Recent content by manualist

I don't think that's the moral of the story at all. The immoral of the story is that car salespeople deliberately bulls*** you in every aspect at all time just to get you to buy the car and pay a lot money for it.

^ ^ I'm with you in that minority. Didn't really like Nagare at first, but now I love it. It's a coherent design that has character. The smiley grill looks to me more like a gaping mouth of some sea creature, and it goes with the wavy theme better than inanimate horizontal bars.

Is it easy enough to just swap out for OEM during winter, and put it back for summer? I think the main problem here was that it was still damp. So either dry it real well next time, or have a second filter to swap. Is the filter expensive to buy?

Thanks for the great tip chandler! I didn't know this and probably would let them change the fluid.

I know it's frustrating to have potential problem with transmission at just 20k, but trading in is hardly a cost saving measure. Did the tech tell you the cause of this? Can you get them to look more seriously and do any needed repair?

Like I said, my 07 Odyssey also got warped rotors and some alignment problems that made it vibrate at a specific highway speed. Honda isn't bullet proof, at least no longer so. Honda might have less chance of problem, but you pay up front for such improvements. So I took issue with your logic of...

This is one of the very few legitimate cases where "shouldda bought a Honda" might apply :D

Perhaps you should've bought a Honda and paid them at least $5K in advance for rotors that allegedly last forever.

Amazing! I heard the "Si-R" badge has the same effect :D Seriously, thanks for great infos diesel. I'm saving up for the Focal speakers you got, and definitely Dynamats.

Well, the worst steering wheel shake under braking I've ever got was in my 07 Odyssey EX. My dad's old Camry had blown transmission. My 03 Nissan SpecV chewed up 2 steering racks in a year. Maybe you'll have better luck with Lexus? But that's where the price comes in. Warped rotor is nothing to...

I'm not digging this face. Too busy and ordinary. It does make the car look wider.

17.5K is great price. I'm very happy with mine. With my old 07 Odyssey, sometime I had to actively fight off sleepiness on the highway. With 6MT in the 5 so far I've never had to.

I could hang with fast traffic without any problem - Mazda's ponies are better than others I guess, despite having only 157 of them :) Trucks and vans often can't keep up with my little 5 in curves. But they see sliding doors, they don't give you any respect. Jerks try to cut me off all the time.

I never notice it, but now I'll have a hard time not to whenever it rains :D Maybe I'll just shift more to keep me distracted. You're right about the 6k rev. I've never gone there though, need to try sometime. Another thing with high rev is that the heavy flywheel keeps it smooth, but then the...

I hit 4k today, after barely 2 months owning this awesome car. Still love driving it as day one. Here are some more observations about the goodness and not-so-goodness. Us Mazda5 drivers already know all this, but since this forum is probably the most useful place for researching Mazda vehicles...