Just wanted to share an update about what happened. I had around 8k in cash to spend. At the time my wife decided she didn't trust the car and wanted something larger anyway. Bought a Lexus GX470. I loved it, she hated it. She didn't like the car as much as she thought she would and hated the gas mileage. We sold it and planned to use the money for the engine replacement, while the Mazda sat in my garage.
Back to trying to find an engine. Junkyard engines were a couple grand, Mazda websites I found engines on sale for less than 3k, but some either refused to ship or shipping put them over the 3k mark. I reached out to see if I could buy just the engine from the dealer and mentioned prices from other dealer websites. If I recall they came off the price about $500, making the engine itself around 3400. I feel that I'd be better looking for cheap labor than a cheap engine, since I want this new engine to go well over 200k miles. When the engine arrived I was working out transportation from the dealer to a third party mechanic, who was going to replace the engine for around $2500. As a last shot, I talked the service side down somewhat too and asked them to reuse the external parts that they could. They did the labor for around 3500, and did an ok job.
I felt like the cost savings of a junkyard engine vs dealer engine weren't worth it, and no warranty from the third party mechanic plus lack of official dealer paperwork pushed me to leave it with Mazda. I only have like a 12 mo/10k mile warranty, but at least that should cover any major defects on the product. I also feel like if we decided to sell, the Mazda paperwork would be worth the extra ~1k we spend for the dealer to replace then engine as opposed to third party.
All in all I think it was around $7200, which I am happy with.
Now, I have to decide where to change my oil. Would you all change the oil at the dealer for the remainder of the warranty? They charge $140
Back to trying to find an engine. Junkyard engines were a couple grand, Mazda websites I found engines on sale for less than 3k, but some either refused to ship or shipping put them over the 3k mark. I reached out to see if I could buy just the engine from the dealer and mentioned prices from other dealer websites. If I recall they came off the price about $500, making the engine itself around 3400. I feel that I'd be better looking for cheap labor than a cheap engine, since I want this new engine to go well over 200k miles. When the engine arrived I was working out transportation from the dealer to a third party mechanic, who was going to replace the engine for around $2500. As a last shot, I talked the service side down somewhat too and asked them to reuse the external parts that they could. They did the labor for around 3500, and did an ok job.
I felt like the cost savings of a junkyard engine vs dealer engine weren't worth it, and no warranty from the third party mechanic plus lack of official dealer paperwork pushed me to leave it with Mazda. I only have like a 12 mo/10k mile warranty, but at least that should cover any major defects on the product. I also feel like if we decided to sell, the Mazda paperwork would be worth the extra ~1k we spend for the dealer to replace then engine as opposed to third party.
All in all I think it was around $7200, which I am happy with.
Now, I have to decide where to change my oil. Would you all change the oil at the dealer for the remainder of the warranty? They charge $140
