Just bought car, engine dying :(

[MAZDA Kitten]

oooooooooohhhh... Thank you

[Bean]

My Pleasure. I used to work for a company that closed a lot of them down. I wont go into too much detail however.

[dhruvprakash]

Hey all,
Sorry for the late update. I'll make it short.
I took my car to Jimmy on Tuesday. He was awesome..he kept the shop open way past closing time (i reached at 6:45), took his time in diagnosing the engine and discussed options with me. MPS (Vlad) was also nice enough to drop by and give company...so thanks Vlad, it was nice meeting you. mzkaye729 was absolutely super, she offered to meet up with me and go together to Jimmy....so moral support has been awesome!!

Anyway to the facts:
1. Engine is almost completely gone (con rod failure)...I drove from my office in 'ssauga to Markham to downtown (home) and thought that I would have to get it towed to my house- it was that loud. Fortunately I was spared that expense.
2. Oil was BLACK and level was low. I saw Jimmy add 3 lts of oil to bring the level to an acceptable amt. He was so nice, he didn't even accept any $ for the oil!
3. If i remember correctly, it is the no. 3 and 4 cylinders that are problematic.
4. Bottom line: suspect small oil leak, oil starvation, oil quality bad.
5. The next time i crank the motor, it will be to make it to a repair shop to do engine replacement. Would probably need a tow for part of the way.

What!!!! OMG..... Take it up with both of them!!! There has to be some sort of law that protects people selling "big ticket items" privately... I'd be taking this guy to court to get my money back. He MUST have known there was an issue, and if he had any shred of decency in him, he would have offered to meet you at a mechanic of your choice with the car.

What a twat!!!!! I'm really sorry to hear you're having these issues and hope something can be worked out for you...

And on another note, congrats on the new job!



EDIT: I just thought I should also show you this link so you know your rights... whether or not these consumer rights fall under registered businesses only or include private sales, you should have a look either way and find out what you can do to fix this.

http://www.gov.on.ca/mgs/en/ConsProt/STEL02_045905.html

There's something called a "cooling off period", but again whether this will pertain to this specifically I'm not sure. There's also a link to "What Do I Do If I Think I’ve Been Sold a Lemon?"

Hopefully this will help in some way. I really don't recommend wasting $3000 on a new engine when you could have bought a newer vehicle for the same price. Definitely fight it out, just my opinion!

Hey Mazdabetty, thanks so much for your research and continued interest! Unfortunately the 'what do i do if i think i have been sold a lemon' link applies to NEW cars only, though I am not sure abt the Ministry of Consumers and Small business link you mentioned...might look into that, so thanks!

New job is great so far, quite busy (learning lotsa new stuff)..but would have been awesome if I had a reliable ride to work...given that I had promised the employers that I would have a car by my first day. Imagine what I sorry ass figure I am cutting at work now!

I am gonna try and work things out with seller. So let's see if there is still an amicable resolution possible...

hindsight being 20/20, next time walk away from someone that gives excuses as to why they don't want to take it to a mechanic.

as for the VCTS, that's what is in the video i linked. pull either the plug harness or one of the vacuum hoses in the front of the intake manifold and, if the noise goes away, it's the VCTS.

hope all works out for you.

Majestic, I doubt this is a lesson I will soon forget. The repercussions have been disastrous!

MZ3-2266's old car.. his name is Mike..

OP, when was the vehicle safety performed? The date is what I am asking; if it is less than 36 days from right now(I'm sure it is, you bought July 27, correct?), go directly to the MTO and file a claim on the car, and contact Jimmy ASAP. You need to have your car looked over again because if the car got a "safety", you may have a car that got done blind.
When you go to Jimmy (unsure if he does safety's) or someone that does, make sure to have another safety done (usually $40-$60). I'm sure there is something else wrong.
DRL's are a HUGE factor, especially on a 2006, come on.

Get it checked the sooner the better, hopefully all works out for you man. This type of stuff upsets me as well, especially coming from a previous board member.
Now it makes sense as to why he seemed so eager to sell so fast, he probably knew or felt something was wrong.

Also, funny he sold it to you on the contract "As Is", but had it Safetied & E-tested.. Which means he is liable, so is the shop that performed the safety.
GL man, I'll keep up with this thread..
Moe

Thanks Moe, but I guess the DRL issue has been addressed by the foggies..

Maybe he never found the hamster??

Anyway...not to judge but this deal doesn't sound very kosher...

Can't say I disagree with you.

