Pinging Mazda Protege5

[javacontour]

It's a solved problem, but wanted to post it up here for others in case they have the issue. This summer, I noticed my P5 was pinging under load. I thought it was just heat and moved to higher octane fuel, but saw no improvement.

For the summer, I addressed the problem by simply backing out of the throttle when I would hear the pinging and it would go away.

Friday, I was checking under the hood for a weekend get-away trip and noticed the air intake hose was cracked. Makes sense. Un-metered air getting in and the engine was likely running too lean.

A look on-line shows my local O'Reilly parts store has the hose and for under $40 tax included and longer to drive there and back than to change the hose, the pinging is gone.

Just drove from STL to Cape Girardeau, MO and back this weekend and no pinging noticed.

Seems this is a common issue with Mazda and it must be as there is a Dorman problem solver part that stores seem to have in stock. I thought for sure this would be an order on line and duct-tape the hose until the part comes in, but it was available locally.

Sometimes it's the simple fixes for such issues, so don't forget to test such things.

 

[oilstudent24]

I had a Ford Product that I believe had a pinging issue. It would sound like marbles under a moderate load like going up a hill. It was the mass air flow sensor. The sensor was dirty. Do you run an oiled air filter by chance? I cleaned it and the pinging went away. I will warn you that the sensor is like a small light bulb filament and is very delicate so if you break it it could be a several hundred dollar education. I have also heard that you can use a spray designed for electronic parts-maybe specifically for that purpose- not brake cleaner or such. The Ford product was secured to the air box by a couple Torx Bits.

 

[bigjl]

You can use carb cleaner on the Hotwire type sensor but with car and a cotton bud, you can get the electrical cleaner in any Maplins in the UK, not sure what the equivalent in the US is though.

I did this a couple of times on my Mondeo I am sure it is a MAF sensor, the only times I have heard any issues with contamination is when somebody has over oiled their filter, then goes online and posts that a K&N filter broke their car.

 

[panthermike]

Glad you got it worked out, sometimes it is such a simple thing.

I've had similar experiences as oilstudent, a dirty MAF causing ping. When my brother bought his Taurus, it pinged BADLY. I cleaned the MAF and 100% of the ping was gone.

OTOH, my brother's '07 F150 has had a light ping since around 25K or so and cleaning the MAF does nothing. He's not willing to spend much money, so we may never find the cause. It has around 85K now and the pinging hasn't gotten any worse AFAIK.

I'm not sure what's causing the heavy throttle ping on my '77 F250 though, everything checks out. I'm guessing it's the high compression ratio and 91 octane being the highest octane available here. Also, a better set of heads would likely help.

 

[javacontour]

My Contour did that. (US Mondeo) Cleaning the MAF fixed the CEL, as in that case, the computer thought it was running lean.

This hadn't triggered a code, but it was pinging until I replaced the rotted tube.

Originally Posted By: oilstudent24
I had a Ford Product that I believe had a pinging issue. It would sound like marbles under a moderate load like going up a hill. It was the mass air flow sensor. The sensor was dirty. Do you run an oiled air filter by chance? I cleaned it and the pinging went away. I will warn you that the sensor is like a small light bulb filament and is very delicate so if you break it it could be a several hundred dollar education. I have also heard that you can use a spray designed for electronic parts-maybe specifically for that purpose- not brake cleaner or such. The Ford product was secured to the air box by a couple Torx Bits.

 

[javacontour]

RE the Contour I mentioned above. I only ran an oiled air filter AFTER I had and addressed the problem in that car.

I don't run one on this one, so I knew that over-oiling wasn't an issue.

Had I not found the rotted tube, a MAF cleaning was next on my list.

Originally Posted By: oilstudent24
I had a Ford Product that I believe had a pinging issue. It would sound like marbles under a moderate load like going up a hill. It was the mass air flow sensor. The sensor was dirty. Do you run an oiled air filter by chance? I cleaned it and the pinging went away. I will warn you that the sensor is like a small light bulb filament and is very delicate so if you break it it could be a several hundred dollar education. I have also heard that you can use a spray designed for electronic parts-maybe specifically for that purpose- not brake cleaner or such. The Ford product was secured to the air box by a couple Torx Bits.

 

[mechtech2]

Intake vacuum leaks should also make it run poorly at idle and part throttle.
Pinging was the only symptom?

 

[javacontour]

Yep, it ran great. Apparently it wasn't to the point where the computer couldn't somewhat compensate.

 

[bdcardinal]

We sell a ton of those hoses in Mazdas. I have an entire shelf full of just one of the Protege part numbers.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I had a Taurus that pinged the entire 5 years I drove it. Reprogrammed the computer, ran 93 in the summer, ran cold plugs, ran the coldest thermostat I could find for it ...

one day, after 5 years of pinging, it set a check engine light for EGR system. I replaced the DPFE and the pinging was 100% gone.

 

[javacontour]

I thought about this and I have a theory. Since the crack wasn't a sudden thing, but probably progressed, I theorize that the ECU had time to adapt and adjust the IAC and fuel mixture.

The crack looks bad, but when the hose is in it's typical orientation, it wasn't immediately noticeable. So I don't know how much it impacted idle and low throttle driving. But once I opened the throttle and hit engine speeds about 3K-4K RPMs, you could hear it ping. So I suspect it was a combination of load and RPMs that started pulling in enough air from the cracks, introducing enough un-metered air to cause problems.

Originally Posted By: mechtech2
Intake vacuum leaks should also make it run poorly at idle and part throttle.
Pinging was the only symptom?

 

[mechtech2]

Also, the crack may have been pronounced only at some throttle positions, like accelerating. It may have sealed kinda/sorta when at stable conditions.