Dealership Oil Change Blues

[smakdown61]

this is what you do man if you are not into doing your own...

ask around town for the best small shop around. something with two or three bays MAX, maybe two employees, no kids working, family owned, etc. another thing to look for is a clean personal car for the owner; that can speak volumes. anyway, go in, talk to the owner, and tell him your story. ask him what kind of deal he can do if you bring your own filter and oil in for a change.

if you are going to do your own, i really prefer the filter conversion. some people see it as just an added expense, but the opportunity to use a premium filter, coupled with the less steps vs. stock, is what attracted me to mine...

also, oil debates are ridiculous and always end up doing NOTHING except wasting bandwidth.

No need to do a conversion just for a premium filter...you can buy the K&N one cartridge style and its the only that wont go into bypass mode at full load.

 

[wisniaPl]

It does NOT require a special wrench. It requires a filter cup which you can buy from any tool or automotive shop, it slips on the end of a 3/8" ratchet (it also fits many other small diameter ford and mazda oil filters). And you do not have to drain the cartridge before you pull it off, it just makes it easier not to make a mess. I work for ford and all the ford 2.3's use the same filter setup. And the mazdaspeed3 takes 6 qts? the normal MZ2.3 takes 4.5 qts. And to laser, not trying to tell you you're wrong but if it were that much overfilled (1 gallon) it would blow white smoke out the exhaust like none other and pulling the exhaust off and cleaning out the overfilled oil would be a must. Since they did overfill it id ask them to drop the muffler and make sure there isnt anything in the muffler.

how does filter cup look like i want to know if i go there to buy it

 

[TXMazdaSpeeder]

heres the set i use....

http://www.hechinger.com/web/catalog/product_detail.aspx?pid=180277

 

[TXMazdaSpeeder]

Smakdown i used to run pennzoil synthetic my z28 and after 45k miles changing the oil every 3k miles i removed my valve cover only to find over an 1/8th of an inch of black sludge. From then on out i switched to Mobil 1 full synthetic and took my valve covers off another 30k later before i sold the car and they looked as clean as the day i put them on.


In my mazdaspeed i run NOTHING other than royal purple 5w30 full synthetic, since mobil 1 has chanegd their formula and is not a true synthetic anymore.

 

[Zeya]

Let's say you go in for a heinous warranty problem, like a motor mount snapped or something. You have to show that you've met your scheduled maintainence, including regular oil changes, right? And you would need documentation for that. (In fact in the manual it says you have to get a mechanic to sign the little log book area. Of course I'm sure separate documentation would suffice.) But if you do your own change, you wouldn't be able to wave a piece of paper saying you got the maintainence done. Would you run into a problem in this scenario if you did your own changes?

 

[assman]

AFAIK you need to keep your receits and keep a record of when you did it. But this may be something better answered by someone who works at a dealership.

 

[TXMazdaSpeeder]

Doing your own oil changes or taking it to a quick change place will NOT affect your warranty. The only way oil would affect your warranty is if you put the wrong oil in it like putting rotella in it (ive seen it happen), use the wrong filter (like putting a filter from another car it, brand does not matter). If say your motor mount snaps and the dealer cannot find anything you did to the car to cause it to snap they are required to cover it under factory warranty. And even putting the wrong oil in wouldnt cause your mount to snap. The only way it would affect it is if you had something like a spun bearing or worn rings, then theyd say its because you ran the wrong oil and theyd tell you to go kick rocks.