I have a 00 626 that i've owned for about 4 years with absolutely no problems, bought a truck and gave the mazda to my wife. Lately there's a clunking or popping sound coming from the drivers side when accelerating from a stop, and it feels like something slips, almost like a stripped hub or axle. The boots on the CV joint boots were worn so I replaced the whole axle on the drivers side but it still makes this noise and the hub doesn't appear to be stripped, neither was the old axle end that fits into the transmission. I was wondering if anybody had had this problem before and if it was something other than the transmission coming apart. Car has around 95,000 miles on it. Thanks y'all

 

My 2001 626 is acting the same way. I took it in and they found 3 broken engine mounts. The mechanic claims the noise is coming from the transmission but it acts more like a CV joint. The knocking sound goes away after I accelerate to 35 mph or so. The car shifts smoothly. Any ideas?

 

I found out thru some research our tranny's have a sprocket and chain drive like a bicyle and they fail pretty often. Also expensive to replace. It's almost as cheap to replace the whole tranny and atleast get a warranty, might be worth a try on the motor mounts if they're not too expensive.

 

I did have the mounts replaced to the tune of $700.00. How much is it to replace the chain? Considering the car shifts smoothly is why I was focusing on the axle assembly.

 

When my friend and I were driving his Mazda a few blocks from their hoouse. As the clutch was being engaged, we felt a jerk and the mazda began to make a popping/clunking sound while barely continuing to move. We thought it was the Mazda axle assembly... So, we crept back to the garage where we investigated what went wrong. Immediately it was evident that the motor had rotated close to 15 degrees in the o-clamp mount towards the passenger side of the vehicle. This was discouraging news. It was obvious the drivetrain was out of alignment due to this, and the cause would have to be determined and fixed.

The reason the drivetrain rotated itself was excess torque. We discovered that this torque came from the rear drive shaft, which we were aware was slightly binding occasionally at the U-joints. What happened was that the u-joints had apparently bound up slightly. The real question was: why did the torque rod fail to do it's job? A probable reason is that the rod only bolted to the motor in one spot, which prevented direct spinning movement in line with the rod, but didn't protect the motor from moving in all dimensions. This really is necessary to protect against since the transmission is mounted on a rubber mount which allows it to move around from side to side and front to back some if not held steady by the motor. Another flaw with the first torque rod was the rubber bushing which didn't provide enough rigidity to keep the bolt from moving around in it. So, it took us a week to fix the problem... Hope my story gave you enough information to diagnose your problem... Goodluck!!!!