DRLs are part of the safety, but at this point, unless you have documentation to verify they weren't working when it was safetied, you are SOL. "At the time of the inspection" is always the case for safety issues. In other words, you would have had to prove it right away. Now who's to say you didn't bypass the DRLs yourself?
I feel for you, don't get me wrong. But I've been on the other side of the coin, where I sold a car, safetied and e-tested, and 4 days later the kid is calling me back asking for his money back because he dropped the engine. (98 Contour SVT) I felt bad for the kid, but I delivered a running car from Kitchener to North York, to his driveway! What he did in the following 4 days, I have no clue. I admit it did have a noise from the engine, and I disclosed it, he drove it, I offered to fix it for the full asking price. He waived it, wanted the car with the noise. So in my position, what do you do? I sold a car I believed was in good working order. Maybe it wasn't, but thats a risk of buying a used car privately. I just bought a 2000 Subaru Impreza, and learned after I bought it, the check engine light had been pulled from the dash. Ends up its hiding 5 codes! Can I do anything? No, sold privately, assumed "as is". What can you do? Unfortunately, not much. Deal with it, fix it,or sell it and cut your losses. Sucks, but its true.

Kev, I hope that you at least gave him the option to take it to a mechanic.

yeah you said it best... these cars aren't a unicorn.... if the seller jacks you around and won't let you do this or that or won't answer questions... WALK AWAY

NEVER EVER TRUST SOMEONE SELLING A USED CAR

also, I never ever look for cars that are modded... many people don't either... why? because you don't know how the car was driven/taken cared of... modded cars in general have been beat on

Yeah, I think I trusted too much in this case. Usually I am skeptical by nature, but this is the one time I let my guard down...

[Bean]

I am sorry to hear this

[dhruvprakash]

Whoa! This thread is getting a little ahead of itself, the previous buyer has posted and let's try to give him the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn't recommend replacing the engine until you can confirm this.

As for the comment on auto industry workers being unethical and lacking integrity -that is an unfair comment! It comes down to the person working within the industry - and I refuse to do anything remotely unethical or anyone on my staff for that matter - that is grounds for termination in my books! I'm sorry if you've been burned in the past but not everyone in the trade is like that.

As for the original reason to this thread, these situations can be difficult an I feel for your situation, if you want another opinion, bring it in to me - I'll have my guys take a look - free of charge

Pm me or email me if you would like to take me up on this offer k_lee@agincourtmazda.com

Good luck with whatever you choose!

Hi Karen,

Thanks for your offer! Unfortunately, at this point even a 2 year old would confidently opine that the engine go bye bye. Though I must say that such gestures show that you run a very customer oriented department and I would be happy to get in touch with you for future issues (which I hope will be few and FAR between!)

I agree that everyone working in the auto industry is not bad per se, but if one were to look at ratio of unethical folks to total members, you may find that this ratio is higher compared to other industries (even higher within the Sales subset!!) other than banking, lol. Of course, I have not validated this hypothesis..

Cheers,
Dhruv

[dhruvprakash]

My Pleasure. I used to work for a company that closed a lot of them down. I wont go into too much detail however.

Thats awesome public service! Waay to go!

I am sorry to hear this

Thnx Bean..

[Karen Lee-McNair]

I would pleased to help you out with anything you may need in the future!
As for the latter, I want proof! LOL!

[dhruvprakash]

I would pleased to help you out with anything you may need in the future!
As for the latter, I want proof! LOL!

I am in the process of setting up a double blind study as we speak

[Flagrum_3]

Well was sort of hoping alongside you that the situation/problem didn't turn out how it has, (I was trained in the KISS method of diagnosis), so I always look for the simplest causes first....

Sucks when you buy a new car, even if it's used and it farks up on you....Here's hoping your new engine install goes good and to many years of enjoyment out of your 3.


_3

[Dave_The_BMXER]

Man that sucks, I am sorry to hear that that happened to you and via a member of this board. Regardless of if the previous owner knew about the engine or not it's not the type of thing you like to see within what is a somewhat close community.

Good luck with the new motor...

Also another bit of info my car was saftied without any DRLS at all.

[Zoom Zoom Boy]

Dhruv,

Really sorry to hear it turned out to be the 'worst case' scenario for you. Good luck with reaching some sort of amenable arrangement with the seller, but somehow, I suspect, this won't be easy. Although, I truly hope I am wrong. Frankly, my instincts tell me that the story that he (the seller), didn't know something was seriously wrong with the car is B.S., or else he wouldn't have had any issue with you taking it to a mechanic. End of story.

I know you learned a bad lesson the hard way, but the way you have conducted yourself on this forum and communicated has also been extremely commendable and probably the reason you have garnered such support. If you had come on here flaming, cursing and not taking any accountability for making a mistake (lack of judgement), people likely would have reacted very differently.

