Enough is enough
 

I've had it!! I can't stand the rattle from my engine anymore!!! It drives me insane!!! First I thought because it was cold. Today the weather was 25 degrees and it's still doing it. People are staring at me when I'm driving.. it's embarrassing!!!!!!

Looks like I'm gonna have to go to Mazda (again) and have a fit(again). Don't get me wrong, I love the car and Mazda but this is ridiculous. It's brand new and I'm having trouble with it already :(

Did anyone with the same prob got an answer from Mazda??

there is a temorary fix but your engine light will turn on

open your hood and at your top left you should see a white plug and a green plug....unplug the green one

I guess I could.. but if anything happens to my ride after, wouldn't the warranty be void??

Can't afford to pay the repairs... especially when it's a new car!

if something does go wrong just plug it back in and play stupid with the techs....or you could go the expensive route like i did and get a remote starter/alarm....and let your engine warm up

there HAS to be a fix somehow! I'm gonna go to Mazda and let them do it.

I can be a bitch with these guys sometimes. Being a girl, I have to be .. otherwise they just laugh in your face!

one of these days i'll have to here for myself this engine rattle with my own ears...cause mine isn't that noisy...hell my parents 98 tercel is more noisier on startup then mine

do you have a CAI or a short ram intake?

I haven't done anything under the hood.. everything is still stock!

If you're driving by the airport one day, stop by my work.. you'll see how loud this thing is.. not funny!

i notice this too, but i just ignore it.

doesn't really bother me, i just crank up the radio if i need too.

but let us all know if you do get the dealer to fix it, so the rest of us can have it done as well.

you should get a after market intake anyways if you got the extra cash...engine runs quieter and when you floor it, it sounds awsome!

Does this engine rattle problem just plague some P5's? I never encountered such a problem with the stock intake and even an aftermarket one. Mine's a Canadian P5, is the US one somehow a bit different in terms of drivetrain I may not know of?

the rattle is not from the intake (i think), but from some part of the engine.

nightowl is saying that it is worth getting an intake if you have the cash for one.

don't thinkso...her's is a canadian one too..strange that this only happens to some and not others

I joined this group/forum earlier today and found out I was not alone with the engine rattle problem but ... no one has mentioned the little surge in acceleration you get along with the rattle at 2800rpm.

Does this happen to y'all too ???

I've noticed the surge in accell quite a bit, but as for the rattle I haven't noticed much of that. My car almost sounds like a diesel when it's idling (not nearly so loud though...) I just i don't notice it much because my old beretta knocked like an SOB when I first started it...

I get no rattles or surges with mine - It's an early car (June of '01) with 6,000 miles.

Don

DrR - Thanks and "glad" to hear I am not the only one with the surge in acceleration. Sorry to see you were the victim of sideswipe hit-and-run.

I am hoping that the engine rattle/surge is the only significant problem I will have with this car. I decided to go with a Japanese car based on general reputation. But, already, I am a getting a little suspicious of the build quality. Maybe it's a you-get-what-you-pay-for thing, regardless of where a car is built.

It could be worse. The last new-car I bought was - what a coincidence - a Beretta. Got it near-new as a dealer demo and had to pay a huge interest rate over 60 mo. because I was a poor college student at the time. What a lemon. The honeymoon with that car ended within a week as I went from my hometown in the New Mexico desert where it never rains back to my college town in Illinois -- storms along the way & a trunk leak due to sloppy workmanship soaked all of my luggage. Then there was the a Protege-like rattle (in this case, from the catalytic converter heat shield), self-destructing paint, a dashboard that contracted cancer, GM Morning Sickness with the rack&pinion, and other problems. It died a violent death in Carolina. At least the seat belts worked.

Hmmmm, after reading this board, I noticed a small 'rattle' that you guys speak of, but it's so slight that it doesn't bother me. I always let me car warm up for a minute-two minutes in the morning though

PS. The build quality is great on the Proteges!!!

the rattle on mine is when I accelerate (mostly 2000rpm +). To reduce the noise I shift at 1500.. seems to be less noisy.

As for warming up the car beforehand, I don't agree. You shouldn't warm up a car more than 30 seconds.. even there I find it's a lot!

I'm going to Mazda next week (going to US Rally this weekend).. so hopefully they have an answer for me.

just let your engine warm up before u drive it.....
when it is not warm and u rev to 2700+ then the rattle starts sounding....
once it is warm u can race the ass of out it and there is no rattle

why not?? apart from the fact that you will be using up more fuel?

engine rattle
 

If you search on rattle i beleive that you'll find a 2 threads detailing the exact problem (VCTS) and a fix (with pictures) that will not cause your engine light to turn on.

From what mazda canada has told me there is supposed to be a real fix very soon.....but what else are they going to say.

I've had my car for almost a year now and this problem and mazda's inability to fix it have made me rethink ever purchasing another mazda product.

your noise is most likely coming from your lifters. not to much they can do about that. if you do take it in. most likely they will change your oil and maybe put something back in with it. or they will take off the valve cover can and use some type of lube on them. there isnt much more they can do.

