My 150PS, 2.2 litre diesel suffered a complete loss of power driving on the M6 at around 70mph, about 200 miles into a 500 mile journey from Hampshire to Scotland. I limped onto the hard shoulder from the middle lane upsetting the driver of the car I had just overtaken. A couple of advisory messages regarding the SCBS and TPMS systems came up about 10 miles before and I had planned to get to services and investigate but ground to a halt about a mile short of Charnock Richard services. Fortunately, I am with a breakdown service, Britannia Rescue who were contacted and duly arrived The breakdown service plugged in a diagnostic handheld computer and came up with the message
P0299 Turbocharger/supercharger underboost
(On hindsight, I had noticed something like a slight turbo-lag when I had accelerated onto the M42 from the M40 about 100 miles previously but it was only momentary.)
I was taken back to main dealer where I got the car in Newbury, Berks. They were not surprised by the failure and I think I was the third or fourth in the previous two weeks period.
The car is a 13 registration (purchased new, on the road Jun 2013) early engine model (chassis number within the early cam shaft failure range given on the forum) and at the time, around 59500 miles on the clock and a couple of weeks shy of 4 years old, hence about a year and 10000 miles out of warranty. I have had the car from new and it has been serviced at the Mazda main dealer to schedule.
Looked on the forum and found I was not alone, thanks to previous reports.
The car was off the road for 5 weeks due to lack of replacement turbos.
In the end, I was told the turbo, vac pump and camshaft were replaced and the head was de-coked. The service managed explained that the failure was due to the excessive carbon build-up rather than camshaft wear. The total cost was about £2500 for the two jobs, failed parts replacement being one job and de-coke the other. Mazda UK, through goodwill, covered 80% of the cost and I covered the £500 residual. I was told that since I had made a contribution I was covered with a guarantee against a future failure. Mazda also covered the cost of a hire car for around 2 weeks of the 5 weeks when I couldn’t do without one.
Since the work was done, I have completed a journey up to Scotland and can report improved fuel consumption. I have previously posted on the forum an unexplained decreasing mpg value with mileage and I believe that this can now be put down to carbon build-up.
