I loved my 2006 Mazda 5 and took excellent care of it, regular maintenance, etc. In 2014, with only 90K on it, I pulled up to a red light, and thought I'd stalled it when the light went green, but the engine was simple dead. My engine light was not on, engine was not making noises, I had no warning this was coming. I would learn later it had slipped the timing chain and thrown a rod. The dealership didn't even want to look at it, said it would be more money to fix than to replace and tried to sell me a new one. My local mechanic said he thought it was a poor engine design, that it was only a matter of time on any of these engine. I was 3 months away from having it paid off (bought new from dealer in Dec of 2007).

Two days before Christmas 2017, my 2006 Mazda 5 with almost 128,000 miles on it stalled while driving home late at night from a party. My wife slowed down for a corner and the engine made a loud clunk sound and shut off. I pushed it out of the road and tried to jump it without success.

I had it towed it to a nearby Seattle-area shop (Firestone) who couldn't even take a look at it until the 26th. I towed it to another shop open Christmas Eve (a different Firestone), just to get a call a couple of hours later that a rod was sitting in the tray beneath the engine and the engine needed to be replaced. (Merry Christmas!) Firestone couldn't repair the engine themselves - they could only remove/install and ship it.

I called around to half a dozen shops for quotes and settled on getting the engine rebuilt for $5400 with a 7-year/100,000 mile warranty with S&J Engines based out of Spokane. That whole process took 6 weeks, 4 weeks to rebuild the engine, then another 2 weeks because the rebuild shop left the "main bolt (??)" loose and the car felt like it was going to shake itself apart.

Once the engine was double-fixed and Firestone replaced a couple of engine mounts, the car seems close to normal, but MPG's are down about 10%. Other quotes were around $3500-4000 with a 1 year 12k mile warranty warranty. Mazda quoted me $9,000 for a new engine and claimed the new one was the only one left in the country. Through this whole process, no one was ever able to tell me exactly what happened. I'm told it was most likely the tensioner for the timing chain failed, causing the timing chain to jump and blow the engine. I found a similar issue with Mazda CX-7 engines, but I've not seen any similar issues for the Mazda 5.

The engine started to get a tick, regular oil changes have always been done. Tried different oils to see if that would help. Started burning oil, but no obvious leaks, no puddles or oil at all on the ground.

Gas mileage got really bad.

Engine blew.

Have looked for over a year for an engine, but all that I have found (except brand new from Mazda, which wouldn't be worth it) all have a tick in the engine, that's how my problem started.

Also, no standard engines within a reasonable distance to my home are available without a tick.

Read my other complaint about this car, this one is the biggest...