screw in my engine? was recal preventive work not done like it should be? help!

this just happened literally half hour ago. i'm driving normally on a local street no more than 45mph and all of a sudden i feel the engine rapidly slow down slightly where my head moves forward and i hear a loud knocking/rattleing clicking noise from the engine. immediatelly i pull over and open the hood and there is nothing unusual visually and i hear a rattle somewhere in the engine. nothing is leaking under either. it sounds like i something broke and fell inside one of the cylinders like a screw or something. now this makes me remember 2 or 3 years ago mazda had a recall for some kind of problem where the intake screws or something can come loose and fall into the engine. so naturally i did'nt want that to happen so i set up a appointment to go to the dealer. i went to a dealer reccomended by one of the mazda meet guys that i regularly met at the meets. i get to the dealer and i am told to leave the car there for a few hours while they give me a loaner to use and they will call me when the work is done. so exaclty like that they call me few hours later and i go pick up my car. of course the car drives the same way it did when i left it there. now my question is this. how can i be sure they did the work to prevent something like this from happeneing? how can i check if the preventive work was actually done? anyone know the procedure to actually check this recalled problem? i really HATE dealerships with everything they do to our cars. i do all preventive maintenance on my car myself as i dont trust them. Anyone in north/central NJ is willing to meet me somewhere to listen to this noise and see it im right that its the intake screw bouncing around in there?

what did the mazda people say?

so they did or did not fix it. Im confused by your post.

1st of all, quit running the motor. It's gonna wreak havac on your cylinder walls & break plug tips. Try to pull the plugs & fish around in each cylnder with some sort of extending magnetic retriever thing bent slightly near the end so you can get to the edges of the walls to possibly fish screw out. Other thing is if one is in the cylinder then chances are there are several more loose & ready to fall in too. 2nd, it would take a dealership more than a few hrs to pull the intake & replace it like they should to perform the recall & that's if they miraculously had one on hand so I'm calling bulls*** on them completing the recall procedure as it should have been done. You'll end up ******* the whole motor if you keep running it that way. Been thru this myself before the recall was done & happened to catch mine in time before any badness happened. The VICS screws were all loose. Car had around 38k at the time.

the dealer service guy didn't tell me anything except basically "all done". and he gave me some paper that the work was done. and i think i signed it. i still have all that paper work i think somewhere. while you guys were posting the replies i took the valve cover off. first thing i noticed was the loose valve cover screws. it was a bit surprising to me to see that as i have never before put a wrench on them myself. but that didn't seem to be related to the problem at hand. ok i took the spark plugs out too and they all looked fairly normal except the one closest to the battery. i did all this work with help of my friend. who noticed the spark plug closest to the battery had small marks on it like something was hiting it. the gaps on all plugs were consistently the same. so since we pulled out the spark plugs we looked thru the sparkplug holes and we also seen shiny bang marks in the one closest to the battery. not that many but definitely there is something in there. i poked around in there with one of those magnet picker uppers abut couldnt get anything to come out and the magnet kept sticking itself to the cylinder walls. i consider myself lucky that this happened a mile from where my friend lives and where i always do all my oilchanges and other maintenance. i took several videos of the engine running. for you guys to watch. here are the links and sorry for the quality. i have no idea why the colors are messed up but the sound is not too bad.

this video is me doing a remote start of my engine with no sparkplugs in there. i notice no knocking at all here. my alarm remote starter tries to get the engine started 3 times. oil shoots out the middle between the 2 cams and hits my hood. LOL



<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://s68.photobucket.com/flash/player.swf?file=http://vid68.photobucket.com/albums/i20/yourmomblows/MVI_1379.flv" width="448" height="361">

here i have put the valve cover back on and reconnecte everything and and let it run for 2 minutes. right before this video was made i heard knocking for a bit then it stops and engine sounds normal.



<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://s68.photobucket.com/flash/player.swf?file=http://vid68.photobucket.com/albums/i20/yourmomblows/MVI_1380.flv" width="448" height="361">

here the knock reappeared and noticably interferes with the engine running where the engine rpm drops several times.



<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://s68.photobucket.com/flash/player.swf?file=http://vid68.photobucket.com/albums/i20/yourmomblows/MVI_1381.flv" width="448" height="361">

some more of the sound of my engine slowly getting ruined.



<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://s68.photobucket.com/flash/player.swf?file=http://vid68.photobucket.com/albums/i20/yourmomblows/MVI_1382.flv" width="448" height="361">

no comment on this last vid from me but my friend comments.



<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://s68.photobucket.com/flash/player.swf?file=http://vid68.photobucket.com/albums/i20/yourmomblows/MVI_1383.flv" width="448" height="361">

MSP #167 said:

so they did or did not fix it. Im confused by your post.

Click to expand...

after i have someone take the intake off ill know if the dealer did anything at all to this when i went there for the recall. but judging from what i have seen tonight i doubt they did anything and kept the car there on the parking lot and reparked it when i came to pick it up. i doubt they even took it inside their shop when i left the dealership with the loaner car. this really pisses me off now as i never want to go anywhere if i ever MUST go to the dealer for any work. i always wait while they work and i watch them. i took my car to the dealer in the beginning when it was new for maybe 3 oil changes and i always gave them 4 quarts of 5w30 mobil1 and made sure they actually poured it in.

