2016 CX-5 Oil Change Frequency

[yrwei52]

So why don't you guys use "Flexible" oil change schedule which is widely used in Europe and other countries for years to maximize the oil life and minimize the oil wastes? You don't need to guess the OCI for different or changing environments.

 

[inlinev]

By prematurely changing your oil all you are doing is further contributing to the demise of the only planet we call home. OCI service stickers and quick lube shops are interested in getting you in that door as many times as possible. So it is in their best interest to ask you to follow the 'severe' schedule. Shop smarter.

http://www.edmunds.com/car-care/stop-changing-your-oil.html

 

[IHeartGroceries]

Agreed. OCI is kind of "overlooked" by conservationists. Although, most if not all oil is recycled.

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[MikeM.]

Agreed. OCI is kind of "overlooked" by conservationists. Although, most if not all oil is recycled.

That's what I thought too until I read the article linked above which claims:

"Waste oil is a problem exacerbated by too-frequent oil changes, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Board, which has campaigned against the 3,000-mile dictate. The agency says that 153.5 million gallons of used oil is generated in California annually, but only 59 percent of it is recycled."

If Californians only recycle 59% it makes me wonder how much is recycled in Texas.

 

[erhayes]

MY Mazda dealer uses Castrol Blend oil as the standard fill. You will not get the Mazda special oil with moly for a $50 oil change.

 

[MikeM.]

MY Mazda dealer uses Castrol Blend oil as the standard fill. You will not get the Mazda special oil with moly for a $50 oil change.

I do it myself in less time than it takes me to get to a shop and wait for the $10/hour dropouts to (potentially) botch this simple task. And it only costs me $42/change with Mazda GF-5 w/moly and Mazda OEM oil filter.

 

[inlinev]

That's what I thought too until I read the article linked above which claims:

"Waste oil is a problem exacerbated by too-frequent oil changes, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Board, which has campaigned against the 3,000-mile dictate. The agency says that 153.5 million gallons of used oil is generated in California annually, but only 59 percent of it is recycled."

If Californians only recycle 59% it makes me wonder how much is recycled in Texas.

Perhaps the mindset is changing?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2011/06/110601-green-motor-oil-recycling/

this article is from June 2011

 

[yrwei52]

Agreed. OCI is kind of "overlooked" by conservationists. Although, most if not all oil is recycled.

That's what I thought too until I read the article linked above which claims:
"Waste oil is a problem exacerbated by too-frequent oil changes, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Board, which has campaigned against the 3,000-mile dictate. The agency says that 153.5 million gallons of used oil is generated in California annually, but only 59 percent of it is recycled."
If Californians only recycle 59% it makes me wonder how much is recycled in Texas.

Perhaps the mindset is changing?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2011/06/110601-green-motor-oil-recycling/
this article is from June 2011

So in North America, only 10~15% of motor oil is re-refined. And even if the used motor oil is collected for recycling, 80% in the US simply was burned which produces significant emissions of heavy metals!

Although I'm in Texas, I still do my part using "Flexible" oil change schedule to maximize the oil life and minimize the oil wastes!

 

[inlinev]

So in North America, only 10~15% of motor oil is re-refined. And even if the used motor oil is collected for recycling, 80% in the US simply was burned which produces significant emissions of heavy metals!

Although I'm in Texas, I still do my part using "Flexible" oil change schedule to maximize the oil life and minimize the oil wastes!

Seems to be the case. I take my used oil to the local borough. They either recycle it or burn it to keep their shop warm.

 

[IHeartGroceries]

Raises a good point. But, even if you don't consider burning it for energy as recycling (which, I suppose it technically isn't), it is definitely repurposing it. It IS, at least, reducing ground water contamination.

I am ignorant of the fact, but I would hope there are some restrictions for burning it though, like processing some of the contaminants out of it before it is burned.

If it is anything like comingled refined fuel products, there's some wonderful earnings potential from reprocessing it back into salable fuel, which leads me to believe that there's other things at play which leads to any mishandling of used lubricants.

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[ZoomZoomCX3]

Hello,

I don't have the the 2016 CX-5. But last month a bought a Blue CX-3 GX model. I been searching for information about the oil change which I find crazy that in this day and age that 4 month oil changes are required. The new 2.0L Skyactiv-G are designed to be low maintenance and it seems like the Mazda Dealerships I trying to cash-in on extra oil changes, wheel rotations and trying to sucker in people into Dealership extended warranties.

I traded-in my Mazda 1992 MX-3 which I bought new and have been driving it as my everyday car in mostly traffic. It had 390,000Km with the only work done to the engine was oil pan & value cover gasket replacements, Distributor & Alternator replaced once and regular maintenance. In all the 23 years I have been doing once a year one changes using Amsoil 5W30 & Filter. Every year it passed the Provincial Air-Care (emissions testing) with the original oxygen sensor and catalytic converter still on it. Looking back at the original 1992 MX-3 manual it says to do oil & filter changes every 5 months or 8000Km, well after 23 years and 390,000Km the engine runs like a charm with Amsoil's yearly changes. After having the MX-3 for nearly half of my life the low seating was getting to my back and a couple of months ago I needed to get the AC re-charged and I walking into the sales area and seen the new 2016 CX-3 and went for a test drive and ended up buying one in my flavour.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Dealer to re-balance the Alloy wheels and seen my old MX-3 with new license plates, wow some one bought it.