Happy Jimmy was able to help you also and yes, as many have said, he is awesome beyond belief. We are lucky to have him as an 'extended' part of TM3.

Anyway, good luck with getting this resolved and keep us updated.

Tim

[RedRaptor]

I guess buyer beware when buying anything from Mz3-2266.

[Go_Habs_Go]

Sorry to hear that it's the engine!

Good luck getting it fixed...perhaps the seller might be willing to assume some of the cost?

[MPS]

and if he wont i willing to donate some cash (i did say some not all)

Sorry to hear that it's the engine!

Good luck getting it fixed...perhaps the seller might be willing to assume some of the cost?

[ds2chan]

ouch.. sorry to hear about all the problems.. it's never easy to buy something (no matter what the cost) and then something bad happens right away..

So, if I understood correctly, you'll be taking the car back to Jimmy to get a new/used engine?? If so, hopefully all goes well after that..

[TheMAN]

if I were you, I'd do an oil filter conversion with the new engine at the same time... I have a feeling that the filter housing cracking may have been part of the current engine's demise

[cinder88]

The OEM oil filter housing is only a problem IF overtightened. Everyone do your selves a favour and change your own oil. I hand tighten mine and have had zero problems.

Buy a low profile oil catch pan and you will not need to jack up your cars, easy peasy!

To the OP, I feel your pain, but make sure this does not happen again.

On your next test drive take the car for a 30+ min spin. Dealer or Private, if you are going to live with the car for many years driving it for 5-10 mins is nothing.

Anyway, say NO to modded cars in the future, less hastle.
And always get a second opinion.

[Flagrum_3]

I guess buyer beware when buying anything from Mz3-2266.

Big +1, I don't know the person and actually whatever he says to try to defend himself means nothing as the fact stands; He did not allow the oP to take the car to his own mechanic and sold the vehicle 'as is' and this can mean only one thing; He knew something was wrong.

Shame.


_3

[mazda lover]

The OEM oil filter housing is only a problem IF overtightened. Everyone do your selves a favour and change your own oil. I hand tighten mine and have had zero problems.

Buy a low profile oil catch pan and you will not need to jack up your cars, easy peasy!

To the OP, I feel your pain, but make sure this does not happen again.

On your next test drive take the car for a 30+ min spin. Dealer or Private, if you are going to live with the car for many years driving it for 5-10 mins is nothing.

Anyway, say NO to modded cars in the future, less hastle.
And always get a second opinion.

Good advice, but as for changing the oil I think the car needs to be on ramps so it is high enough to get the cover off and to get to the drain plug. I don't think it can be done without the car up higher...
JMO

[cinder88]

I change my oil with out ramps every time. I use a low profile oil catch can, you can get them at Canadian Tire.
I bought the OEM wrench to take off the filter cover.

Very easy, and little mess compared to can filters.

[TheMAN]

The OEM oil filter housing is only a problem IF overtightened. Everyone do your selves a favour and change your own oil. I hand tighten mine and have had zero problems.

Buy a low profile oil catch pan and you will not need to jack up your cars, easy peasy!

To the OP, I feel your pain, but make sure this does not happen again.

On your next test drive take the car for a 30+ min spin. Dealer or Private, if you are going to live with the car for many years driving it for 5-10 mins is nothing.

Anyway, say NO to modded cars in the future, less hastle.
And always get a second opinion.

not entirely true
mazda admitted to the problem through an internal memo... the 04 through early 06 cars had a thinner filter housing cover prone to crack even with the proper tools/methods... they quietly updated the cover with thicker plastic to "fix" this problem

furthermore, don't you find it funny that mazda went back to the spin on filter on the new 3 and 6? the early 2009 6s had the cartridge but they quickly went to the spin on... all engine parts are still the same

[RedRaptor]

My oil filter cracked in the winter. I almost lost my engine. Avante said "it was the extreme weather that caused the failure..."

Can you see why I hate my Mazda?

Do the spin on conversion. It might save your engine.

[Bean]

Does this affect the 2007 models?

[kevcol74]

Kev, I hope that you at least gave him the option to take it to a mechanic.

Yes, he had every opportunity,and I encouraged him to do it. In about 15 cars I've sold in my time (give or take), only 4 people have opted to take their cars to a mechanic. But, as a seller, I have ALWAYS given the potential buyers any opportunity to take the car to a mechanic, theirs or an independant. In fact, 3 of the last 4 I sold were... People are getting more cautious I think! lol

Sorry about the news OP. Hope it all works out in the end.

[dead_cactus]

Does this affect the 2007 models?

From what i've read on this forum I believe it affects all 2.3 engines except for the 2010's.