V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

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Eat Aunt
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V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by Eat Aunt » Wed Jan 01, 2025 6:46 pm

Any experience of this guys ?

Accelerating away from roundabout, going up through the gears manually with no hint of nightmare to come .

Around 59 mph, Engine cut out, loss of power totally.

Roll to halt on side of road...
AA arrive , cambelts OK.. but he said sounds like no compression/ low compression ...

Would not restart. Bongo taken on low loader to local garage this afternoon ...

Has any one else had this happen to them with a V6...

THANKS IN ADVANCE
20 YEARS BONGO-ING

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Now 2001 WHITE V6 Tintop ... 253,000 Km
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g8dhe
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Re: V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by g8dhe » Wed Jan 01, 2025 7:26 pm

I've just had my cambelt fail in similar situation, very difficult to see the cam belt as its enclosed in a plastic case, I assumed it might have been a distributor problem. It was only when my garage had the undertray off and could get to the front of the engine was it possible to see the belt and had used a borescope to make sure of no further damage (it is a non-interference engine), if you have Facebook see here; https://www.facebook.com/groups/MazdaBo ... 140430733/

I'm currently awaiting the full replacement kit of belt, tensioner, cam seals water pump etc. as a lot of the cost is the time to disassemble and re-assemble than the time to replace the parts, so its worth doing everything under the covers at the same time.

Parts are available from several of the normal suppliers;
Mazda Bongo www.mazdabongo.com/ 01234-480808
Bongo Spares www.bongospares.co.uk/ 01422-823249
Vosper Parts parts.vospers.com/ 01752-636494
Auto Jap Spares www.autojapspares.com/ 02476-474848
AutoLinkUK www.autolinkmx5.com/ 01556-509088
Geoff
2001 Aero V6, AFT, full side conversion.
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Eat Aunt
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Re: V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by Eat Aunt » Wed Jan 01, 2025 7:51 pm

Nice one Thankyou

It wasnt toooo long ago I had all those parts changed , not long after I bought it , and as you recommend, I changed every single part that saved another dismantling session in the future .. It is a long list for sure.. Mind you, thinking about it, that was 4 plus years ago ... I do very low mileage annually and religiously change the oil and filter including oil flush.

I've just realised from what you said that you can't actually see the cambelt on the roadside.. Crikey...

Is the V6 a non-self destruct engine ? Meaning it might not be sack loads of money to fix ? He says hopefully ...

My Bongo Friendly garage have just told that the V6 is a tough old engine and could be not as bad as I fear ?

What do you reckon ?

Many thanks

Ian
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Re: V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by g8dhe » Wed Jan 01, 2025 8:39 pm

Yes the engine should be OK as its a non-interference engine, the pistons stay clear of the valves etc. The only time a problem might occur is if a valve drops in to the bore, it would cause the belt to snap but the noise would I imagine be very obvious!! Mine is likewise only 3-4 years old so wouldn't have thought it was likely to have failed at this time but there we go ....

When mine failed it was just a very faint thud, thought perhaps I had bumped something in the road, by the time my eyes came off the mirrors I realised that I had no power but a nearby layby was to far to reach so stopped on the a single carriageway road going over a local hill! AA recovered me after about 15 minutes thankfully only a couple of miles from my garage.
Geoff
2001 Aero V6, AFT, full side conversion.
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Eat Aunt
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Re: V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by Eat Aunt » Wed Jan 01, 2025 9:24 pm

Thankyou

That gives me hope...

When the engine lost all power, it was a fairly undramatic event in terms of noise... I was going up through the gears manually, so revs were higher than when I normally drive about like an old granny, trying to save fuel and help the engine last as long as possible ...

(Only noticeable thing was the the HOLD light flashing on and off quite quickly ... I wonder what that meant ? )

So I was able to roll to a place of safety ...

Cheers

Ian
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Re: V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by g8dhe » Wed Jan 01, 2025 9:38 pm

If the Hold light flashes then that is reporting an ECU fault, how long has it been flashing for? You need to read the diagnostics system to see what the fault is. Details are in the members area under the Fact Sheets area.
If it came on AFTER the problem then that is quite likely as the engine will have been completely out of wack!
Geoff
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Re: V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by Eat Aunt » Wed Jan 01, 2025 9:58 pm

It only started flashing when the engine cut, and carried on until my Bongo came to a halt...

Never seen a HOLD light flashing in a Bongo in 20 years ...

I was kind of curious , maybe it was flashing a warning code direct to my bank account LOL

Thanks

Ian
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Now 2001 WHITE V6 Tintop ... 253,000 Km
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Re: V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by g8dhe » Thu Jan 02, 2025 12:10 pm

Right well got mine back this morning and all seems fine, just a totally flat leisure battery as I forgot to turn off the fridge when I was towed (slowly) to my garage and its been under the garage roof all Xmas so not even the solar panels to keep the charge up :-( Will need a good 24 hours to get some charge back into it and hopefully not done too much damage to the battery as its only a couple of months old!
Geoff
2001 Aero V6, AFT, full side conversion.
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Eat Aunt
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Re: V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by Eat Aunt » Thu Jan 02, 2025 12:58 pm

g8dhe wrote: Thu Jan 02, 2025 12:10 pm Right well got mine back this morning and all seems fine, just a totally flat leisure battery as I forgot to turn off the fridge when I was towed (slowly) to my garage and its been under the garage roof all Xmas so not even the solar panels to keep the charge up :-( Will need a good 24 hours to get some charge back into it and hopefully not done too much damage to the battery as its only a couple of months old!
Fingers and toes crossed ...
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Re: V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by Hazzobongo » Sun Jan 05, 2025 7:29 am

My LB completely discharged when the inline fuse rattled itself loose and I hadn't noticed as we'd only been doing short runs to town etc, its over three years in there since before I got the van and it charged straight back up on an overnight charge so I'd not be worrying too much about a new one.
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Re: V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by g8dhe » Sun Jan 05, 2025 3:23 pm

Well they all charge back up, but its more the question of how much storage capacity has been lost :-)
In my case the battery was flat for 3-4 weeks, but no loss of electrolyte, its been 4 days now on a slow charge its now back to 67% of capacity which is 74AmpHours of the expected 110AmpHours, good chance it will get back to around 90% of its original capacity at least. But leaving any Lead Acid battery below 40-50% charge for more than week or two is asking for problems.
Geoff
2001 Aero V6, AFT, full side conversion.
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Re: V6 2.5 petrol tappet noises

Post by sy53 » Thu Apr 03, 2025 12:29 pm

Hello i am new here and i was wondering if anyone, has replaced the hydraulic mechanism for the valves, as i believe these are what is causing the noise.
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Re: V6 lost power and cut out under acceleration

Post by g8dhe » Thu Apr 03, 2025 6:48 pm

Welcome aboard!
Have a look here https://igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/vie ... 34#p717934 using a search for "lifters" in my case some engine flush and a couple of oil changes was a lot cheaper than replacing the lifters themselves! Took a few weeks to get the flush and oil changes carried out but engine came back to normal operation without any expensive new components and garage time to replace them.
Geoff
2001 Aero V6, AFT, full side conversion.
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