Many thanks to all who contributed to the discussion above, especially meGrimlock! My shifter quite suddenly got very sloppy, so I stopped into my friendly neighborhood Kia dealer and ordered six bushings and one bolt. Didn't need the nut, I have plenty 8mm nuts laying around. Very easy fix, didn't even remove the heat shield. The rivet was fortunately pretty soft and easy to drill and grind. Lubed everything with rubber grease (the red stuff) when assembling.
I bought this car new and can confirm this is the first time this shift linkage has been serviced. In concert with TheMAN's photo above, the bushings in the riveted joint were orange -- and were crumbling. The bushings at the transmission end were black and in pretty good shape. The bushings at the shifter were green, but *not* the same green as the Kia bushings. These were opaque green and more rubbery than the Kia items. And they were in bad shape, the flanges were crumbling. No idea why Mazda used three different color bushings; the transparent green Kia items replace all six perfectly.
I bought this car new and can confirm this is the first time this shift linkage has been serviced. In concert with TheMAN's photo above, the bushings in the riveted joint were orange -- and were crumbling. The bushings at the transmission end were black and in pretty good shape. The bushings at the shifter were green, but *not* the same green as the Kia bushings. These were opaque green and more rubbery than the Kia items. And they were in bad shape, the flanges were crumbling. No idea why Mazda used three different color bushings; the transparent green Kia items replace all six perfectly.
