Behold! The Millenium Falcon! (Mazda5 content)

In reply to Benswen:

I had a 2009, Louisiana water and pot holes killed it.

This is why I was asking.

2008 gt, 115k miles. Drive for about 5 minutes and the ac starts blowing warm. After about 5 more minutes it blows cold again and seems to stay cold.

Thought maybe its time for a recharge, but this morning was driving,, engine was at operating temp, it was about 60 degrees out, chilly in the car so I turn up the heat. I have it cranked to 90 and its blowing ambient temp air for a good 5 minutes. Then it starts working normally.

Anyone had similar intermittent issues with HVAC? My commute is like 15 mins now so its not really an extensive time to test what's going on the past few days.

Thinking its switch or sensor related as its similar issues with heat or ac

As of last night, i'm not longer a member of the Mazda 5 trifecta club. I parted ways with it and kept it in the family and went with a 13 CX-5. If anybody is interested, I might have a oem roof rack for sale in the near future.

I was just looking at getting back in the club last night, but this time I will go full boat...and by boat I mean Grand Touring slush box with the new body style.

I crossed 155k in my '12 sport this week; still a good car.

92dxman wrote: If anybody is interested, I might have a oem roof rack for sale in the near future.

Dibs!

Flight Service wrote: I was just looking at getting back in the club last night, but this time I will go full boat...and by boat I mean Grand Touring slush box with the new body style.

Got that exact car, totally decked out. Really can't recommend it highly enough. If there was a "Speed" version, it would be perfect. As is, still the best family truckster I've ever owned.

failboat wrote: 2008 gt, 115k miles. Drive for about 5 minutes and the ac starts blowing warm. After about 5 more minutes it blows cold again and seems to stay cold. Thought maybe its time for a recharge, but this morning was driving,, engine was at operating temp, it was about 60 degrees out, chilly in the car so I turn up the heat. I have it cranked to 90 and its blowing ambient temp air for a good 5 minutes. Then it starts working normally. Anyone had similar intermittent issues with HVAC? My commute is like 15 mins now so its not really an extensive time to test what's going on the past few days. Thinking its switch or sensor related as its similar issues with heat or ac

Okay, this is a bit of a delayed reaction, but we're going through a weird sorta similar problem with our 2013 5 right now. The passenger side vents and the rear vents will all blow ice cold A/C but the driver's vents are lukewarm at best. If you close the passenger vents, the driver side cools down to a tolerable level, but it still isn't right. Also, the passenger side of the defroster works, but the driver side does not. I think there must be some sort of control box in there that has malfunctioned. Might be a similar issue for you.

So the wife and I went and did this on Saturday

2006 with 73k miles on it, autotragic.

Has a few things that need to be addressed. The foremost being that the former owners had DOGS. We got it from a small stealership and while they detailed it, it didnt get the smell and there is dirt/hair/dontwannaknow down in crevices. First step is going to be taking the interior apart and washing everything and hitting it with an enzyme cleaner. From there... still gathering ideas.

Power door lock actuators on the sliding doors seem to be inconsistent in operation. Any hints from the collective?

Going to be replacing shocks, it seems a hair floaty. Then again, the least sporty car we had before this was an 04 Impreza 2.5RS automatic (coming soon to a classified section near you).

Any other "be sure to check this" material on these?

Its the wifes car and is filling the "boring reliable" part of the fleet (this + Mustang + Miata + Bugeye Sprite)

Wife is pretty happy, we just have scrubbing to do.

Also, I need a shorty antenna solution for it. It gets hung up on our garage door.

my oem antenna is sagging. I am reasonably sure most late model mazda screw on antennas are a direct fit which is what i was cross shopping last week. Also stuff from other manufacturers should fit (Honda, etc) but I was going to stick OEM mazda as I read some complaints about not as good reception with certain swaps, particularly aftermarket solutions

As a follow up to my July 21st post. Not long after I posted up here I was starting to get temperature spikes. My thermostat was failing and also leaking coolant. I replaced the thermostat, both belts, and tensioner pulley while I was in there. Easy job.

Just drove to VA beach and back for a weekend vacation. Because my rear fenders still arent rolled I snagged them on the tires several times over the weekend. Oops. Ordering a roller this week to fix all that. I think I cracked the paint on one of them so might do a small application of Por 15 to keep it sealed up as we are entering the fall-winter months here soon.

Really Really like this thing as a small family hauler/daily. Will probably drive it into the ground. 118k miles currently.

My wife noticed a rattling noise from the engine in high gear/low load situations. Sounds like timing chain rattle to me. Serious problem or can I wait until it is louder. 2009, 5, 2.3, 135,000.

If it was the cam phase thing that some of the older ones have a problem with it would be an at idle noise from what the interweb tells me.

Pics don't load for me at work so I just saw it now , great color apexcarver. I looked at one of those but at the time I thought it was very overpriced. And I was looking for an 08+

Ive had my van for 30k miles now. No idea the age of the suspension but ever since my road trip its been noiser than usual. Started marking its territory on the driveway this week and further investigation revealed a blown rear shock.

26k miles on lowering springs, and unknown age of the dampers now so I guess I am not surprised. Looking at koni yellows. Just doing rear for now, but front is also planned.

