2.0L Engine Noise
 

This is what Mazda has to say about it, I think we should push them to come up with a fix faster, come on it has been a problem since the middle of 2000! What do you think? I would like someone to explain the jargon that they use VTCS plates? what are there function? What does ECT stand for and what is its function? Also they use the term "believed" to be the problem which means they are not sure or are trying to limit their responsability!

The dealer noted the noise and gave me a bulliten from Mazda.

Category: B Piston Engine
Repair Reference # 3562
Subject: 2.0L Engine noise with cold coolant temp

ALL 2.0L between 2001-2002 are affected

Customer may experience an engine rattle under light to moderate acceleration with engine coolant temps below 149 deg F and engine rpm's between 1500 to 2500.

Confirm noise only occurs within the VTCS ( Variable Tumble Control System) operation "valve closed" period (when ECT is below 149 deg F)

This noise is currently believed to be the result of the timing between VTCS plates "opening", and the ignition spark advanc command. This is an operating characteristic of this engine and no repair attempts should be made. Although the noise is present only during cold start up and disappears once the engine coolant reaches 149 degrees F, Mazda realizes that it is an annyance to some customers and its engineers are investigating possible countermeasures in an effort to address customer satisfaction.

Sounds like they are trying to get away from a recall and a problem that will or will not (they don't know)cause damage during warranty!

Would you be able to direct me to the VTCS selonid plug as my manuals have not come in yet. Thanks for the help. Anyone know how the VTCS system functions example first this, than that, then the plates blah blah?

Yeah I have had it. I'm going down to my dealer tomorrow and raising holy hell. I am sick and tired of my Juggalo Wagon sounded like a goddamn piece of shit when I drive off. Its really embarassing, because I like to think of my car as somewhat "nice", but when I pull away from work, or my apartment complex, and people stare at my car like WTF is wrong with that thing, it sucks fat dick. And I ain't gonna take it no more, FUCK MAZDA and their lazy asses not fixing this.

Sorry, I had to vent. I'm better now, just took my ritalin.

But for real Mazda does suck for not addressing this more promptly and professionally. Its making that Civic look better and better everday....sigh.

No reason to go to the dealer unless you want to vent there or just have them document that you have the noise. Unless it is something else, you might want to take it, but you have to leave it for the engine to cool down. Oh I don't mean to be rude Sweedenhouse but, try to tone down your rude comments. Thanks

Oh yeah? Well I'm going down there tomorrow regardless. I'm sick of this shit. And why should I tone down my "rude" comments? At least my feelings are pure and real. So what if I don't speak eloqouently, or use words that are mainstream, and accepted PC people? Is the word shit any different from poop? No, theny mean the same thing. So Mazda can fuck off till they fix this embarassing rattle. It is the most ghetto thing I have ever experienced in a car. Yes even more ghetto than when I cut the stock springs in my Eclipse and I bounced like a motherfucker. Yeah I said motherfucker. It doesn't make me a bad person to use theses words, it makes me a real person. Mazda can eat a dick if they don't fix this rattle.

You have such a subtle way to tell us your feelings,we couldnt detect how much you're pissed off!hahaaha!!!!:laugh2:

There was a lot of discusson on this. See engine rattle on this forum of the 3rd generation. Also, there was a long discussion on the maintance section but that section has dissappered from the forum. As I mentioned before, Mazda has known about this for over 10 months. I've written to Maxda to complain and they just refered me to the Dealer who provided me with the same M-TIPS description. I'm temped to write Mazda again and indicate that I'll notify Consumer Reports about the problem which has yet to be fixed. This may get their attention since Consumer Reports has a big impact on buyer choices. I'm also upset and am concerned that there may be a long term problem which Mazda is trying to finess. In any case I'd also like to know how to disconnect the VTCS system. Any pictures?

Ummm yeah once again forgive my "foul mouth", but FUCK MAZDA. How weak of them to mass produce a product that makes terrible noises. I seriously am contemplating on trding my shit in on a Civic. Talk shit on it all you want, but at least the Civic con't make bullshit ghetto noises like my p5 does.

You're basing your comments on the engine rattle that occurs for the first minute or two in the mornings? Why don't you just warm up your car before taking off in the mornings. I've never had this problem, but that's because I turn on my car, and then go and put on my shoes, get my books and lock the door. That takes a bit more then a minute, and I'm off and running, no problems.

Buy the Civic, and have fun paying 100$ for regular 6000 or 5000 kms checkups at their dealerships, plus the crazy percentage that they have on their financing/leasing.

Holy @$#*, another Juggalo! Whutup...

Anyways man, I had a Civic with well over a half-million klicks on it, and the damn thing wouldnt die. The only reason I got rid of it was because the rust was getting embarassing. But you'll lose mad cash if you dump your P5 so Id hold on to it... just sell it as soon as the warranty is about to expire... keep in mind Mazdas dont hold their value like Hondas so you'll probably be in a negative equity situation.

