Hi, all! Just bought a 2012 Mazda5 6MT. She needs some work but I'm pretty stoked.
She’ll be joining our BMW E90 M3 6MT sedan:
Living in a city, we never needed more than one car. The M3 did everything: school runs to track days, road trips and weekend fun drives, all weather including snow and salt.
Only a matter of time before kids changed the calculus. The M3 sedan was great for the first few years, but it's coming time for something more tailor-made for everyday driving. Since I insist on manual transmissions, and we wanted 3 rows, the 5 was really the only option. Thankfully it's a good vehicle.
Even looking nationwide, there were so few gen-2 Mazda5 6MTs for sale that I basically had to pick rust, accidents, or miles. I chose miles. This car came to me with over 157k, but apparently most of that was in central Texas. Hope that was the right call.
Over the next month or so, the 5 will be getting:
- Koni Special Active dampers
- Kenwood DMX907S for wireless CarPlay
- Volvo brake pads
- All three powertrain mounts
- LED headlight bulbs
- Spark plugs
- All operating fluids
Also a few fixes like headlight housing restoration, rear window motors, and a new antenna.
Leather-wrapped steering wheel coming at some point. Fluid Film or similar underbody coating in winter. Lighter wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport AS4 tires coming in spring. The stock wheels will become the winter set.
Overall, the plan is to keep the car stock or OE+.
Plenty of cosmetic blemishes but I’m likely to let most of those be. I was never one to spend time or effort making sure my car was pretty.
Hope you all will indulge some noob questions, plus at least one potentially unusual one for this platform. I’ve searched a lot of this stuff but maybe I haven’t looked hard enough. Apologies in advance if I’ve missed anything obvious.


She’ll be joining our BMW E90 M3 6MT sedan:

Living in a city, we never needed more than one car. The M3 did everything: school runs to track days, road trips and weekend fun drives, all weather including snow and salt.
Only a matter of time before kids changed the calculus. The M3 sedan was great for the first few years, but it's coming time for something more tailor-made for everyday driving. Since I insist on manual transmissions, and we wanted 3 rows, the 5 was really the only option. Thankfully it's a good vehicle.

Even looking nationwide, there were so few gen-2 Mazda5 6MTs for sale that I basically had to pick rust, accidents, or miles. I chose miles. This car came to me with over 157k, but apparently most of that was in central Texas. Hope that was the right call.
Over the next month or so, the 5 will be getting:
- Koni Special Active dampers
- Kenwood DMX907S for wireless CarPlay
- Volvo brake pads
- All three powertrain mounts
- LED headlight bulbs
- Spark plugs
- All operating fluids
Also a few fixes like headlight housing restoration, rear window motors, and a new antenna.
Leather-wrapped steering wheel coming at some point. Fluid Film or similar underbody coating in winter. Lighter wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport AS4 tires coming in spring. The stock wheels will become the winter set.
Overall, the plan is to keep the car stock or OE+.
Plenty of cosmetic blemishes but I’m likely to let most of those be. I was never one to spend time or effort making sure my car was pretty.
Hope you all will indulge some noob questions, plus at least one potentially unusual one for this platform. I’ve searched a lot of this stuff but maybe I haven’t looked hard enough. Apologies in advance if I’ve missed anything obvious.
- What’s a good service manual just to have as a reference? Hard to find anything specific to the gen-2 US cars. I’ve found some pretty comprehensive materials for the 1.8 and 2.0 engine versions, and of course some gen-1 stuff, but nothing for gen-2 2.5.
- Has anyone made a list of parts shared with Volvos? I know of a few (strut/shock mounts, front struts, brake pads, etc.) and am building my own list, but I have to imagine someone has compiled one somewhere.
- If clutch pedal effort is higher than normal, does that suggest a very new or very old clutch? Or something else like a worn slave cylinder? I’m not sure if clutch pedal effort is higher than normal on this car, but it’s higher than in my M3, so I’m weighing potential preemptive fixes.
- Is there any chassis bracing for this car that’s actually worthwhile and available in the US? I see packages from Hardrace, Ultra Racing, etc., but a lot of it looks like it does nothing, and it’s all either NLA, RHD-specific, or shipped from potentially sketchy vendors.
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