So what are you saying.. Mazda will ignore the problem and tell me to live with it? I don't think so. They will fix it, I don't care what they have to do!!

And if they don't.. well needless to say, this will be my last purchase with Mazda. Their loss!

NO NO NO, the noise is from those piece of shit VTCS plates that lower your cars emissions during cold starts. I don't know why some of them rattle, and some don't. But the ones that do rattle (like mine did) is very noitceable and very irritating. I left my solenoid plugged in, and simply unplugged the vacuum hose going into the solenoid itself. Plug the hose, and the open spot on the connector where you pulled the hose, and presto no more piece of shit rattle, and no engine light. It works great, I've been rollin around like this for about a month now. The only side effect is the throttle response is slow when its cold. Once you reach operating temp though, it runs just fine. And the slow throttle response isn't a big deal cause you really shouldn't be racing your engine if its cold anyway. I would much rather have the temp slow response than the ghetto rattle anyday.

hey sweedenhouse........

what did you plug your hoses with? i've been searching for some caps or something but don't really know where to look or what to get.

I really like my MP5, but please allow me to grumble. :mad:

Yeah, I read thru those other threads on the engine rattle. So far I concluded that ...

1) the engine rattle occurs in enough cars to be a systematic engineering and/or production defect
2) the rattle has been well-known known for many months
3) it's been the CUSTOMERS who, thru trial-and-error, have come up with the apparent causes and remedies
4) some suggested remedies seem speculative; others create new performance problems (and, darn it, I want an authoritative answer and solution that will give me the car I paid for)
5) Mazda is seemingly content to leave owners (and, maybe, their own service technicians) to spend THEIR time and money to deal with it
6) Mazda, despite having an otherwise fine product, is risking the permanent alienation of its existing customers and the loss of potential future customers by not clearly informing its customers or its dealerships of what it knows and what actions are being taken to eventually solve the problem.
7) Mazda, a company with financial and marketshare problems, can ill afford to alienate existing owners or lose future customers over the long haul Toyota, Nissan, and Honda will continue to pump out new models at a faster rate than Mazda and the Korean car makers, who can build/sell cars at less costs are quickly catching up to everyone else in quality and performance. How long can a cute kid who sez "zoom zoom" and a catchy jingle on TV offset bad word of mouth?

PS - Re the previously discussed warm-up time issue, see page 5-4 in the 2002 Owner's Manual on the how long to idle the car after starting it.

I noticed the same thing though I thought it was me since everything I bring my car to the dealer for is "normal operation"...

I read the owner's manual for letting the car idle, but I still let it warm up for about a minute in the morning. Idleing the car cannot inflict any significant wear and tear, or do anything bad to the engine, so why not let it warm up in the morning.

I used one layer of black tape over the hose (so it's not all bulky and ghetto lookin), then used some silicon and smoothed it and formed it over the tape. I only put the little bit of tape on it to prevent any silicon getting sucked down into the hose. As for the soilenoid, I used more silicon, and formed it to look nicely over the insert for where the hose goes. I mean you could just use tape if ya want, duct, or black will work. I used to really hate my ride when it made that ghetto lawn mower noise in the morning. And I don't care what you guys say about warming it up. I would let my shit idle for 3 minutes, I know this because I would sit in my car and listen to a whole System Of A Down song which all their songs average about 3 minutes, and my goddamn car would still rattle all the way out my apartment complex. But uuhh yeah know I like it better, except for the ghetto paint now. That's really the only thing that pisses me off now. Hope this fix works for ya. Like I said a month so far, so good. And if anything happens odd, I'll simply plug the hose back in, drive, or have that bitch towed to the dealer, and tell their punk asses to fix it. Hope that helps...

the cold start idle thing
 

I don't know a monkeywrench from an orangoutang, but a search on the matter confirmed what I had heard several times before from various reputable sources, including a family mechanic back home ... ie - the more you idle after a cold start, the more you prematurely wear down internal engine surfaces. There's also the matter of emissions.

See this concise explanation from an auto-mech columnist from one of the Toronto papers (third question down on that page) ...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe...ve/011702.html

I just really don't feel comfortable with that answer from The Globe and Mail... I have always been told you should warm up the car slightly before driving, especially driving hard. Notice how much less responsive the engine is when it is cold? Notice how much hesitation there is when the engine is cold? Those signs should tell you something.

Emissions? How much more dirty (rich) exhaust is getting put out that exhaust pipe while you are driving compared to idling? Lots more...

I always let my car warm up about a minute and then very lightly drive it until it warms up. You spend a lot more time idling at stop lights and traffic than you do letting the car warm up for two or three minutes in the morning.

-Jerry

Back to the original topic...

My '99 ES with the 1.8L had a lot of the rattle symptoms like the 2.0L's. The difference is that the 1.8L does not have VTCS. The rattle would come on after a cold start and would sometimes happen during idle down and at idle. It was rather annoying.

