Oil change for CX-5
 

Anyone attempt an oil change on their CX-5. New to this engine. Remove plastic undercarriage "cover" to get at drain plug?

Oil filter location?

Like to change oil after first 1000 miles. Getting close.

So far no problems - wife likes it! Her daily driver.

Thanks.

burleyhotel11

Please be advised that Mazda strongly recommends you leave the factory oil in for the full duration of the first oil change interval. Changing oil so quickly after an engine is built can drain the important additive package most manufacturers are using these days on their new engines.

Look into owner's manual. Section 6 talks about all approved owners maintenance and oil change is described there as well.

Yes, I noticed in CX-5 manual oil change with specific dino oil (not synthetic) at 7500 mile intervals.

Have any of the other Mazda's models gone to synthetic at longer recommended intervals (such as 10K mi.)?

I do not know what is dino oil but my manual says Castrol synthetic 0W-20.

http://gallery.korandel.net/var/resi...g?m=1332379801

Thanks, my manual says full synthetic too. I guess I was surprised by 7500 mile intervals. Maybe some European owners can chime in.

My BMWs have carried an oil change interval (OCI) spec of a nominal 15,000 miles. That said, the ECUs on those cars track a number of metrics which have proven reasonably accurate at predicting when the oil needs to be changed; no such a tracking system exists in any late model Mazda that I'm aware of.

I've seen the Oil Life Monitors in my cars adjust the recommended OCI from as little as 12,000 miles to over 18,000 miles based upon my driving habits at the time. It seems to me that 7,500 miles is a bit conservative for an engine run on synthetic oil, and in my case, now that my Mazda3 is out of warranty I'm going to change my normal OCI to 10,000 miles (yes I do use synthetic oil).

I'd say it's marketing stuff. People in US are trained for generations to change oil every 3000 miles or 3 months. If you go to any quick oil change place that's what they will put on the sticker for you - 3k/3m. Oil change is just too cheap for people to start thinking rationally. 3k/3m made sense in 1950s, but now it's just a waste of money. So the car manufacturer does not care by putting relatively 'standard' 7500k and market will do it's own thing anyway.

BTW. My dealer tred to convince me that I should go with schedule 2 and change oil every 5k miles.

I've taken things a step or two beyond just assuming the manufacturer recommendations are simply conservative. Once my previous car was out of warranty I had Used Oil Analysis (UOA) done on oil following a ~7,500 mile run, a second at ~10,000, and a third at ~12,000 miles. In each case the results came back consistent with the oil being good to go for about 13,000 miles; and once I had that metric in hand, I simply targeted my oil changes for roughly 11,000 miles (which means I usually got to it by the 12,000 mile mark).

Now that my Mazda is out of warranty I'm going to do the same thing, and I full well expect the UOA results to indicate I'm good to go for 10,000 miles at the very least. :)

Yes agreed, my Lexus dealer does my full synthetic Mobil1 changes at 10K (while under warranty) even though manual says 5K on regular oil. No prob.