 

[yrwei52]

I don't have the the 2016 CX-5. But last month a bought a Blue CX-3 GX model. I been searching for information about the oil change which I find crazy that in this day and age that 4 month oil changes are required. The new 2.0L Skyactiv-G are designed to be low maintenance and it seems like the Mazda Dealerships I trying to cash-in on extra oil changes, wheel rotations and trying to sucker in people into Dealership extended warranties.

Welcome to the forum. So the CX-3 is for sale now in Canada?

I hate to say this or hate to see people saying this, but you should check with your owner's manual concerning oil change interval as I don't have CX-3 although SA-G 2.0 in Canada should be the same as the one in CX-5.

I don't think this is true that "4 month oil changes are required" for your SA-G 2.0L. If your SA-G 2.0L is the same as CX-5's, the normal OCI is 7,500 miles or 6 months. Many people use 5,000-mile OCI here. I use "Flexible" OCI which should be available to your CX-3 too. The flexible OCI is to maximize oil life and minimize oil waste and it's been used for many years in Europe and Asia. The maximum allowable OCI with flexible schedule is 10,000 miles or 12 months. You simply set it in the maintenance monitor and it'll send out "Oil Change Due" message when it's time. You have to use Mazda moly oil or Castrol oil for more accurate calculation! But I wouldn't let my oil change go past 7,500 miles no matter what with Mazda moly oil.

 

[ZoomZoomCX3]

Yes and thank-you, CX-3s are in Canada at least at the west coast. It was early June when I seen the CX-3 GS/GT FWD/AWD models but the GX RWD/AWD models didn't arrive. The dealer called me back that the GX models would be in around Mid June and I told the Dealer to get me a Blue GX AWD. It was near the end of June when it came in.

As for the Oil Changes on my 1992 MX3, at the beginning I did do Oil Analysis' a number of times to see how the particle counts looked during the 1st couple of years and everything looked good and kept doing yearly changes for 23 years without any issues. As for the CX-3 I will be doing Oil Analysis to see if extending the oil changes will be possible with Amsoil's 0W20 Oil & Filter; since I am very confident with Amsoil's Oil and Filter products.

I agree with yrwei52, anyone who doesn't want Warranty or Dealership Issues stick with Mazda's Schedule/Service. Dealers can be very intimidating and I will leave it at that.

 

[ZoomZoomCX3]

Looking in the 2016 CX-3 Scheduled Maintenance it had different oil/filter schedules for different Countries....

USA - "flexible" 12 months or 16,000Km with 0W20
USA - "fixed" 6 months or 12,000Km with 0W20
USA - "severe" 4 months or 8,000Km with 0W20
Canada - 4 months or 8,000Km with 0W20
Mexico - "schedule 1" 6 months or 10,000Km with 5W30 if unavailable use 5W20
Mexico - "schedule 2" 3 months or 5,000Km with 5W30 if unavailable use 5W20

I guess Canada is the North Pole and all Canadians must do Severe Service. (screwy) Thank-You Mazda Canada. (unamused)

 

[JbCalg]

I guess Canada is the North Pole and all Canadians must do Server Service. (screwy) Thank-You Mazda Canada. (unamused)

Ah, ah,
We come from the land of the ice and snow,
From the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.
(apologies to LedZep)

lol, not thrilled with the 4 mths / 8000km (whichever comes first !), nor the 8000km tire rotation, but that may well coincide with winter tire swap out anyways, so no biggy yet
with our driving, likely only be 5000km max @ 4 mths, so seems a bit soon

agree re: peaceful coexistence with the service overlords at mazda.ca or the dealership - long term, not worth the potential hassle

all our other previous & current vehicles on a 6 mth schedule
(daylight savings switch over a handy reminder, like smoke alarm batteries ),
and rarely saw more than 6000km at the max end

F-I-L is a licensed mechanic, so all routine maintenance and other doable replacements, fixes always done by us (well one of us anyways, the other was the shop supervisor)

 

[ZoomZoomCX3]

The flexible OCI is to maximize oil life and minimize oil waste and it's been used for many years in Europe and Asia. The maximum allowable OCI with flexible schedule is 10,000 miles or 12 months. You simply set it in the maintenance monitor and it'll send out "Oil Change Due" message when it's time. You have to use Mazda moly oil or Castrol oil for more accurate calculation! But I wouldn't let my oil change go past 7,500 miles no matter what with Mazda moly oil.

