My friend told me that Mazda is notorious for bad transmission. Can any of you confirm or deny this?

 

no dude, mazda transmissions are not crap in design. sure if you crunch the crap out of them they will deteiriate quicky, so if your gonna do that get a racing transmission.

 

i agree wit mx as long as you drive somewhat normal and not tranny slam it keep your fluid and filters done when needed you should not have any problems you could also try son 40 below trany fluid additive helps keep fluid temps down and prevents premature wear.

 

I think that depends largly on what model you have and if it is a manual or automatic. Most mazda manual transmissions are built fairly the same and unless you have one from 83 or earlier the are all pretty strong. Most of the failed automatics I have heard of where probably from misuse and poor maintenance. The two I hear the most is "I always keep the fluid on full" and "I have never changed the filter in it so I has someone change it and it went the next week." These are the number 1 and 3 reasons why most automatics fail.

As fluid gets hot it needs room to expand, with the engine warm the tranny fluid should be BETWEEN add and full. If it is below add the fluid is too low and will get air into the system, if it is too full the fluid will aerate and foam which is just as bad as the fluid being too low.

The second problem I mentioned...

Automatic transmissions have dozens of extremely small passageways and filter screens. If a particle or a few particles a few thousanths of an inch big gets stuck into one of these the tranny may not function properly. My first one on the tranny dyno at school burned up because of 3 hairs that fell off of me into the tranny while I was building it. Automatic transmission fluid has many detergents in it. When the fluid has not been changed when it is suppose to be sludge starts to build up in the tranny, then when someone suddenly has it changed after years of not being changed the new fluid breaks down all the sludge and very quickly plugs the passages in the tranny causing it to fail rapidly. Not uncommonly on the way home from having it changed. Oddly enough if the fluid has not been changed in a really long time it is best to just leave it alone until it finally breaks down unless you want to pay to just have the tranny rebuilt.