Straight to the point. Mazda 6 2008 (1st gen tho) 2L 105 kWh Diesel. Been driving half a day, suddenly at the end car starter making knocking noise.
Thought it's the end of my turbo since it would give me troubles from time to time. The car also started heavily shaking in 1k-1.5k rpm range. Shaking would happen before mostly when engine is warm already, but not much. Anyway, almost got home, when my car just died by the driveway entrance. Tried to turn engine on again, it seemed like engine turned over (or however you call it, when pistons move up and down and make a full cycle?), then stopped, including starter (few secs), then turned again (keeping ignition on, lights didn't go off, battery seemed fine), finally turned on, with that knocking and shaking, rpm arrow couldn't keep rpm, it went down, and the engine shut down again... Feels like it locks up at some point. My question is, is my engine officially dead, or could there be some kind of a less horrible problem with it? Antifreeze level looks fine, oil isn't gone, no idea what it could be.
Start with the basics like battery + alternator
Are there any trouble codes? And how do you know the alternator and battery are good? You need to have them load tested to be certain they are working...because from what you describe it sounds like an electrical problem. Just because your dash lights are on doesn't mean your battery has enough juice to start the engine. If your engine can turn over, then chances are there is nothing mechanically wrong with it.
And a bad battery can cause shaking and a bad idle because the ECU needs to relearn the idle after having its memory wiped from insufficient power.
Literally mentioned battery wasn't the problem, and why, and since it didn't die during my half a day trip, alternator is fine too. Car wouldn't knock or shake if either of those two were bad, come on now...
Engine turns, then stops including starter, then turns again, turns on, shakes, rpm isn't stable, and then just dies. How's that an electric trouble? If battery was bad, it wouldn't even start it, if alternator was bad, battery would've died, because I was driving for half a day. Car is at the mechanics for now, he said the top of the engine looks good, said it's most likely damaged crankshaft, suggested to change whole engine instead of changing crankshaft, because the engine in other parts could be damaged too and it would cost much more. I'm almost sure I'm about to pay as much for repairs as I paid for the whole car, but my concern was maybe there is something not so serious that makes it look serious? What happens when you have problems with flywheel, could it give a knocking sound (that's what I'm getting as well), and kill the engine? My guess was broken bearing rods, so it started knocking, and probably something else broke inside after since my engine can't keep up running regardless of the knock. Oh well, in other words I'm screwed big time.