Almost exactly six months ago, my long-time Ford Focus needed replacing and I bought a Mazda 6.
The plan was to get something at least five or six years younger, relatively low mileage and in very good condition. After decades of doing what we call "bangernomics" I wanted to finally have a really nice car that would (hopefully) last longer than I will.
Here it is; a Mazda 6 Skyactiv 2.2 diesel automatic in the Touring body shape.
Photo by me
The Mazda is a nice car to drive, quite sedate most of the time but with serious acceleration if needed. It doesn't handle quite as well as the Focus and can feel a little vague on motorways compared to the Ford, but it's well within tolerance and it's fair to say that the Focus was a particularly sporty version.
The Mazda is a fairly heavy car, but the braking is good enough that I've never felt like the mass and velocity have overwhelmed the stopping power.
Strangely although it's got plenty of power, most of the time it's so sedate it feels like it just wants to potter along at 10mph below the speed limit. I think most vehicles have a natural set of harmonic speeds based on gearing and rev ranges, but most of the ones I've owned seemed to have been happiest at 10mph over the limit, not 10 below !
One thing that has taken time to get used to is the amount of data, alerts, screens and general bells and whistles. I've been used to cars where you just drive them and spot issues by listening to the noises it makes and the general feel that comes through the seat.
On the Mazda, it is far too easy to get distracted by what's going on inside and not pay enough attention to the free-range pedestrians wandering around in the road.
This is where the first problems started to show themselves. Buying a car is always a gamble, and in this case the MOT history (which can be looked up online) was stellar, the bodywork and engine looked to be in excellent condition, and the test drive seemed good.
What I didn't spot was that the battery was completely knackered, and that it had put the car into power-saving mode. That meant that about 50% of the normal sensors and alerts had been switched off to enable the battery to put it's power into the engine.
So it turned out that the tyre pressure warning had been disabled. I found out when the front left tyre collapsed without warning and left me stranded two days before Christmas. Getting recovery back to the nearest tyre centre that was open that close to Christmas and had the right tyres was very, very expensive !
The next issue was that after being stood for a couple of days over the Christmas break, the car refused to start.
I took it to my mechanics at that point (after charging the battery so it would start). £350 later, it had a new battery and a couple of other minor electrical glitches fixed. Ouch.
Now we come to the real weak point of this car. To meet stringent UK emissions regulations, it is fitted with a diesel particle filter (DPF). What it's supposed to do is catch the soot particles, and then burn them off safely. But what you don't get told is that in order to do this (they call it regenerating the DPF), you need to take it for regular high speed runs of at least 30-45 minutes.
Most of my driving is local stop-start stuff. But I'd done a couple of long runs just to be sure. The car will try to regenerate the DPF by duping diesel into the combustion chamber, with the idea being that hotter than usual exhaust gases will clear the filter. It turns out that if the DPF is blocked beyond a certain point, this no longer works. The excess disel will be forced down into the sump, contaminating the oil and risking serious engine damage.
So it was time for another visit to the mechanic. They did a manual regeneration with cleaning fluid which seems to have cured the immediate problem. Another £500 down the drain. They've advised that Ishould check the oil level very frequently - at least once or twice a week - and monitor for any increase in oil level. If that happens it means the DPF is totally blocked and will need to be replaced, which is a hellish job that may involve engine removal and that I should expect to pay around £1500, with the potential for a couple of thousand more if the root cause turns out to be an injector problem.
The Mazda is a lovely car to drive, and the Touring body gives me a huge amount of useful space for load carrying.
But it is the most high-maintenance and unreliable car I've ever had. The issue with the DPF is a real show-stopper for me. It's frustrating that when I read reviews before buying it I didn't find any mention of this issue, although plenty turns up if I specifically Google for "DPF problems". My suspicion is that it's a known fault and Mazda are engaging in some very serious search engine manipulation ("reputation management") to take down reviews mentioning it.
My current plan is to monitor oil levels, tyre pressures and other potential points of failure very closely for a month.
If it looks like what I've been dealing with are just initial issues that the salesman hid (most of which weren't covered by the worthless "warranty" he provided) and are now fixed, I may keep the car.
But if I have any doubts, I'll sell it, ideally to someone who does enough motorway miles that the DPF issue won't happen for them.
Then I'll go back to bangernomics and get a high mileage runner that'll last a year or two and is old enough that it hasn't got all the over-complex electrics. Who knows, I might even go for something that's classified as a Historic Vehicle (over 40 years old) as they are exempt from UK road tax.
Posted using The BBH Project
