Good morning. I’m Saul Reisman here at Saul’s Automotive.
Today we are going to talk a little bit about technology, the evolution of vehicles and, really, how they’ve changed over time.
This Mazda CX-7 from 2006 is a great example for us to take a look at. The engine in this vehicle is a two point three liter, four-cylinder engine. It’s a dual overhead camshaft engine that has been in production by the Ford Motor Company since the first oil crisis in the 1970s. Now, Ford made this engine to put into Mustangs, because they thought they wouldn’t be able to keep the Mustang on the market during the oil crisis. It was a smart move. It kept the vehicles in production and kept owners buying them, even though they were swapping out then and putting in V-8s later anyway.
Here we are, 35 years later, looking at the same engine, but with some much-improved technology. Because Ford has upgraded this and modified it in many ways, putting bigger valves, more vales and in this case even a turbocharger into this vehicle to squeeze every once of horsepower out of this small, little four-cylinder engine in a 4,000-pound-plus SUV, they’re able to get great fuel economy out of such a vehicle. The downside, however, is that this little motor is pretty high strung and pretty tight wound as a result.
We currently have the spark plugs and much of the upper half of this engine disassembled.
We were testing it to see how much pressure it’s actually still holding internally. The engine itself came in in a pretty poor condition. Not making a lot of power, making some pretty significant noises. There were no codes stores in the vehicle, so the local dealership instructed the Denver owner that there was no way that they could see what was wrong with the vehicle, because there was no check engine light on. That wasn’t exactly accurate.
Here are Saul’s Automotive, we performed a compression and leak-down test to see the exact condition of the internals of the engine. We then contacted the warranty that still covers this vehicle from the factory, and we were able to get each and every auto repair component repaired for this owner under warranty, completely free of cost. Big change from what the dealership may have told them.
In this case, because this engine’s so high strung, the actual tensioner that holds tension on the timing chain to keep the camshafts and crankshaft in line had failed. This is a very common failure on these engines, and Ford typically tells us that they will replace this small, little tensioner and give us a new component of that part to owners for free. What they do not tell owners is that it’s a 16-hour labor job to remove it from the vehicle. Not a friendly task.
Here are Saul’s Automotive, we were able to diagnose the problem with the vehicle, confirm that the timing chain had failed, which we’re gonna show you here in another video, and then go further into the engine to see what extent the valves had been damaged and how they could be repaired. Fortunately, based on the stretch that had occurred in this vehicle, we were able to replace the timing chain, the tensioner that holds it, the guides that hold that chain in place and reseal the engine in good shape. No damage was done internally to the valves themselves, and this guy’s gonna live a pretty happy day. It will see many, many more miles of service.
This one was more fortunate than most. Oftentimes, the timing chain tensioners fail on these vehicles, resulting in catastrophic failure. The valves strike the pistons. The engine is a complete and total loss and has to be replaced at that point.
If you have any concerns about your Ford or Mazda product that contains this engine, and that applies to everything from a Mazda 3, a Mazda Speed, a Mazda 6 to a Ford Taurus all the way to today’s modern Milan and across the board. They all have this same engine. They all have the same failure, and we here at Saul’s Automotive can address it, repair it and keep it on the road. We are not the dealership that will simply wait until this fails and then tell you that you must replace it all. We can save this guy. We can keep him alive, and we can keep you running.
If you need to keep your vehicle reliable, please give us a call here at Saul’s Automotive. We’re open 365 days for your convenience. 303-919-7769.
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