I also owned an ITR (championship white). I traded that for the P5 because my fiance and I are going to buy a house and Im getting a bike (Suzuki Hayabusa... ugly as sin but fast as hell!!!). Man, but its been two days and Im crying myself to sleep every night thinking about my ITR. Oh well, I hope the new owner takes good care of it.

Anyways, Ive got the same rattle problem on a two day old car!!! Im about to go to Mazda head office and start choking heads!!!

Hell yeah ninja....'SOUTHWEST VOODOO IN THE HAUUGGHH!!!'

Anyway yeah its good to have another Juggalo here. But dude I warm my shit up for a good two minutes every morning, and it stills sounds likes John Deere rollin off into the sunset. Like I said its freakin embarassing. People stare, and look at my car like its a piece of shit. I want people, well honestly I don't care, but its nice when people look and say "Hey that's a nice car", not "Dude what the hell is wrong with that POS Mazda".

WOOO WOOO MUCH CLOWN LUV!!!!! Juggalo

Yo ninja, you should sport the hatchetman as your avatar.

You got a Hayabusa?? Are you crazy, damn I'd be scared to get on that thing hehe way too fast. My friend's '96 GSX-R 750 (or it might have been a 600cc, forgot) was a beast, hehe, I can just imagine what that one would be like.

Dont worry about them man... you know what, no matter what kind of car you have people will dog your shit. People even busted on my ITR for being "slow" (ie, not running 12's). Forget them man... just blast your system so loud it drowns out the rattle... :D

oh yeah, Id change my avatar but you gotta have 150 posts first... :( some day man! I just gotta find more stuff to compain about! haha

peace

Sweeeeeeeeeet! Ok man, Ill do a search and figure out how to disconnect the thing.

Im not gonna change the oil yet though, only 180km on the puppy so far :)

Thanks bro

Not yet man, not yet. Really soon though... I want to pay cash so Im just waiting until two more pay cheques come in!

You're right though, the Hayabusa is insane. I saw a video of the Hayabusa passing an R1 at like 160mph... the R1 looked like it was standing still... :eek:

1300cc... damn... I go numb just thinking about it. I cant wait!!! :D

DUDE!!! I didn't know we got solid lifters! Kick ass. --We be revvin--

Yeah, have fun trading in you P5 for a Civic and LOOKING LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE!!!!

What`s so wrong about getting a good car? I prefer my Protege, but you can make a civic look different than everyone elses... just put ICP stickers on it.:D

Heh yeah my civic would be straight up Juggalo style. There wouldn't be no rice about it. I dunno I'm kinda lookin at those Mitsubishi Lancers. I suppose I could Juggalo out just about any ride.

ok here are some pics of my engine....can you tell me where the VTCS selonid is???




http://www3.sympatico.ca/malcolm.nor...e/IMG_2176.JPG

http://www3.sympatico.ca/malcolm.nor...e/IMG_2178.JPG

http://www3.sympatico.ca/malcolm.nor...e/IMG_2179.JPG

http://www3.sympatico.ca/malcolm.nor...e/IMG_2180.JPG

http://www3.sympatico.ca/malcolm.nor...e/IMG_2181.JPG

http://www3.sympatico.ca/malcolm.nor...e/IMG_2182.JPG

http://www3.sympatico.ca/malcolm.nor...e/IMG_2183.JPG


http://www3.sympatico.ca/malcolm.nor...e/IMG_2184.JPG

http://www3.sympatico.ca/malcolm.nor...e/IMG_2185.JPG

http://www3.sympatico.ca/malcolm.nor...e/IMG_2186.JPG

http://www3.sympatico.ca/malcolm.nor...e/IMG_2187.JPG

so just unplug this then? this won't cause any other problems other than cold start emissions going up? want to make sure before i mess with my car. i am not a mechanical genius( not even close).

so i just unplug it???

there is blood on the plug??? :laugh:

you sure?




























:D

i did it don't worry

Hey guys, while we have engine pics, would any of you mind telling me where I would hook up a tachometer? I tried the wires going into the coils, but that didn't work too well. Is there another hookup maybe by the crank or something? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

what would happen if i disconnected the one to the right of the green plug?

I got tired of the noise and unplugged it with no problems
 

I got tired of the noise and unplugged it with no problems.

Only slightly more gas usage

Remember to plug-up the vaccuum from the solenoid.

I unplugged the green plug on the intake manifold and in about 10 minutes I threw a CEL. What did I do wrong?

Look for the big diagnostic connector behind the driver's side shock tower, next to the wiper motor. It has a dark gray plastic cap that says "DIAGNOSIS". You need to tap one of the wires leading to the connector; if my memory is correct, it's the purple wire with a white stripe. Hopefully, someone else will confirm this.

BTW as you discovered, you cannot directly tap the wires to the coils. The ECU talks to the coils using computer gobbledygook that can't be understood by conventional aftermarket tachs.

