to write it off and pay you enough money to buy another car.

If you decide to fix this engine, you have to expect that it will cost more as you will be willing to do the injectors at the same time to make sure that your oil remains healthy.

Offline N0taN0ther1

  • S Class
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  • Posts: 3
  • Gender: Female
  • Colour: Meteor Gray Mica (42A)
  • Engine: 2.2L
  • Fuel: Diesel
  • Transmission: Manual
  • Trim: Sport Nav
  • Year: 2016
Thanks for your reply apav.

I'm pretty sure insurance companies don't cover mechanical breakdown (unless you know something I don't about it).

I don't think I'd want a 2nd hand engine in it because I would just be waiting for things to go wrong in that one.

I'm taking legal advice as Mazda won't accept any responsibility. I'm going to put a/some reviews online to warn others who make think of buying this model.

Offline apav

  • Takuya Class
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  • Posts: 547
  • Gender: Male
  • Engine: 2.0L
  • Fuel: Diesel
  • Transmission: Manual
  • Trim: TS2
  • Year: 2009
Hey,

You may be right with the car insurance but give it a try if you cannot be sure that this is excluded from the paperwork you have with your current policy.

Most of the insurance companies pay you for something that happens to the car by an external force, e.g. another car, thunder, rain, tree, but you are also covered if you reverse on a wall. It is all your fault and it is down to the policy whether this is covered. So in the same analogy, the insurance may take this further and like reversing on a wall, they made decide that driving your car, something went wrong with the engine and this is a major repair bill. So they have include this in their terms and they will be happy to pay you some money, take the car off you, write it off and sell it to salvage companies.

A brand new 6 starts from £20K on Auto Trader and 2016 models start from £8.6K. They ask you to pay £5.5K and so if you had a car accident, for sure the car insurance would write it off for a bill like this. I think you can get more than £3K for your current car and together with the repair estimate, you can buy the same car again. But you have to negotiate with the car insurance. As there is no accident to make a claim, I think it is safe to discuss with them for advice. If they reject that there is a chance for a claim, then you can consider all other options.

I understand what you mean about the second hand engine and it is quite complicated to make it work out without feeling that the car is not stock, but in general a second hand engine, cannot be any worse than buying a second hand car. You have also to consider who will do all this major work.

A legal action may be possible but do not invest huge sums and then end up with no car. It will feel like a defeat not to chase Mazda, but if the money you are going to spend, do not guarantee that you will be back on your car, then maybe spending this money to get another car, may be better. A solicitor will be very cautious taking such case if there is limited chance of winning and this is a good sign. Maybe you could ask at the local trade standards and the citizens advice.

If you could get away with someone like the insurance company paying you the trade in money, this may be the best way forward as you get rid of a car which will have a major repair and who knows what comes next. But I am not sure how much the trade in value could be when these models sell from around £8K. A small brand new car starts from just over £6K but you may not even get that much if you manage to get the insurance writing off.

I am not sure whether people read online reviews. Most of the people are interested in the monthly repayment. As long as they can afford this to get a new car under warranty and every time the warranty expires to replace it, they are happy. If your damage happened within the warranty period, for sure Mazda had to fix it for free, but now it is tricky because so many things can have gone wrong, from the oil specification to everything else. If you had bought the car used, there was a case to consider such write off damage to be bad luck, but for a car bought brand new, even as pre-reg car, it is a disaster, especially as it sounds like you were planning to keep it under it was scrapped.