I'll be doing some maintenance on my co-worker's 2011 Mazda CX-7 with the 2.5 (88K miles) and would like to get advice from all of you regarding known reliable brands of parts to buy. I'm used to Toyotas and I know which aftermarket brands are EXACTLY the same parts that are available from the Toyota dealer (like Aisin, Denso, etc), but at much cheaper prices. With Mazda, I don't know what those brands are. I called the Mazda dealership and the prices they quoted me were absurd, so here I am asking the forum.


I need to know what brands are true OEM for the following parts which she asked me to replace:


Serpentine belt (is there another accessory belt or just the single belt?)


Spark plugs


Air filter


I'll be doing an oil/filter change. This one is not the cartridge type filter, is it? I'm going to go with a synthetic oil and its brand filter (Amsoil, Royal Purple, Mobil 1, etc).


Any other maintenance items?


Also, is it required to unbolt the AC compressor to change the serpentine belt? I've never heard of such a thing, but have heard that some Mazdas require this.


Thanks!

 

dunno about the cx7, but i worked in parts for more than 20 years. german cars, my specialty was bmw and mercedes. when i first started, the mark was like 8 marks to a dollar. it was easy to get oe parts. then things got complicated. third world countries started making parts, even with the bmw emblem and the mercedes star, and the part numbers on them. then the differences between oe, oem, and genuine became blurred, and aftermarket parts suppliers started lying. no one knows the difference between an oe part and an oem part. and there IS a huge difference. we have 2 millenias with the 2.3 engine. very low production car, so most parts for the engine are dealer only. some suspension parts are available, most are what i call buttco brand. since i work on the cars a lot, what i do is decide on the labor. if the part is labor intensive, as in a real pita to get to, i go genuine. if it is easy to get to, and wont be a problem if it breaks, i just try to go with a good brand. for example, gates is the biggest belt manufacturer in the world. i would trust their belts. mazda use to use a lot of bando belts, they still might. in the aftermarket world where i used to work, bando belts were always called RUBBERbando, because they would stretch and break a lot. continental belts were oe on german cars, i sold a lot of them. spark plugs were always bosch, in a few applications, bmw actually went to ngk, but back to bosch when the plugs didnt work. i ONLY use ngk plugs in the millenias. filters are a crap shoot. i dont think a genuine filter is any better than some aftermarket, and i think some aftermarket are a lot better than genuine. i also like mobil1. to those who spout royal purple, amsoil, etc, all i can say is that until another oil company does a million mile test like mobil did, then they can talk the talk. google million mile bmw to see. one thing to remember, find a dealer on the web who gives the best price. for mazda, that would be tasca mazda.

 

Thanks for the info.