Well my Canadian 2016 CX-3 doesn't have "flexable OCI" it always resets to 4 months and 8000Km. I did some searching around and it's on Canadian Mazdas. The only way to go beyond the 4 month 8000Km Canadian Limits is to do an Oil Analysis, since Mazda Engineers are not allowed to make their OCI too smart for any driving condition in any Country.

 

[mackworth]

I am a little confused by the manual. They have a section called "Schedule 1" and then proceed to have two subsections for flexible and fixed. They then have one section called "Schedule 2", but then it specifically has two line items for oil change, flexible or fixed.

From reading around the internet, it seemed like people were saying that you couldn't use flexible if you fit in Schedule 2 (snow, salt, etc) but including a flexible line item in the "Schedule 2" schedule chart seems to imply you can as long as you aren't:

Extended periods of idling or low-speed operation such as police car, taxi or driving school car
Driving in dusty conditions

Am I reading that correctly? My wife and I are downsizing to one car, but we both take public transit to work, so getting a oil change every 5 months is going to be a huge waste.

 

[craigo]

I am a little confused by the manual. They have a section called "Schedule 1" and then proceed to have two subsections for flexible and fixed. They then have one section called "Schedule 2", but then it specifically has two line items for oil change, flexible or fixed.

From reading around the internet, it seemed like people were saying that you couldn't use flexible if you fit in Schedule 2 (snow, salt, etc) but including a flexible line item in the "Schedule 2" schedule chart seems to imply you can as long as you aren't:

Extended periods of idling or low-speed operation such as police car, taxi or driving school car
Driving in dusty conditions

Am I reading that correctly? My wife and I are downsizing to one car, but we both take public transit to work, so getting a oil change every 5 months is going to be a huge waste.

I've generally done 7500 mile changes with synthetic regardless of time. My typical use makes this about once ever 11 months or so. This will not break your engine.

 

[ZoomZoomCX3]

I am a little confused by the manual. They have a section called "Schedule 1" and then proceed to have two subsections for flexible and fixed. They then have one section called "Schedule 2", but then it specifically has two line items for oil change, flexible or fixed.

From reading around the internet, it seemed like people were saying that you couldn't use flexible if you fit in Schedule 2 (snow, salt, etc) but including a flexible line item in the "Schedule 2" schedule chart seems to imply you can as long as you aren't:

Extended periods of idling or low-speed operation such as police car, taxi or driving school car
Driving in dusty conditions

Am I reading that correctly? My wife and I are downsizing to one car, but we both take public transit to work, so getting a oil change every 5 months is going to be a huge waste.

If you use Mazda's Oil/Filter you must follow their oil change schedule. Reading Mazda's user manual, Flexible OCI is very limited and it can not determine the correct oil change intervals under all driving conditions. I also checked the European Mazda CX-5 manual and it also has restrictions when to use Flexible OCI.

 

[njcarguy]

Ideally oil should be changed 3k to 4k miles. Months doesn't matter because you can go different amount of miles in certain time. Oil change is matter because running your engine on old burned oil is not good for engine and will leave layers of old oil on pistons. Therefore no matter what make or model your car is it's always better to change oil sooner than later before you start having problems. It'll make engine last longer and will run better. Also nobody ever tells change transmission oil but if you do it at least every 90k you'll feel difference as well

This is why you don't take advice from forums...
Ideally, you read the owners manual and do what the engineers tell you to do. This guy/gal has NO idea what they're talking about.
First, the 0w-20 is a synthetic oil. It reduces friction which in turn gives you better gas mileage. Why? It lubricates well. Also, synthetic oil is WAY better then conventional. Conventional is refined oil so to speak. Synthetic is man made in a lab. The reason conventional oil was recommended to be changed at 3k miles was because of a) the type of filtration system cars used to have (didn't clean the oil well so the oil needed to be changed more frequently) and b) due to the heat cycles it goes through, it breaks down quicker then synthetic oil. Synthetic can withstand more abuse, if you will and therefor it will last longer.
As for scheduled maintenance by the manufacture... the engineers that designed the car know the limits of it. There are two scheduled maintenance categories for a reason. If your car goes through ANY of the excessive wear and tear that Mazda speaks of, i.e. humidity, start and stop, salt, etc. that oil is subject to more abuse then someone that drives 50 miles a day on the highway in an ideal climate.
As for the red statement... If you take care of your vehicle like doing ALL of the scheduled maintenance, it will last longer. That includes coolant flushes, brake flushes and transmission flushes. Newer MB and BMWs have fantastic oil filtration systems. So much so that an oil change is only required every 10-15k miles. The better the cleaning of oil, the longer it will last. This is why it's imperative to change your oil filter at every oil change.
Lastly, you won't feel a difference if you change your transmission fluid unless the old fluid is broken down and worn out. If that's the case, putting new tranny fluid in will actually HURT the transmission. That fluid is meant to extract heat from metal components and lubricate them as well. After a while, the fluid will break down and is required to be replaced. Doing so will ensure longevity with your transmission.