Hello all,

I am brand new to the forum and need some help with my wife's 2003 Mazda Protege5 ES. It is an automatic. The CEL came on and we ran the code at autozone and turns out it was miss-firing in one of the cylindars. It had 136K miles on it (it had 115K when we got it used) so i went ahead and changed the spark plugs and wires.

It ran well for about 5 days and my wife told me it was acting "funny." So I took it for a drive. When I first started it up I noticed it was idling rough. Not so bad, but I never corrected itself. So I put it into reverse and the whole car started shaking. Put it back into neutral and it kept idling rough. I put it into drive and it started shaking again. I tried to drive forward but the engine was very bogged down. I had the pedal to the floor and it would just barely creep along right up until it hit about 5mph when all of a sudden it would take off (like chirp the tires and everything) and drive normally. I tried starting it in second gear and the same thing happened. it was very bogged down until about 5mph when it would suddenly take off and drive normally. The CEL came on and started flashing, but I don't feel very comfortable driving it in traffic to autozone

Any ideas???

 

Is the code a random misfire, or specific to one cylinder? I'd suggest a healthy dose of injector cleaner.

 

And as well you shouldn't drive a car with the CEL flashing.

Mazda's have the nasty habit of cracking the Air Intake hose at the rippled section. You don't see it right away but when you pull on it you will see it.

When you put it in gear the engine tilts a little which puts strain on the air intake hose. That makes the cracks wider and lets way too much air in.

So check this first and if there are cracks wrap the rippled section with duct tape.
Disconnect the battery negative, then drain all voltage from the memories by stepping on the brake or turning on the headlights for 5 seconds. That resets your CEL. Norw reconnect the battery and take it for a test ride.