reman engines
 

Well did my girlfriend a favor and did tires, brakes and a oil change on her mazda 6, the oil change was last and found some shiny metal in the oil so i did some research and found that these 2.3 engines are good for low oil pressure and then spinning rod bearings.

The problem is the car has 118k miles on it, worth maybe 6 grand so looking for opinons on what others have done, if anyones had issues with this engine.

It seems silly to me to replace a perfectly good running engine. Check the oil pressure with a mechanical gauge, and go from there. If I'm reading your post correctly, there are no symptoms except metal flakes in the oil. Are they copper flakes? Have you held them up to a magnet? Could be any number of things.

"Don't fix it if it ain't broke!"

The engine i'm sure has decent pressure, mainly what i've read is that the engine will leak/use oil suddenly and the lack of oil takes out a bearing usually and when you rev it theres a very slight knock. It looks copperish, im draining the new oil out and doing a oil sample before i dig to deep.

I pulled the valve cover and the cams look okay from what i can see, i rebuild cummins engines but this variable timing cams and other stuff is nuts, main thing is either be able to fixthe car reasonable or just trade it ogg, she lives a hour away and i'm not having her drive a time bomb in winter.

The metal in the oil. You find chunks/pieces or just silvery stuff suspended in the oil? If just some suspended shiney bits I wouldn't rebuild it. Pull some main and rod bearing caps and look for wear, scratches, discoloration. Same thing you'd look for while rebuilding the dsls that you rebuild. If bronze/copper is showing through the shell the bearing is toast as is the journal and will need to be ground. Use plastigauge, reassemble bearing caps. Torque to spec, dissassemble cap and measure the plastigauge. Then you'll know if the bearing is in spec. If a long block is 4 grand find out how much for short block(no head).
You might also see if there are any used Jap engine sellers in your area. Seems in Japan at 50,000 miles their licensing tax sky rockets and folks buy new motors. The take outs are bought by the container full and brought to the US and sold. There's a couple resellers in Seattle so I'd bet a big city in your area probably also has a reseller.
If you regularly rebuild Cummins dsl motors buy the factory Mazda shop manual and rebuild it yourself.

Agree with the domestic Japan engine
 

I've put several in Honda's that turned out good. We would strip it down to the long block, then add the original stuff. If you go this route, I strongly recommend you take the oil pan off & clean the sump.

Well i ran the oil sample with the new oil granted only haveing about 20 some miles but didn't show any abnormal metal. I went to the mazda place talked with a service guy and they've never seen any issues with the engine or anything i was reading on the message boards.

I saw a couple small pieces of metal but that could just be normal because at this mileage i'm sure there will be some pieces. What worried me is what i think is tiny copper specs or im just flat out seeing stuff, honestly had i done like normal probaly would drive this for years and never notice.
The plan is im driving the car for the week around a 100 miles or so, then i'm doing another oil sample friday, and doing the oil and filter again. Just right now i don't want to tear into the engine if i don't have to,.

Do a UOA at the next oil change, 100 miles doesn't seem like enough to get a clear picture of whats going on.
If its not making any strange noises now, I don't think its gonna blow up immediately. Just watch for the oil light.

It costs me ten bucks for the oil sample so im gonna do one friday and i'll do another in a couple thousand just to be safe, its not makeing any weird noises. i just wanna play it safe and if theres issues go from there. My biggest mistake was reading the mazda forums and the horror stories which were a result of letting the oil get to low, just didn't want to see her spend all this money and me having to pull it out in my unheated garage.

Better buy a new engine.

Right away. :nod

That one surely won't last three miles.

http://mclean.alltheragefaces.com/im...ackie-chan.svg

The tire pressure was low, so you'd better get new tires and wheels, too.

Check the specs at which the oil pressure switch would turn the idiot light on and then......add a proper oil pressure gauge.:wink: Teach the GF on how to interpret the readings.:1drink

Unless it's being driven where she's going to be stranded, or something similar, I'd wait for loud noises or worse. I'm on my third MPV with a V6 and the first two let go around 250K, so I expected this one to blow around the same time. It just rolled past 375, so ya never know . . ..

It wouldn't show anything abnormal - it's still brand new oil. Get your sample done once you've put 5k on that oil and some residue has time to accumulate.

Of course not, I have yet to find ANY service business that even looks at internet fora to see what might be happening out in the real world, or who would admit to any faults in their flawless product.

Thats the prblem, shes 45 minutes away from me, she goes to her moms which is all country back roads and its winter, if it was my car i wouldn't sweat this, so i gonna run it for the week and see. I honestly like i told her probaly overreacted just moneys tight and reading online stuff made me paraniod when most issues were people running way low on oil, had i just been rushing like normal i would have never noticed and it would be fine.

Yeah i wish i had saved the old oil but i won't name the oil brand but the new oil sample i ran did show high amount of potasium which i have see in others running the same oil brand, and for that to happen in 20 miles of driving the coolant would have to be way low and other issues would be noticed.

I agree, also they are a smaller dealer that sells more subarus than mazdas so don't really see them being on the cutting edge of stuff like a bigger city dealer would be or why i came on here with all the members i figured there'd be guys that might have dealt with this.

Sounds like you're goin' about it the right way then.