Based on what you are saying...it sounds like something/bolt/screw came off your VTCS.

I believe there was a TSB on this. If the first dealer did not fix it...I would try another dealership.

-C

^Agreed. Document everything. Go to an independent mech you trust. Get him to take pix etc. of the damage. Have him pull the intake manifold to inspect and torque VICS and VTCS and to redloctite the screws (if they are all there...).

Send the total bill to Mazdausa. Go corporate and rat out this crappy dealership. Be Polite. Be firm.

what dealer are you going to?.....Wayne is the only one i trust in the tri-state area

i went to Crystal auto mall in green brook on rt 22 west. recommended by a guy from the meets we had on Wednesdays and then lately Fridays. i do not like sansone mazda in avenel as they were plainly discriminating and rude to me when i went there to test drive the p5 before buying it. and i don't like maxon mazda as they didn't use all parts on the transmissin that they took off my car after they replace the tranny. (had to go back to them because of missing plastic shield screws on the bottom of the engine bay and my shield was scraping the ground).
i'm going to call mazda corporate and make a complaint about crystal auto mall because im now sure it is the screw inside my cylinder. they have not done the recall procedure like they said they did. based on my research and replies to my post im 99% sure that is exactly what has happened.

DO NOT RUN THE ENGINE ANYMORE!

Try fishing around some more in the cylinder for that screw.

yes the car is sitting in my friends driveway waiting next steps i need to take. my friend let me borrow his van to use for now. like i said if anyone local has some free time and is willing to come take a look i will go pick you up and bring you to where my car is. or i can just tell you the location. Thanks!

If you need a mechanic that you can trust in the area, check out Ralph's Auto in West Paterson (right behind the A&P on rt 46 west). Best mechanic I've ever been to. He's really busy, but that's what keeps him honest. I've gone there with things I thought I needed to have done and has come back to me and said "you don't need that done." Always done good by me and everyone else I've ever sent there. Just FYI...

^Do it. Tow the car there and keep that receipt too to submit with the claim.

I think you'll have a harder time getting mazda to cover anything by bringing it to someone else rather than back to the dealer where the work was done!

Or at least a different mazda dealer.

SoonP5ismine said:

i went to Crystal auto mall in green brook on rt 22 west. recommended by a guy from the meets we had on Wednesdays and then lately Fridays. i didnt not like sansone mazda in avenel as they were plainly discriminaly rude to me when i went there to test drive the p5 before buying it. and i dont like maxon mazda as they do use all parts on the transmissin that they take off after they replace it. (had to go back to them because of missing transmissinm plastic shield screws on the bottom of the engine bay.
im going to call mazda corporate and make a complaint about them crystal auto mall because im now sure it is the screw inside my cylinder. they have not done the recall procedure like they said they did. based on my research and replies to my post im 99% sure that is exactly what has happened.

Click to expand...

Don't just call mazda corporate, that will really get you nowhere.

why don't you actually read the papers that they gave you, maybe you will find out if they did the work or not. Or call them back.

I don't understand how you don't know what they did to your car. You have to be notified as per state law if any work was done to your car.

To me it seems like this is something that is not covered under warranty and you didn't want to pay for it to get fixed, so they sent you on your way. If this is not the case read what the papers say they did.

Its really not that hard(uhm), i don't understand what the problem is.

since ur car ran fine after the tsb was done. they didn't do it? that's stupid. why not find out what the problem is first befor pointing fingures. im sry if I come off harsh but im a tech at a dealer (not mazda).

sansone is a bunch of dirty thieves and i have hear nothing but bad things from crystal, maxon , ramsey and lodi.....but i have never had an issue with wayne mazda and i travel 30 miles each way just to have them work on my car

i couldn't get a hold of corporate today. and as far as what the service guy at crystal told me 2 years ago when i went to get the recall work done is that they did an inspection. well an inspection to me is like checking something to make sure it will not break in the future. was this a inspection like the many similar 100 or so point inspections they advertise when you go there for an oil change or something? when the actual inspection was done did they actually only look at it? well i have found online a procedure for what they actually need to do to inspect it. read here starting on page 5.

http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:OMuUsXGDhmwJ:www.protege323.com/content/60_download/jump.php%3Fgeturl%3Dz_faq/tsb_3005c_tsb_intake_manifold_shutter_vtcs.pdf+vics+recall&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=11&gl=us&client=firefox-a

i really doubt the inspection on my car was done exactly like its stated in that link.

@ EviLMaN
well my car ran fine before and after the inspection at the dealer was done. this also doesn't mean they did anything at all while my car was there. and i didn't notice any marks on the intake itself or the hoses and wires in that area of the engine. my screws have just now become loose after 84000 miles of driving.

@ shane02pro5
yes i agree i will need to take it back to crystal auto mall because i called wayne mazda and they told me to take it back to the original dealer that did the recall work as they are the ones that will be responsible for any damage done due to not being able to prevent this problem from happening like it shows int the official recall procedures.