I believe you're supposed to unplug the vacuum lines leading to the manifold, not the electrical plug. This way, the ECU will still detect the presence of the VTCS solenoid and assume that everything is hunky dory. :D

BTW make sure you plug the vacuum ports. Little rubber caps for this purpose are available from your local purveyor of discounted automotive components. :D

This will disable the VICS system. Say bye-bye to most of your top-end power. :(

This is very true! I have a civic and they REALLY RIP YOU OFF at the dealership on regular maintanence checks....Also I had to lease beacause of their retarded financing rates.....8.6% or something, what a joke.
By the way, does this cold start engine noise thing happen on 2003 P5's as well??? because I have a brand new P5 and have not noticed any excessive noise in the first minute of driving.

I drove around for a while with the VTCS disconnected. Surely there was no noise but I noticed a slight loss in power, and also my gas mileage worsened by about 3-5 mpg. I decided I didn't really mind the noise for the first 5 minutes so I connected the green plug again.

If you disconnected the vacuum hose, there really shouldnt be any reason I can think of for a drop in gas mileage or loss of power, at least not after it warms up to 149 degrees when the VTCS shuts off. At that point the car runs with the VTCS disengaged, whether the vacuum hose is disconnected or not.

It might be a different story if you mistakenly disconnected the electrical connector on the solenoid, as you computer would read this as a malfunction, and who knows what the computer would do to compensate.

Might As Well Give Up
 

The cold engine noise issue has been with us for a long time now, and Mazda knows about it.

As annoying as this issue is, we're going to have to come to the realization that Mazda is never, ever, going to do anything about it. Ever.

Our current generation Protege's days are numbered. The engine we're driving is old and outdated, it has no valve timing, and is of an old fashioned cast iron block design that's the door mat of all mainstream Japanese auto makers. Nissan, Honda, and Toyota are ALL building aluminum engines these days. The FS-DE? Iron.

Because of the dated nature of this engine and the realization that Mazda will relatively soon replace the current Protege, they're not going to waste their time or energy trying to fix a problem that:

A. Doesn't seem to effect reliability.
B. Doesn't seem to effect safety.
C. Is massively widespread and would cost millions to correct; even if they had a solution that would indeed fix this issue.

That being true, I still maintain that:

A. This is a seriously annoying problem.
B. Mazda screwed up by designing a cheesy engine that does this in the first place.
C. Mazda should have just been truthful and said "We're not going to do anything about it" instead of waffling around going, "We're aware of this problem and our engineers are working on a fix as we speak". That's a lie-- They're not actively working on a fix and they'll never give us one because it's not serious enough and it's too expensive to address.

I honestly belive Mazda would like to fix the issue, but the bottom line is this is a built in design flaw that they can't really do anything about. It's just poor design.

What?
 

Hmm, but TheMAN, the VTCS is part of the motor. So what are we supposed to blame, otherwise?

It seems to me that Mazda put this in in order to squeeze as much efficiency as they could out of an otherwise dated, comparatively poor, engine design, that's all I'm saying. Well and true, the FS-DE IS outclassed in terms of smooth operation, emission control, valve timing, metal construction (as in, it's not aluminum) etc.. Toyota, Nissan, and Honda (for now) are all building better engines than the FS-DE. That's obviously why Mazda is dropping its ass in the next generation Protege (or M3; whatever they're going to call it).

I think Mazda really dropped the soap in terms of this annoying problem, in any event.

Awesome article regarding why this happens, though! I hadn't seen that-- Thanks for your work in putting that out!

God dang it... finish your freakin posts... you guys first talk about some topic and then go off on a tangent about something else. So basically what TheMan is saying is that the dealers can't fix this cold engine rattle problem? Is that the final message???

Yes or no will suffice... not some "do it yourself solution"... I want to know if the f***ing dealer can do it. because I don't want to mess up my car or crap like that. So do the dealers know the solution to this cold engine rattle?????

man... i don't know about you. but like me and half of the other people who actually use this discussion board aren't freakin' auto mechanics or inclined to be any.... otherwise WHY THE HELL WOULD WE USE THE FREAKIN INTERNET IF WE COULD FIX CARS?? MAYBE BECAUSE WE DON"T KNOW HOW??? She my freakin' logic there?? Telling us... just do this with the blah blah and disconnect the doo dad... i don't know wtf you're talking about and I'm not about to go study on it when i have 20 credits of sester finals to worry about.

~peace

God dang it... finish your freakin posts... you guys first talk about some topic and then go off on a tangent about something else. So basically what TheMan is saying is that the dealers can't fix this cold engine rattle problem? Is that the final message???

Yes or no will suffice... not some "do it yourself solution"... I want to know if the f***ing dealer can do it. because I don't want to mess up my car or crap like that. So do the dealers know the solution to this cold engine rattle?????

man... i don't know about you. but like me and half of the other people who actually use this discussion board aren't freakin' auto mechanics or inclined to be any.... otherwise WHY THE HELL WOULD WE USE THE FREAKIN INTERNET IF WE COULD FIX CARS?? MAYBE BECAUSE WE DON"T KNOW HOW??? See my freakin' logic there?? Telling us... just do this with the blah blah and disconnect the doo dad... i don't know wtf you're talking about and I'm not about to go study on it when i have 20 credits of sester finals to worry about.

~peace