No transmission maintenance interval recommended in owner's manual?

[TheMAN]

Nothing, I just prefer not to mix brands if you're not doing a complete change with all the fluid, personal choice. Ravenol is an excellent choice. What, in your opinion is wrong with the Mazda fluid? It's a very high quality fluid, and has taken quite a few CX5s past the 200k mile mark.

because this "high quality" fluid isn't really synthetic, so depends on where you drive and how you drive the car, the fluid can deteriorate before you know it... you better be changing it every 50k miles at the very most if you don't want to chance it

mixing brands isn't a concern for me, but I personally think it's a waste of money not flushing all of the original dino juice out for full synthetic ravenol... otherwise, just doing a single drain and refill of it defeats the purpose of synthetic... you just made the fluid really semi-synthetic lol... many here do multiple drain and refills and that too is a big waste of money... for the time and money spent, you're better off having the pros do it for you properly with a machine, and using only about 12 liters of that good stuff... in the end, cost is about the same, but you know for sure it's all synthetic inside

 

[TheMAN]

Just adding my experience with my own car. I don't have a scan tool either, so what I did was get the fluid circulating and up to temp. Remove the drain plug and let the fluid drain into a clean container for about 15 mins. Then I left the fluid to cool down to ambient temp, with the new fluid nearby. I planned ahead for this and allowed the fluid to sit for like 2 hours so that they would both be at the same temp. After the old fluid had cooled to ambient temps, I marked the level on the container, dumped the old fluid, then poured new fluid up to the marked level. Pour that back into the transmission.

The problem with this method, aside from the long amount of time it takes, is that it doesn't account for the potential problem of having an underfilled transmission from the factory, which has been reported by quite a few other owners who have performed this service themselves. So, with that in mind, if you do it this way, it's best add a final step to warm up the fluid and get it circulating, then park the car and check the level while the car is idling, using the transmission dipstick. Top up as necessary.

ELM327 adapters are cheap, and good ones around $50-80... just a laptop with forscan installed will get you a scan tool nearly the same as what mazdas dealers use, and it won't limit you for just checking the temps... you can do many other things, such as reprogramming/adding features in your car

do it right, and do it the way it's supposed to be done

 

[TheMAN]

See my post #9. If it's just a drain/fill then you're getting ripped. If they drop the pan, replace the filter, clean the pan then that's not a bad price.

i couldn't care less about the pan drop on a low mileage car... the likelihood of needing filter replacement and any cleanup is pretty much not there... for that money, it's better spent on a fluid exchange/flush machine service, that way you can change 100% of the fluid for something of your choice... whether it's the same overpriced mazda juice, or for not much more, true synthetic ravenol

 

[ruthrj]

Reminder that Aisin also offers an FZ equivalent transmission fluid. $8 a quart at Rock Auto. Aisin claims it’s synthetic (if that’s important to you anyway). Mazda OEM vs aftermarket was down to price for me, not necessarily conventional vs synthetic.