03 2.0 Engine cutting out - diesel - Norn-Iron
Having experienced my own 2003 Mazda 6 diesel engine cutting out mid-way onto a motorway, going round a round-about and even at a crossroads junction. I went looking for causes and found this website, this was a few months back. I see that many posters have had similar problems when idling and coming up to junctions etc. and the car completely cut out. This also happened to me and I was nearly killed once when pulling out onto a busy motorway, then the car completely cut out, steering locked the works. As any of you out there who have experienced this know, the car will not restart straight away, takes a few minutes before it will.

I had the car taken to Mazda diagnostics and it picked up a fault P0093 - Fuel system leak detected, Large leak and was told there and then that the diesel pump was gone (or going) and needed replaced. Even though the car was still driving fine and I was still getting over 500 miles to a full tank of diesel I thought I would leave the replacement for now. The car had a full service history (timing belt changed) before I bought it and over 70000 miles on the clock, now approx 90000. After talking to a retired diesel mechanic, I happend to metion this to him in regards to the cutting out, he imediately said fuel filter.

Now I dont know if this is of any help to anyone who has this happening to their own Mazda 6. But before you fork out for a new diesel pump or suction valve for the pump via Feather Diesel or wherever, I would advise you to check your diesel filter has been changed, this is why. My car had a full service history up until I bought it, but when we changed the fuel / diesel filter I found it to be very, very dirty inside and was also surprised to see it was a Denso fuel filter which lead me to believe it may never have been replaced from new, maybe some of you out there could tell me more? The replacement filter I had bought form Mazda, was Mazda branded, not Denso, so does anyone know if the diesel filters are changed as part of a normal service? I wouldnt like to think the fuel filter in my car had never been changed at all (in 6 years) as surprisingly since changing it, the car HASNT stalled once even when idling. Maybe this could account for a lot of the pump failures we read about - ie the pump struggling to deal with a dirty fuel filter. I have now marked the new filter and will see the next time when I get the car serviced if this has been changed.

It may be irrelevant and my cutting out fault may come back, but so far, so good!

Regards,
N-I