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Test drove a 2015 Mazda 3 hatch this weekend. Mostly I liked it but I couldn't see out the back adequately. On my quickly fading away 2003 Civic Hybrid with the rear view mirror adjusted so that the left edge shows straight back and the right edge looks out the back side window I can see both...

Hi all. I am considering buying a Mazda3, probably a used 2015. Years ago I drove a Protege5 and found that the mileage going back and forth to work, entirely suburban driving, with a lot of stop lights and a top speed of about 40 mph, was considerably lower than the expected "city" MPG. This...

My daughter's P5 now spends most of its time in Wyoming at an elevation of around 7000 ft. She tells me that it won't go above 60mph on the highway there (except downhill). She also says that the lowest octane gas is 85, which is 2 less than what the car was fed when it lived at sea level. As...

The P5 my daughter now drives smokes like crazy - sometimes. This is the formula for a smokey start: 1. start the car when it is cold. 2. drive it, but not long enough for it to warm up. Even 30 seconds is enough, like backing it out of the driveway and parking it on the street. 3. let...

When the trim panel assembly is removed from a rear door, which looks something like this: http://onlinemazdaparts.com/parts/2003/Mazda/Protege5/Base?siteid=214264&vehicleid=138154&diagram=5416549 there are two nylon retaining clips that hold it in place by being pushed in along the back edge...

The P5 my daughter has been trying to kill has been burning oil off and on. She grossly overheated it at one point, so that it burns oil is not very surprising. What is suprising is that it will drink oil, then stop, then start again. Anyway, I never looked at it closely before, but the PCV...

Edit: Sorry, I posted this in the wrong forum, and have reposted it in the P5 forum since I couldn't figure out how to move the thread. Will an admin please remove this thread? Thanks.

My daughter's much abused P5 is back in LA for a while, so I want to clean it up a bit before it heads out again. One of the first things I noticed is that all the mounting points for the lower part of the air filter housing are broken off. (There are 2 at the back and 1 at the bottom, they...

The new (about one month old) alternator belt on the P5 my daughter is driving just broke. She tells me, I'm not there and it may just have fallen off. This was the belt that was squealing right after it was put on...

A new alternator belt was just put on our P5. It is with my daughter in Columbia, MO. She tells me that when she started it this morning it squealed for a few seconds. But it was really cold, like 16F. Is squealing at that low a temperature "normal", or should she take the car back to have...

Any suggestions for a Mazda mechanic in Columbia, Missouri? Because.. http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?123836230-Toast At this point I don't even know the name of the shop that my daughter took the car to, or if they have any experience working on Mazdas.

So our 2003 P5 has been with my daughter at college in Columbia, MO. Yesterday she calls up and says "there is a problem with the car." This is never good news, especially when said car is 1800 miles away, which makes it really hard to deal with. Anyway, as she describes it, "first the radio...

My daughter is driving the P5 now in another state, and the other day she hit an empty can on the highway, almost dead center. It apparently fell off a truck or something. Anyway, she says the bumper looks OK but one of the two screws that hold the license plate in position is gone, and the...

The P5 has 2 dead door lock actuators and one iffy one. I don't have time to fix them before the car goes off to live with my daughter, so I want to disable them. The goal: "old school" key only entry, with no evil spinning broken plastic noises and no doors in the wrong locked state when...

My P5 had been in an accident before I bought it and while the previous owner had repaired it, mostly, the hood hinges were a little bent, so the hood didn't sit on quite straight. A couple of years ago I bought some hinges from a forum member who was parting out his wrecked car, and today I...

The P5 started running like crap the other day. Turned out to be one bad coil pack, one iffy coil pack, and a tear in the accordian section of the intake. The coil packs have been replaced, and the intake is taped up, so the car is running OK now. However I want to replace the tube before...

My battery just died and I noticed when taking off the red front antisway bar to get at it there were washers under the nuts only on the two posts to the rear of the car. The ones to the front had no washers. That looks wrong to me since all 4 posts/nuts appear to be identical. When stock...

Now that the flashing 2/3 problem is licked I'm once again reminded that the AC itself isn't very cold on my car. This doesn't surprise me since the 323 I had before it also didn't cool very well. I just had an Aha moment when planning tonight's dinner, when I realized that our instant read...

This weekend I pumped up the spare in the P5 and the Civic, both of which were at around 20 PSI. This should have been no big deal, but man, what an ordeal. The main problem was that on those $($&#(* space saver spares the end of the valve doesn't have very much clearance, and the bike pump...

Here is my fix for the compressor failure problem in fan speeds 2 and 3. The small circuit which is installed separates the control board sense line from the fan speed control line 1, and supplies the former with a reliably low voltage when the blower is running. No modifications of the control...