Mazda Forum - Mazda Enthusiast Forums - '93 626 V6 Engine sputtering

Back at the end of February or beginning of March the distributor on the old 626 died out. It was quite cold out at that time so we thought it was the battery. We ended up towing it in to the shop after replacing the battery and really hard cranking on it and not being able to get it started. The shop replaced the distributor. Before this problem the car ran great. I think it was leaking some oil from the typical places and near the timing belt but that was it. When we had it in the shop a few months prior to that the mechanic mentioned what a great running car it was.

When we picked up the car from having the distributor fixed I noticed the car kind of sputtered on the way home from the shop so I took it back. I got the car back from the shop the next day and they said it was fixed. The next morning my dad took it out for a test drive and dropped my mom off at work. The car was running fine with no hesitations but later died at an intersection for no apparent reason and we had to have it towed back to the shop. The car hit speeds up to 60 mph with no problems.

After taking a look at it again the mechanic said it was badly flooded out and there were some mis-routed vacuum lines and an issue with the EGR valve. They also replaced the spark plugs. They said they had it fixed and took it out for a test drive and it ran great. When we picked it up to take it home we soon found out it was running worse than ever.

I did not take it back to the shop again. I have used this mechanic for years. He is a nice honest guy and has saved me tons of money over the years. I just think his shop is way too busy to properly go over the car.

The car runs fine when it is moving. It sputters out like it is flooding out when you take off from the line. Sometimes it does this and sometimes it does not. It really depends on how hard you get on the accelerator off the line. It seems like once it hits second gear it then is fine. It is not a transmission problem. The acceleration problem is getting worse and quite dangerous.

There is no knocking and it runs fine with no acceleration problems after you hit above 35-40 mph. We haven't had it above 60 yet. It is consuming the normal amount of fuel and coolant. It is using about a half of quart of oil per week. It does occationally backfire. The exhaust smoke seems about the same as it has for the last two years. A little sign of oil in the exhaust but nothing bad. Do you think the engine is shot ?.. It has about 200,000 miles on it.

I really just want the car for my sister to use while she is off this summer to get to work with. I will just junk if I have to but it did run fine and we put about $1500 into it over the last year. Sorry about the long post but I wanted to explain every little detail. Thanks for your help.