Apparently, I'm not driving my new car hard enough!

Some may remember I picked up a new 2010 Mazdaspeed 3 about two months ago.

Yesterday on the way home from lunch, the check engine light comes on, pull into an Autozone to have the code pulled: "Multiple cylinder misfire"

The car only has 2200 miles on it and I always use gas from reputable sellers with lots of turnover (QT for those of that have them in your markets).

Dropped the car off at the dealership this morning. He calls me back to tell me, it's likely plug fouling due to carbon build-up because I'm not "opening her up" when driving the car. Granted I don't shift at 2500rpm everywhere I go, but I don't beat the crap out of it either.

I guess I've been issued a challenge by the MazdaUSA tech line. Good thing there is 48 months and 57k+ miles left on the powertrain warranty!

In reply to z31maniac:

Fuel prices are going down; it only makes sense that your revs should go up.

Or, maybe you need to revise your definition of "beating the crap" out of your car.

This is a common problem with TDI's. Folks tend to drive them for mileage and lug the engine at low rpms which can gum things up with unburnt fuel. Unfortuantely, I can be guilty of this myself at times.

I still remember borrowing my grandmothers buick lesabre to go to a FSAE party. I did not have directions and was left trying to keep up with some friends in a trans-am (who were having a pretty good time) to find my way to the party along back roads.

My grandmother noticed that it ran a lot smoother after I returned it...

They put rev limiters on cars for a reason.. to find out where they are! I found mine on the new ride the second weekend I had it, when I needed to keep my foot in it but didn't have enough time to shift to third and back down to second for the upcoming corner. Good times.

z31maniac wrote: Granted I don't shift at 2500rpm everywhere I go, but I don't beat the crap out of it either.

Uhhh....is it bad that I rarely go past 2500rpm?? Even in the celica I like to shift about 2500, even though that's where the engine finally starts to run smooth because of the cam.

I'd call that poor tuning on their part. For a track car, I can understand, but this is a daily driver street car. If I'm not balls to the walls, I'm uber-grandpa....no offense to the grandpas out there....but it's just unnecessary to drive like a maniac when you aren't even going anywhere.

itsatrap wrote: They put rev limiters on cars for a reason.. to find out where they are! I found mine on the new ride the second weekend I had it, when I needed to keep my foot in it but didn't have enough time to shift to third and back down to second for the upcoming corner. Good times.

Posting from my phone so i can't look up a dyno chart, but there is really no point in reving in the Speed3 past 5600ish RPMs or so car falls on it's face by 6000 and is wheezing like an Asthmatic smoker running a marathon as you close in on the redline.

Highway on-ramps are my favorite...

Yep, I give my WRX the good ol' "Italian Tuneup" every morning getting onto the highway. Highly recommended!

What about putting a higher heat range plug i the car?

That's where I usually nail it, although the last couple of tanks of gas, I have been seeing how many mpg I can get taking it easy. Guess that has to stop!

Blaze, I can begrudge them the ovey rich tune. I'm sure it's part cylinder cooling, part built-in safety net against the people who drive them a$$hats.

You buy a performance car and then drive it like an economy car. Altho it might be that Mazda puts in colder plugs to anticpate people will drive it hard.

Back in the old days, racers had warm up plugs and then changed to race plugs.

81gtv6 wrote: What about putting a higher heat range plug i the car?

My thoughts exactly. I'll bet that if this becomes a common problem, we'll see Mazda do exactly that.

I think I found the rev limiter about 30 minutes after I bought the Astra.

So yeah, drive it harder. Or just trade the MS3 for my Astra :p

Keith wrote:

81gtv6 wrote: What about putting a higher heat range plug i the car?

My thoughts exactly. I'll bet that if this becomes a common problem, we'll see Mazda do exactly that.

Service guy told me all the cars with that engine (all the way back to the Speed6) get started and held at 4k for three minutes before they are sold to burn off the inevitable carbon buildup that happens during transport.

Just gotta start being a more judicious with the right foot I suppose!

Apexcarver wrote: Highway on-ramps are my favorite...

with sound walls on both sides, mmmmm

I'm sure that I do not have a carbon buildup problem in my cars.

I have to say- something smells bad with that response.

It should be a lot more robust than that.

I suppose that colder plugs were the answer to a knock or pre-ignition problem that they have had (which I have heard about), but fouling those normally doesn't become an issue until winter kind of temps.

Can you charge the tickets to your warrantee?

Eric

If you lost a set of plugs in 2200 miles in a modern car, there is something wrong with the car. Period. 22,000 would be too short. Modern ignition systems will fire plugs with 220,000 miles, as long as the ceramic hasn't broken down.

He called back and they did run it at 4k, cleared the codes and took it for a drive and the code didn't return and seems to be running fine. If something is seriously wrong, I figure the engine will grenade itself long before we hit the 5yr/60k mile mark.

Alfa, they had better chalk it up as a warranty issue! I agree that not beating the crap out of the car shoulnt cause me to have to pay for crap!

We used to have a problem with fouling plugs fairly easily on some of our cars. If the car wouldn't start immediately for some reason, the plugs would foul and they'd have to be cleaned before you'd be able to get the car running. Going to a hotter plug helped. My Mini needs regular hard exercise to avoid fouling as well.

Mazda's screwed up this kind of thing in the past. Again, I suspect there's going to be a TSB on this soon.

z31maniac wrote: Alfa, they had better chalk it up as a warranty issue! I agree that not beating the crap out of the car shoulnt cause me to have to pay for crap!

I think he was talking about any speeding tickets received doing the "Italian tuneup".

My car has no plug fouling issues, that's for sure! I am going to pull the plugs next weekend though, they have just over 90k on them now - BMW says 100k change but I don't want to do this job in January in my unheated garage.

speaking of bmw, the owners manual for my '88 e30 suggested in no uncertain terms, an occasional beating to clear out carbon deposits.

Haha totally missed that, I was thinking a "service ticket"

D'oh!

belteshazzar wrote: speaking of bmw, the owners manual for my '88 e30 suggested in no uncertain terms, an occasional beating to clear out carbon deposits.

On the owners manuals of my previous 80's era bmw's they always state if you do alot of bumper to bumper, you should drive at 4000rpms or higher for the next few kilometers to clear it out. I like the way they think!