Excessive Came Lobe Wear? (Pics inside)

[urchin]

Originally Posted By: mechtech2
Don't wait.
Complain now, and be firm.
This is NOT normal or good.
Get paperwork -evidence of your concerns with them.


^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^

Also see if you can get some reasonably decent pics of this, I'd also get that oil analysis as well.

I would have this stuff in hand and request a meeting with a Mazda district service rep. They may extend the warranty at the least or possibly replace the engine or buy back the car ....

 

[GMFan]

Originally Posted By: urchin
Originally Posted By: mechtech2
Don't wait.
Complain now, and be firm.
This is NOT normal or good.
Get paperwork -evidence of your concerns with them.


^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^

Also see if you can get some reasonably decent pics of this, I'd also get that oil analysis as well.

I would have this stuff in hand and request a meeting with a Mazda district service rep. They may extend the warranty at the least or possibly replace the engine or buy back the car ....


They would replace an engine for a failing camshaft? Wouldn't they simply replace the camshaft? Or remove the engine and put in a used one?

 

[BBuzecky]

For what it's worth...

The first picture is from a 2011 Cx-7 with 3,000 miles, still on factory fill. Same exact engine you have in your Mazda, 2.5L

The second picture is from my car, a 2004 Mazda 3 with 88,000 miles. 2.0L engine, very similar to the 2.5L (and 2.3L before it) that is being talked about.

While it's impossible to get perfect shots and have the cam in the same position for photos, this is the best I could get. At a glance, it seems the brand new 2.5L has more hairline marks on it versus my 88,000 mile 2.0L, but angle and flash are impossible to replicate on both exactly.

If I can get a picture of the 2.5L in the same position as yours I will snap a picture and post it, so you can compare it to yours.

 

[Josh48065]

You guys make my engine seem dirty, this is the first picture I took when I just bought the car. Had 78,000 miles and I switched to RedLine to see if I could see any differences.
There seems quite a difference...

 

[GMFan]

Thank you for the pictures. My cam lobes look exactly like those shown in the pictures on the "bottom" portion. If either of you could get the "top" portion in a picture that would be very helpful as well.

 

[ltslimjim]

^You mean the lobe itself at the point your picture showed it, right?

 

[GMFan]

Originally Posted By: ltslimjim
^You mean the lobe itself at the point your picture showed it, right?


Yes. That way I could compare.

 

[ltslimjim]

If those guys could manually crank their engines and take pictures.

 

[KrisZ]

I'm all for helping a fellow BITOG-er, so I looked inside the filler hole this morning and the cam was positioned almost the same way as in GMFan pics. I just gave the engine a split second crank with WOT. This cuts fuel, it`s a procedure to clear flooded engine, so no worries of engine starting.

It`s tricky to get the pics right, but I think it`s close enough.
BTW, this is on a 2.0 engine with 80k miles on the clock. I hope this helps.

 

[urchin]

Originally Posted By: GMFan
[
They would replace an engine for a failing camshaft? Wouldn't they simply replace the camshaft? Or remove the engine and put in a used one?


The car is nearly new.

Yes I would want them to buy it back, you do realize that replacing an engine on a car these days is very complex and lots of other things will likely go wrong with that.

If this guy spent over 20k on a new car and gets terrible quality I would certainly want a replacement new car or my money back. This issue is not a niggling fault.

 

[Virtuoso]

MAYBE a replacement engine, but to expect them to buy the car back because of this is far-flung IMO. Honestly I don't see them doing much more than a camshaft replacement, and perhaps having the other(s) inspected.

 

[LS2JSTS]

Originally Posted By: urchin
Originally Posted By: GMFan
[
They would replace an engine for a failing camshaft? Wouldn't they simply replace the camshaft? Or remove the engine and put in a used one?


The car is nearly new.

Yes I would want them to buy it back, you do realize that replacing an engine on a car these days is very complex and lots of other things will likely go wrong with that.

If this guy spent over 20k on a new car and gets terrible quality I would certainly want a replacement new car or my money back. This issue is not a niggling fault.

Good luck getting them to buy a car back in this situation.

If there is something wrong, it's a fairly simple swap out. This isn't rocket science here, it's not that difficult to swap an entire engine, let alone a head or a cam.

 

[mechanicx]

I wouldn't want a new car either that had a cam, cylinder head or engine swapped out either but that's probably the best you will get.

 

[Mark_Walk]

Pull the valve cover off and look at all the lobes!!

 

[Trav]

Its really hard to say from the pictures but i have seen this a few times before.
You need to get in there and feel the lobes and look for evidence of pitting, it will look like very tiny pin holes or pits on the lobe face, use a magnifying glass if needed.

Once on a new Honda bike i owned and another in a customer car used on short trips. Both were not normal, failure occurred before 10k on both, the others i have seen were totally blown lobes.
The Honda cams looked like yours seem to be and progressed to full blown pitting of some of the lobes a few thousand Km later.
The car was all pitted when i first saw it so i have no idea how it looked prior to that.

Honda paid for the cams and i put them in myself (deal with Honda) because i wanted to break them in myself. The new ones were still perfect 160K later.
Quick and easy job as it is on your engine also.
IMO no way will they replace the engine or the car for such a minor repair like this.

Just make them aware of this and see what they say.
Nothing to loose sleep over even if they are toast.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Bumpin' this thread from the dead.

Any update on the possible cam lobe wear?

 

[Thermo1223]

The cam in the Mazda 3 looked like that all the way to 30k+ when we traded it. Very similar, nothing ever wrong, no weird noises.