My Impressions of the Mazda 6 After a Year
Last June I purchased my 2016 Mazda 6 Sport with 110k miles for $7100 from FB Marketplace. It replaced my 2007 Acura TL with 200k miles that was starting to become uneconomical to upkeep and I had various gripes with that car that also encouraged me to part ways with it. At the time we were still paying off my wife's CR-V and I wanted a car I could pay cash for to not have a second car payment. I've put 10k miles on my 6 in the last year and have some thoughts.
Since then I've done the following to the car:
CarPlay retrofit
HID headlights
Steering wheel leather wrap
Transmission fluid
Tint
Four tires replaced and alignment
Rotors and pads(twice in the front)
Front struts and top mounts
All three motor/trans mounts
Fuel pump upgrade, AutoExe intake snorkel, GT-R sparkplugs, CX9 fuel pressure module, CX50 thermostat all recommended by my tuner
ECU tune for 91 octane by Justin Freeman aka Mazdasauce Tuning
Upgraded the 7" radio screen with an 8" screen from a 2018+ facelift Mazda 6
Valve cover gasket
All work was done DIY except the tires and alignment because I'm cheap.
Things I Like:
Steering: It's simply perfect. It's weighted well. It's sharp, accurate, doesn't catch grooves in the road excessively like my last car. It has good feel by my standards. This was one of my biggest complaints with the TL I had before.
Chassis: This thing feels downright rigid. Very solid construction. You can often tell a car's body is really soft or floppy when you go over some sharp bumps and you feel the flex and bending through the steering wheel. The stiff feeling of this chassis reminds me of the Scion FR-S I used to own. The suspension itself is a touch on the bumpy side, but not what I'd call horrible.
Driving position: Perfect for someone who enjoys sporty driving. The seat goes as low as I like, the wheel comes as far back as I want, and is ergonomically excellent.
Engine: This will come up in the dislike section as well. The engine feels very torquey for a naturally aspirated 4cyl. Feels especially good when tuned for 91 to take advantage of the high compression. It's *usually* smooth, but my complaints will come up later.
A/C: Ice cold. It frequently surprises me how powerful this A/C is for a car. No other car I've previously owned was this good at cooling down the cabin. I constantly have to turn up the temperature because the A/C just cools so effectively.
Transmission: This thing is pretty great. With how the torque converter locks up in 1st gear, it has an insanely direct feeling and leads to some really nice in-gear acceleration. I hated how harsh the automatic in my TL was. This is worlds better. Mazda's downshift logic is interesting. It doesn't seem to respond to pedal position as much as how quickly you press the pedal. My mom's 2012 3 is the same way. I think the refinement could be a bit better, though. The converter lockup action is a bit jerky when it's cold. Feels like a lurch from someone learning to drive manual and releasing the clutch too fast. I think Mazda refined this in later versions of the Skyactiv platform because the 2025 CX-5 and the 2017 CX-5 I drove were not like this. When it's warmed up the lockup feels more like a quick firm shift and doesn't bother me.
Rotary dial: This part of the infotainment is excellently executed. Very logical and easy to use with the shortcut keys. Makes CarPlay very pleasant to operate without having to use the touchscreen for everything. I have my touchscreen hacked to work above 5mph so I have the option to use both. The dial just makes life easy.
Things I Dislike:
Engine: There are some scenarios where this engine exhibits a some unpleasant vibration. It's always tied to the A/C being on and the car being stopped. When I first start driving and turn on the A/C it's pretty tolerable. It gets worse the longer the A/C is on and especially if it's really hot outside. At idle the smoothness of the engine is very inconsistent. Before anyone mentions engine mounts, all three were replaced this year with OEM mounts. Additionally, the A/C can create a dip in the torque curve from 2k RPM to about 2750 making the engine feel gutless and then all of a sudden accelerates hard once you get past that RPM. This happens intermittently and makes accelerating smoothly a bit challenging. Up to 2000 RPM it's pretty decent, then it falls on its face until 2750. I'm thinking about datalogging this to see if the ECU is just pulling timing like crazy for some reason and maybe talk to my tuner. Also the engine when fully warmed has some mild vibration at idle without the A/C on - feels like a light tremble that cycles every second or so. This is noticeable when stopped in drive when the low/reverse clutch has released and there's no load on the engine. If I release the brake slightly to re-engage the low/reverse the extra load on the engine or the slight increase in RPM actually gets rid of this vibration. I've come to the conclusion that the early 2.5 Skyactiv engines were not as refined as the later generation ones. None of the behavior I experience with this car was present in the 2025 CX-5 2.5S that I drove before buying this car.
Brakes: This car seems to have a super power for warping rotors prematurely. I did front and rear brakes last November. By April my front rotors already were pulsating again. Replaced them with some slightly higher quality ones and it seems okay 5 months later. Now I'm feeling the same pulsation from the rear. The whole car just feels like it's oscillating as soon as I apply the brakes. No other car I've owned warped rotors this quickly and I always bed my brakes in after replacing them. Might try wire wheeling the hubs to get any corrosion off to give the rotors a more flat mating surface - maybe that's part of my issue.
Infotainment system: This is one of the car's Achilles Heels. It's so slow to boot up sometimes and the CarPlay startup speed is very inconsistent. Sometimes it launches within 30 seconds. Other times it takes a minute. It's updated to the latest CMU version available so I guess this is just an inherent limitation of the system. I'm swapping the factory unit out for a Linux head unit soon that has a really rapid bootup and CarPlay launch so this will get addressed soon.
Ergonomics(other): The front door opening feels a bit small especially if you have the steering wheel in the closest position to the driver like I do. The first few months that I had the car I would constantly hit the door pillar seal with my pants when getting into the driver's seat. That door seal is completely torn up from how many times the previous owner rubbed against it with their pants getting in. I've never experienced this in any other car. This seems like a design flaw and poor use of space for how long the car is. I'm 5'10" and a bit on the thicc side and I feel like I have to contort my body in weird ways to be able to get in the car without hitting the edge of the door pillar or the steering wheel. I'm a little better at it now after owning the car for a year, but I still feel I have to think too much about how I get in the car.
Final thoughts: Overall this car has been a very easy car to own and easy on my wallet. There's been nothing catastrophic that's happened and I expect this car to satisfy my needs for the remainder of my ownership. My main gripes with it are the engine NVH and to a lesser extent the brakes. I'm 50/50 if I'm going to stick with this car long term(3-5 more years). Part of me wants to switch to something a bit softer in the next year or so. The other part acknowledges how trouble-free this car has been and will likely continue to be. Maybe there are some better rotors I can use to prevent warping as easily. The engine NVH is likely not solvable unless I've missed something(carbon cleaning maybe?). It's not a fast car by any means, but it does its job well enough that I feel I should just live with its quirks for a couple more years until my wife finishes school.
Thanks for reading.