Hey guys,
So I bought this 2018 MAZDA 6 GTR at 85k miles clean, no accidents, with an impressive set of records from Carvana a couple weeks back.
Any advice on how to take good care of her so that she lasts a lifetime?
Hello guys, does anyone know if its possible to upgrade my (left) cluster to the big digital one (right) on my 2020 Mazda Grand Touring.
I was on the fence about doing this for awhile. My 2020 Grand Touring, which I bought about a year ago, has 164k miles and I don't know much about the gearbox service history, just that the car was regularly serviced at 5k intervals through around 130k miles. I bit the bullet and did the fluid change last week. The fluid was black instead of blue and smelled burnt. (Check the photo)
"Lifetime" fluid may not work out for you if you're planning to keep your car past 150k miles. I'm planning to drive this car as long as possible.
If you're a DIY-er, you can do it all for about $100 USD (filter, fluid and ATV). Make sure to get FZ fluid. Best price I found was AISIN FZ fluid on RockAuto. I got the WIX filter from there too.
My car definitely had the gearbox oil changed at one point since the RTV form-a-gasket around the pan was silver (not orange) and there was some evidence of orange RTV on the bolts. So at 164k this was the second fluid change. I was glad to see this, I can't imagine what the fluid and filter would have been like if this was the first time. I was lucky to see very little metal on the magnet in the pan.
I did have a few issues that YouTube videos did not address:
There's even less space to work around the transmission dipstick/fill hole if you have a turbo car. You'll want a funnel with a long flexible hose to avoid battling other hoses in your way.
Not sure if this is a Mazda6 face-lift thing or GT thing but the gearbox had about 5.5qts of fluid in it (instead of the 4-4.5 like YouTubers were finding). At. 5 quarts it barely registered on the dipstick. I ended up buying another quart to make sure the fluid level on the dipstick was correct. Checked it at temperature and its right at the top of the acceptable range.
Good luck to anyone else who does theirs!
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.
Unsure if its totaled or what not happened 2 hours ago with my mom at the wheel. 4 way stop sign my mom coes to a complete stop before the other car and goes the other car goes and somehow slams into her at a force this hard with only maybe 20 feet of room from stop to accident. Elderly woman driving a grand Cherokee apparently little to no damage to her. What y'all think is gonna happen
Here’s my rust free jdm first gen 2.3s wagon with the 6 speed manual
The Mazdaspeed3 wheels work so well on it, don’t they. (last couple pics)
Mine won’t set, all buttons function but can never get it to work.
The dreaded system too lean code popped up, car wouldn’t start after it sat overnight so a new high pressure fuel pump was installed. Car started after new pump but horrible start and idle and misfires. A Spark plug change, MAF cleaning, a lot troubleshooting, and a new oxygen sensor and still having issues. Bad start still and bad idle but only for about 30 seconds on start up and car drives as normal. Car was acting super weird. No mechanics or shops can figure out the issue. Took it to a Mazda dealer and the tech couldn’t figure it out but noticed the fuel rail sensor was still sending information to the PCM which my usual mechanic noticed as well, he took it out and put a used one made by Mazda in and all issues ceased. Didn’t charge me for it and let me keep it but did recommend a new one anyway and a new MAF and fuel injection cleaning. Ps they wanted $1,775 total for the new sensors and treatment so ABSOLUTELY NOT, I’ll go get a used maf and use the rest of my fuel injector cleaning solution. As a note my usual Mazda tech did tell me that Mazda’s are very adversed to aftermarket parts or parts that aren’t direct from Mazda even if they’re oem and it seems he was right. I wanted to share to raise awareness to people who had this issue or it’s an ongoing issue. I was dealing with this issue for 2 months and it caused a lot of stress for it not to be a huge issue at the end.
What plug are you running in your 6 2.5?
It’s been two months since I asked you guys if I should take a chance on 2020 Mazda 6 after someone crashed into it. Well… I did.
Sent it to a local bodyshop that quoted me $800 for the body work + mechanical work. Spent around $2100-$2200 on replacement parts. Total was around $3000 out of the $ 6,666 insurance gave me.
The rear door was replaced alongside the fender, rear bumper and taillight. The fender was cut out and replaced with a junkyard fender then repainted. The door and bumper were also painted. The rear wheel well was completely rebuilt with new parts.
The car been out for a couple of weeks now and it drives exactly like it used to before the crash. I was afraid that something would be off after a crash like that but it’s genuinely a miracle.
When I went to do the alignment no one believed that this is the same car from the first pic.
I’ll hopefully still provide updates on the car for the next few months to a year.
And yeah… that’s it… she’s back to life!!! Lost half its value but I don’t really care as I plan to drive it till it can’t drive anymore.
A couple of weeks ago I posted in here asking if I should buy a Mazda 6 I saw on sale. I finally pulled the trigger and I’m loving the car! I have the Apple CarPlay kit on the way.
This is the aftermath of less than 2000 miles of driving on some Delphi front control arms I bought from Rock Auto. The bushing is completely separating from the inner core of the arm. I was chasing a front-end rattle all year and replaced my OEM front arms which ended up still being in decent shape. I saw this at my friend’s shop today while getting an oil change. Shortly after installing these arms I started hearing horrible groaning/popping coming from the front under braking and accelerating.
Tonight I went home and threw the OEM arms back on. (Never throw away old parts if the problem isn’t fixed and the old parts are still OK.)
Also the front end rattle I’ve been chasing turned out to be the anti-rattle clips that go between the brake pads and the caliper. I foolishly omitted those when I did my brake job last year and the rattle has been driving me crazy ever since.
You live and you learn…
Bicyclist broke my driver's side mirror. I need a new one. They seem to be fairly cheap on places like Rock Auto, but probably wouldn't be color matched. Has anyone found a color matched one and replaced it yourself? Where?
I'm fairly handy when it comes to mechanical stuff, but I'm debating if I should attempt a cosmetic repair like this or take it to a body shop.
Hi there!
I’m having multiple problems with my 2016 Mazda 6 2.2l diesel.
This first Charging malfunction fault , I’ve checked the battery voltage and it sits at 12.2 idle and goes to 11.4v under load. It slowly goes back up whilst sitting idle. After a while the I-eloop charging light comes up. I’m just wondering what next steps should be?
As for the other faults I’ve not looked at them yet but they’re intermittent and disappear after the car goes on and off. If it helps they appeared after I had the ecg deleted!
Any help would be extremely appreciated.
So I just did an oil change on my carbon edition, and every time I have ever done an oil change, I always struggle trying to figure out if it’s got the right amount. I put in 5 qts plus roughly the additional roughly .1 quart out of a smaller 1 qt bottle to equal the 5.1 qts that the manual recommends. The picture is after 3 re-dips of the dipstick and I wiped it every time but even after letting the car sit for a little over 5 mins it still comes out like the oil was just thrown all over the dipstick. Does anyone else ever experience this or does anyone know what causes it so I can work around it to actually get an accurate reading?
Thanks!