That also marks 26k miles on the staggered tire setup. The front is wearing pretty darn even but they are getting close to the wear bars. Rears are cupping on the inside but have a ton of tread still. As cool as these wheels look they are friggin boat anchors. Think I am going to sell them. The van rides twice as nice on the oem wheels, so I am thinking of sticking a set of 225/45R17 tires on the oem wheels for now while I refresh the suspension.

put some oem Porsche wheels on it. I've run cayenne and 964 wheels on mine and they look oem-ish and are high enough offsets to adapt well without looking "stock"

I'm having the hardest time finding a non-OEM wheel that doesn't kill the ride in the 5. I've tried 3 different wheels already, and I'm stuck on the OE's still. I also developed a clunk in the back at 80K miles, nothing is obviously wrong, so I'm going to do the endlinks just to see (might try and sneak a larger bar in there, too, because #racevan).

Lifetime MPG is still 24MPG, and I'm 90% city stop-and-go (sales rep). I still love the versatility of the thing, I used it to make a junkyard run yesterday and SWMBO and her friend shove all 4 kids in car seats (2 forward-facing in the 3rd row, 2 rear-facing in the 2nd) and go on trips together.

Also thinking about adding a hitch and picking up a 4x8 utility trailer.

Have to stick with lightweight wheels. Sites like Good Win Racing feature light weight wheels and list weights for all of them.

To be honest I would REALLY like to stick a set of 16" OEM N/A Nissan Z32 wheels on at some point with some meaty tires, 16x7.5. I have no idea how heavy they are. I am sure tire selection sucks. Also the nissan centerbore is 1mm smaller than mazdas but that should not be a huge issue to solve.

Recent Ford Fusion 5 spoke steelies are 17x7.5 and look cool but the weight would ruin the ride. fusion steelies

I have also seen 18 inch CX9 wheels on a mazda5. They look oem-ish but are just different enough to look really cool.

Im also around 24mpg now driving fully stop and go.

These are 964 Cups, fit well and are really light weight. You do have to adapt them but the wheels are cheap everywhere

chandlerGTi wrote: These are 964 Cups, fit well and are really light weight. You do have to adapt them but the wheels are cheap everywhere

Adapt them, please elaborate

also are you running just front wheels all around or a staggered setup. I am trying to get away from staggered now, it would be nice to have all the tires wear at the same rate without having them dismounted and mounted from either end.

failboat wrote: Have to stick with lightweight wheels. Sites like Good Win Racing feature light weight wheels and list weights for all of them. To be honest I would REALLY like to stick a set of 16" OEM N/A Nissan Z32 wheels on at some point with some meaty tires, 16x7.5. I have no idea how heavy they are. I am sure tire selection sucks. Also the nissan centerbore is 1mm smaller than mazdas but that should not be a huge issue to solve. Recent Ford Fusion 5 spoke steelies are 17x7.5 and look cool but the weight would ruin the ride. fusion steelies I have also seen 18 inch CX9 wheels on a mazda5. They look oem-ish but are just different enough to look really cool. Im also around 24mpg now driving fully stop and go.

I was just thinking about Z32 wheels on a 5 for some reason today as well. Only I was thinking about the 16x8.5s

The 16x7.5s aren't super light, but they aren't heavy either. The 8.5s are bordering on "heavy"

Javelin wrote: Also thinking about adding a hitch and picking up a 4x8 utility trailer.

This is one of the concerns I still have about getting a 5. Want to go pick one up soon, but the loss of towing capability scares me. It isn't rated to tow anything in the US.

That would leave me with just the SL2, which has no hitch currently.

In reply to ProDarwin:

I was thinking the 7.5's, only because they would be easier to find and/or cheaper as a set. but yeah 8.5's all around would also be very nice!

ProDarwin wrote:

Javelin wrote: Also thinking about adding a hitch and picking up a 4x8 utility trailer.

This is one of the concerns I still have about getting a 5. Want to go pick one up soon, but the loss of towing capability scares me. It isn't rated to tow anything in the US. That would leave me with just the SL2, which has no hitch currently.

All of the hitch manufacturers sell the little 1" bore hitch that does bike racks and HF style utility trailers. I wouldn't tow a car with one, but a load of mulch berk yeah!

Flight Service wrote:

chandlerGTi wrote: These are 964 Cups, fit well and are really light weight. You do have to adapt them but the wheels are cheap everywhere

Adapt them, please elaborate

? I run adapters.

Also, those are 8/9" but they made 7/7.5/8/9/9.5 all with high offsets. Some of those sizes are harder to find than others butif I were doing it again I'd go with 7 or 7.5" club sports, they are reasonable and lots of fronts available from race cars running square rear sets.

So a few months in with our '06

We have our first annoying failure. Went out on a cold morning (just below freezing, think frost, but not hard frozen, no rain) and opened a sliding door. It wouldnt shut; meaning; slide to close and failure to latch. Had to bungi it shut, it latched some time later after it warmed up (drove 2 hours on bungi).

Any thoughts on a repair for that? I had tried dousing in WD-40 and pointing a heat gun at the latch with no success. Afraid to use the sliding door after that one.

Looks like I am doing an exploratory door disassembly this weekend.

In other news. Scrubbing, new cabin air filters, and enzyme pet cleaners have the smell less than 10% of previous level. Next step is setting charcoal out on a pan to absorb odors.

It seems to be surge-y when first being driven after cold start. Any thoughts?