MK2.5 1.8iS - wont start

[paulmurr]

Morning all...
As per the title, my 2003 1.8iS wont start.
A bit of background; I came back from holiday at the end of July to find that the car would start, but didn't want to idle and was rough as anything. I assumed that the battery was a little flat, so took it down the street to get a bit of charge back into it. The car was jerky as hell even on a constant throttle and the drive didn't improve things (I should have abandoned it at the bottom of the road and called the AA at this point...). I've been a bit busy the last few weeks so i've been unable to get anything done to it. Now it wont start at all. It turns over really slowly on the key and wont even start when I try to jump it from HID's car.
If anyone remembers my post a few weeks ago about getting an OBDII reader, I did eventually get one, but it isn't reading any fault codes.
I'm arranging a recovery vehicle today as it's a bit beyond me now.
Anyone got any ideas where to start?
Cheers in advance
Paul

[Munter]

If it's turning over but slowly I'd say it's still short of leccy. The reason why is the key part. When I've had duff batteries the car has run fine when up and running. I'm wondering if your problem it alternator related, and it's not charging the battery or supplying spark.

I think it'll need a man with a multimeter to figure some stuff out.

edit: missed the point about jump start not working. Umm. Flat battery from being sat + duff coil pack?

[paulmurr]

Could be mate, i'll try and get a hold of a battery conditioner and see if I can get enough juice into it to at least get the engine to start and in doing so I hope that the diagnostics will kick into life. If that doesn't work I'm going to have to admit defeat and get the car recovered.

[hornetrider]

How are you jump starting it from another car? If the battery is low it won't work straight away - you'll need to leave it connected for a bit.

[paulmurr]

Orite mate, will try that tonight

[Riknos]

Dry and Wet Cell batteries work differently. On a dead dry cell battery, you can't just connect it to another car and jump start it.. likewise you can't do so by pushing it down a hill (I've tried, believe me!) you need to let it charge a bit first to start it.. try using a trickle charger if you can.

[paulmurr]

Put in a battery that I know is fully charged while my one is charging. The engine now turns over at what I'd consider normal speed but wont catch. I've checked all the fuses and the connectors to the coil packs and all looks normal apart from some of the fuses looking a bit corroded (green in colour).

Still no diagnostic trouble codes either.

I'm stumped, frankly.

I'll call the AA either tomorrow or Sunday, hangover depending, unless someone has any other ideas?

[hornetrider]

Any sign of melting round the coil packs?

[paulmurr]

Not that I could see. They both looked normal to me. Any ideas how to diagnose faulty coil packs? Don't want to but two new ones to find that it doesn't solve the problem as they're not cheap.

[hornetrider]

Not really, sorry. When my coil packs went on my Mk1 it was because I left the ignition on by accident. There was disfiguring of the plastic surrounds that was fairly visible. Not sure what else to suggest as I'm no mechanic - if its turning over could be a fuel problem? Have you checked for a spark though?

Maybe AA/RAC is your next bet.

[paulmurr]

Thanks Hornetrider. I'll be calling the AA at some point this week. I've not been able to do anything over the weekend as I put my back out on Saturday morning.

[paulmurr]

Quick update for those that responded.

I had the car recovered to the garage I use, what has happened is apparently a bit of a perfect storm, unfortunately. It turns out that the drain holes were blocked, and with the car being parked on a downhill slope the water ran into the car and forwards into the passenger footwell which houses the ECU. The ECU has now corroded a bit and is basically dead. The car runs (somehow) but I will have to replace the ECU which, apparently, from Mazda is £1850 + VAT + Fitting + coding to the immobiliser.

fk that, frankly.

I'll likely have to park the car up (in the garage this time) until such time I can find 2nd hand parts on eBay then find an auto-eletrician with some fancy laptop skills.

Thanks again for all your suggestions and wish me luck with ebay
Cheers
Paul

[hornetrider]

Jaysus that is unlucky! Can you find one in a scrapper? Tried autolink?

[Munter]

hornetrider said:

Jaysus that is unlucky! Can you find one in a scrapper? Tried autolink?

Problem is the in built immobiliser. Even if autolink had one he'd not be able to set it up.

Probably cheaper to totally replace with aftermarket tuning options!

[MX-5 Lazza]

Not sure but I don't think JDM cars had the built-in immobiliser. Might be worth checking that out and if true see if you can get a JDM ecu from a scrapper.

[paulmurr]

There are a couple of complete ECU + immobiliser auctions on ebay at the moment, prices from £250 - £400. I'll contact Mazda and ask if they can provide me with a cost to recode the new bits to my car.

If it's too expensive I'll be taking the MIL bulb out of the dash and flogging it to webuyanycar.com *

*joke **



**maybe

[MX-5 Lazza]

Probably cheaper to buy a non-runner and strip it.

[Phil @ P5]

Lazza, I don't think you'll find many JDM M2.5s in the country and even if you did I think they are all coded.

Same happened to one of my customers; flood in underground parking: http://www.performance5.com/images/workshop/flood....

You need to replaced the following from the same car:

ECU
Immobiliser Decoder (under dash)
Key
Ignition barrel

You might want to consider a full lock set if you don't want 2 sets of keys.

Phil

[MX-5 Lazza]

Ah, Mk2.5, I misread and thought we were talking about Mk2...

p.s. Hello Phil, good to see you active on here again

[paulmurr]

If I can find a 2.5 that is being broken I will. We have a local breaker that I'll call and see what they have in.

EDIT: Phil, many thanks! Was just browsing the P5 website to see if there were any after market options available. I think I'm going to go down the ebay route and get the bits as you describe.

Thanks again for all your input everyone!

Edited by paulmurr on Wednesday 21st September 13:03