However, after my Injen CAI was installed, the rattle went away. It was replaced by an even more annoying tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, in the same instances that the rattle used to occur. These ticks were most noticeable inside the car and were much louder and quicker than the turn signal!

I traced the ticks to the purge solenoid valve. This valve controls the vacuum between the throttle body and charcoal vapor canister mounted on the firewall directly in front of the passenger. I checked with my dealer about this part. It is perfectly normal for it to rapidly cycle on and off, hence the ticking noise. This valve is mounted on the stock intake just before the throttle body. It was moved to a nearby bracket on the firewall. After trying to insulate it with rubber washers (which only slightly quieted the ticking), I moved it to the same bracket the VTCS solenoid plug is mounted to. No more rattles... no more ticking...

My theory is that the cycling of the purge solenoid valve caused a vibration in the intake. The intake is hard plastic and loosely put together, so you get a loud rattle. Moving the valve to the bracket on the firewall allowed the cycling to be transferred directly to the frame, making the loud ticking noise. Moving the valve to the intake manifold allows the cycling to be absorbed by the engine and it's vibration-absorbing mounts. The 2.0L cars have this same purge solenoid valve mounted on the intake. I wonder if the VTCS somehow controls this valve?

Just a guess as to the rattle. Worked on mine...

-Jerry

----
I'm most guilty of splitting this thread, but it's related to the whole engine rattle thing and how people are coping with it.

A one-minute warm up and driving gently for the first few minutes seems very reasonable, but ...

Another North-of-the-Border reference worth looking at argues against warm ups beyond 30 seconds, regardless of weather. This time it's from Natural Resources Canada. Links to brief pages on both engine wear and emissions are shown towards the bottom of this page ...

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/autosmart/idling/effects.cfm

I'm impressed. You may have pinpointed the problem and solution. Not being an engineer or even competent with a pair of pliers, I cannot make much more of a comment whether it's THE fix some of us who are mechanically helpless are waiting for.

But, I am a bit more familiar with the ethics of economics, marketing, and management. In this context, I would first ask several things:
1) How many hours did it take to reach an apparent solution?
2) How many others have independently done the same as you?
3) How many hours have the non-mechanically-inclined spent screwing around the service department trying to have them even acknowledge the rattle's existence (my attempt in April to have the dealership help out was a fiasco that involved 100 miles of driving back and forth to the dealership and at least 6 hours of my time taken from workhours, but that's another story).
4) How much is everyone's time worth per hour on average?

If you do the math, you would have a rough collective monetary value of what has been "spent" by the consumers to fix a problem that really is the financial responsibility of the manufacturer.

I paid Mazda $18k for a car with the contractual understanding that it would fix defects. I did not pay you (although I greatly appreciate and thank you for taking time to share your thoughts) and Mazda sure ain't gonna pay you either.

Keep in mind that I realize you and others most likely love working on your cars and are glad you are NOT having to do it for money or messing around with dealerships that all seem to be run by :evilgrin: Satan. The rest of us, tho, can either tolerate the rattle or wait for Mazda to pony up.

about warming up the engine..... well both websites say something about it being bad for the environment.... and notice that the second website is about energy efficiency so I guess its just natural for them to say something bad....
anyways I don't see how bad the small amount of extra pollution can be for the enviornment at idle will be compared to ppl who drive around with 17mpg SUVs, etc...

but i noticed in the protege manual that it says something about not warming up too long cause it causes gas milage to decrease, so thats probably something along the lines of what the first homepage had to say about engines running richer when cold.....

but my mechanic friend says to warm up until u see the engine temp gauge begin lifting, thats around 3-4mins......

so whats the real truth???

Yes, indeed, idling is not the greatest thing for an engine.

But, you know what is absolutely worse?

Putting substantial load on a cold engine!

Remember the days before computer controlled engine management systems? Remember how terrible it was to watch the engine struggle as it was cold? Is it any different? No. Today, the computers can input very fine adjustements (and lots of them) to keep that engine running until it warms up. The engine is still struggling to run, but the computer can act so fast we don't notice it.

Until the engine has reached normal operating temperature, the combustion chambers are too cold to sustain proper ignition of the fuel/air mixture. Carburreted cars had a choke to reduce air intake, which made the fuel/air mixture rich to keep the engine running. Newer cars inject more fuel to create a rich mixture. Plus, newer cars may advance or retard the ignition timing as needed to keep the engine running.

To me, the engine is not in a state to be driven. It's struggling just to stay running until it has warmed up enough to idle properly. As I said, I let my car warm up for a minute and then gently drive it. I also live in San Diego where 70 degrees is common to wake up to. For those who live up in Canada, I can't believe you would only let the car warm up for 30 seconds. And then I can't believe to hear about better torque delivery and 2,700+ rpm. You are driving these engines hard is a cold climate with only 30 seconds of warming up! Do you want to destroy your engines?

-Jerry