Front brake dust shields for 05 Mazda3 Sport

[MightyMouse]

I have an 05 Mazda3 Sport. My car does not have any dust sheilds on the front brakes so in wet/cold weather on the highway, all the slush and crap splashes onto the front rotors and makes the first couple of stops off the highway kinda scarry, and even slowing down at all in bad weather on the highway sketchy at best. I have installed slotted front rotors at all four corners to try a pull the water off the rotors/pads. This has helped quite a bit, but I would really prefer better.

I just noticed a pic from the front of someones 09 Mazda3 Sport, and Mazda has put dust shields on the front now! I have noticed that there are screw holes in the knuckles to mount a sheild. What year did they start putting them on? Can the sheilds from the newer cars be retrofitted to the 05's? Did Mazda just forget to put them on my car?

 

[skylar2ups]

I believe it started in 07 standerd on all trim levels, I'm not positive though. I would pay a visit to a Mazda dealership and ask them about it. Because if something were to happen because of your brakes freezing up or something it would look really bad for Mazda!

 

[MightyMouse]

Thanks. Looks like I am just going to have t buy a set and see how they go on.

 

[YearOfTherat]

I've got an 06 and wonder about this too. Do you have a pic of the shield?

 

[flash75]

Here is a link on how to change rotors and brake pads on a Mazda 3, it doesn't say what year. I noticed the front has no dust shields but the rear has them, that seems strange to me. My 08 has dust shields on front and rear.

http://www.wildweasel.ca/HowTo/Auto/Mazda3/BrakeInstall.aspx

Did you buy your car new? I ask because I have changed 40-50 or more sets of front brake pads on different makes of cars and have never seen one without dust shields. I noticed the car in the link has non stock struts and wonder if the front dust shields may have been left off when the struts were replaced.

Clifton

 

[MightyMouse]

I have had my car since new. Apparently this is normal for 04-06 2.3L to not have front dust sheilds. This has annoyed me from day 1.

I did notice the front knuckles have the three mounting bolt holes for them, so I plan on ordering a set and seeing how easily they go on. Hopefully I don't have to pull off the front hubs to put them on.

 

[MightyMouse]

Well, I finally got around to installing the front dust sheilds. Having both of my front wheel bearings go at the same time convinced me to finally pull off the front brakes and do it.....

In summary. YES!!!! You CAN install the front brake dust shields from an 07 Mazda3 on your earlier version of 3, and it is really easy. You just have to make sure you get the right size of shield, the Speed, Sport and Sedan all have different size brakes so you will need the appropriate model of shield for your car. I have a sport, so I ordered shields from an 07 Sport plus the 3 bolts for each side to bolt them on to the knuckle.

The shields are also inexpensive, I believe the price was only $12/each plus $0.58 for each bolt.

Here are some before and after pics.... (sorry, grainy assed uploaded to crackbook from my phone pics.....)

Before, with front brakes removed (with new bearing installed) You can see there are no dust shields on the front brakes from the factory, we are about to correct that.....

You will have to clean the rust off the three mounting spots on the knuckle and clean out the threads before you bolt it on. The top mounting point is directly above the mounting hole for the caliper.

With the shield bolted on (you can see the three bolts that hold it on)

Shield on and brakes re-installed. Finally, no loss of brakes in wet weather! And will probably add better protection to the front wheel bearings as a bonus!

 

[MightyMouse]

The part numbers I used were:

1 x BP4S-33-261C - Right shield
1 x BP4S-33-271C - Left shield
6 x 9979-40-614 - Bolt