No, the cylinder head itself has airways been the same on the 2.5L NA with cylinder deactivation since 2018. MNAO did create a new part number for a complete cylinder head set with valves and other things pre-installed to shorten the labor time of head replacement. See post #588 above.
Then you must need a new door check arm. In my case whenever the creaking noise starts happening from the check arm, a lubrication job even with WD-40 would quiet it down nicely and for a long period of time.
My guess is your use of Valvoline MaxLife ATF has accelerated the front input bearing wear, hence the whining noise.
Read what the transmission expert @sinistriel@ says about ATF differences.
Mazda ATF-A7 Trans Fluid
A fit-everything multi-purpose fluid simply can’t meet all different specs...
TSB No.: 05-002/19 Whining Noise from Automatic Transaxle
Actually this's the 7th revision on the same TSB for the same transmission whining noise due to front input bearing failure since 2014. Each time the TSB says "This is caused by a damaged bearing in the transaxle due to improper...
But he did drain-and-fill 3 times, which means about 87% of his ATF would be Valvoline MaxLife. If the whining is indeed from his transmission after the ATF change, I’d say the Valvoline MaxLife could be the culprit, at least it’s one of the added factors to cause the transmission whining.
Totally agree! This advanced matrix-type LED headlight setup, or adaptive driving beam (ADB) headlights, is so much better than all the LED headlights we can see here in the US. And it’s been available in Europe and Asia for more than 10 years now but we can’t have it here until recently due...