I recently purchased a 2018 GT from a friend. It has 102,000 miles on it. Most all are road miles as his wife had a daily 100 mile commute to work. They purchased it new and all maintenance has been done at dealership. They gave the service records to me. Oil changed every 5000 miles, filters at regular intervals. At 90,000 miles they had new belts, battery, plugs, and induction service done. My question is the AT fluid was never changed. With these amount of miles should I do a drain and refill, or leave well enough alone. Transmission shifts fine.
ATF...Change or not?
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I would be MUCH more worried about the cracked head/ coolant leak exhaust manifold issue than changing your transmission fluid( which should have been done every 30k mikes but too late now at that mileage) at this point. I certainly hope you bought it cheap or you are looking at upwards of $6-7k for repair when it happens. I wish you luck and hope it does not happen anytime soon. Did you have a PPI done? Golden rule: Never ever buy a vehicle or something of much value from a friend or family member. To answer your question, in my experienced opinion, do not change the trans fluid at this point. It could start to slip if you do, then you are up the creek.
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That is why I bought it. I have known this friend all my life. He always takes care of his vehicles and I did get a great deal on it. Just bought it for a 3rd vehicle.
I beg to differ. A daily commute of 100 miles would be much easier on the transmission fluid than more mixed or city driving. Much less friction material particles in the fluid due to much fewer shifts. Road miles are the easiest miles to put on a vehicle. Much easier on suspension, steering, brakes and engine as well. If they had it since new and well maintained, I doubt you could find a more "cherry" car with 102,000 miles. I would not hesitate to change the fluid and would do so in keeping with the very good service it has had.
Thanks. Car is in great condition. Think I am gonna do that and also the coolant flush.
Doing basic maintenance on a car does not make it so called "Cherry". Plugs should have been done at 40k miles so that was missed twice. Other fluids changed in 5 years and 100k miles? Brakes serviced? Tires? Etc etc . Yes, highway miles are better for a vehicle but there will be mixed use driving regardless, different environment factors and road conditions. Most daily driving that people do is actually severe maintenance schedule driving which most people have no idea about. If the friend was meticulous and religious about maintenance, then they would have done way more to keep it in " cherry" condition. The trans fluid should be cominh up on it's fourth drain and refill at 120k and should have been done every 30k miles regardless. Doing it now is a death sentence for this Japanese transmission. Don't take my highly experienced word for it, ask a reputable mechanic who works on them every day.
OP did you know about the head cracking issue before you bought it? It WILL happen, not IF. You are on borrowed time with that. If it wasn't for that major flaw, 100k miles is no issue on the engine. Only affects the turbo 2.5. Great if you remain friends after that happens or something else major but no way should friends or family be mixed with a business transaction.
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This gets missed a lot of times when marveling at the higher mileage CX5s, highway miles versus city miles- transmission shifting and working more. Totally agree with you.
I've had quite a few high mileage cars that I have changed the trans fluid on for the first time, never had a problem with them afterwards.
And I believe the spark plug change interval for a 2018 GT, normal 2.5 liter, is 75k miles. I'm at 77k miles and haven't changed them yet, thing still averages over 30 mpg on my daily commute and runs terrific.
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It is not a turbo. Not worried about the heads. The tires have 2000 miles on them also. I am 68 years old and have bought and sold to friends and family all my life, and never had any problems.
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- Plano, Texas, USA
OP has a 2018 CX-5 GT, and it has a 2.5L NA with cylinder deactivation. Looks like you mistakenly thought the OP has a 2.5T as the cracked head / coolant leak、and exhaust manifold gasket issue are for the 2.5T. The symptom on the cracked head of the 2.5L NA with CD is leaking oil, which is different from the 2.5T. In addition, the spark plug change interval is 75,000 miles for the 2.5L NA, not 40,000 miles for the 2.5T.
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- Plano, Texas, USA
If I were you I’d still be watchful on the cracked head problem on the 2.5L NA with CD with oil leaking out from the back side of the head. It seems happening much less than the 2.5T but the engine is having another major problem with possible failing switchable hydraulic lash adjusters which are used for cylinder deactivation.
It's 5 years old, I think this CX5 dodged the bullet.
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- Plano, Texas, USA
There’re several members here had done the first ATF change at 100,000 miles and more. The difference is on our SkyActiv-Drive automatic transmission is we usually can only do drain-and-fill several times, not the normal ATF flush with a commercial flush machine. We replace the ATF 50% at a time for each drain-and-fill, which should be less invasive like a commercial flush machine to the valve body and internal clutched. I feel more comfortable doing drain-and-fills on our transmission at higher mileage without ill effects.
High Mileage CX-5s - report in
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- Plano, Texas, USA
I wouldn’t be that optimistic as we still see cracked head report from time to time on the 2.5L NA with CD here with higher mileage. Cracking eventually will happen due to the weak 2mm thin wall in the area which has been showed by the YouTube video from Ukraine / Russia. The potential of cracking is always there no matter how high the mileage is.
The failing switchable HLAs has been addressed in a TSB by Mazda, and the TSB says Mazda had redesigned the switchable HLAs to fix the problem for newer productions. Needless to say you may face this problem with more miles you accumulate.
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- 2016.5 CX-5 GT AWD titanium/black 2016 Miata Club ST MT white
Pay attention to what Mazda uses as OEM coolant. You'll want to use FL22 coolant.
Agree 100%. Also there is no such thing as lifetime fluid. Given the type of miles I would change the tranny fluid. When we had our 2016 I did it every 50K. At the 100K mark I dropped the pan and changed the tranny filter too. My son now has the car with 135K miles on it and it still runs, looks and drives great.
You know what, I have egg on my face now! You are right, I mistakenly thought the GT was a 2.5T reading the CX-5 GT too quickly. Thank you for pointing that out. My bad! I still wouldn't change the trans fluid though. If op really wants to, maybe drain a quart and refill a quart to start, then drive 1k miles to see how it goes then drain and add another quart and repeat for a few more times. Let the transmission adapt to the new fluid mix slowly.
I agree if the car had 50k miles to do the service. I also don't think there is lifetime fluid. That is a total fallacy and misconception the manufactures try to propagate to make it seem like their brand requires very little maintenance to obviously sell more vehicles. I just think its risky to do it now for the first time at 100k miles as a full out drain and refill.
are you sure you are referencing the right service schedule? i don't have the schedule handy but, when people ask on here for the NA models, they are usually told not to worry until much higher mileages about doing the jobs you're worried about OP's friend having missed.
Edit: i think a lot of the maintenance should be done before Mazda suggests; i'm referring to what they suggest in the maintenance schedule.
