Considering buying '00 S
 

Hello community I am new to the forum. I am considering buying a 2000 Milly S with 113k mi. The body and paint are in good shape. I drove it also. I WOT'd it a couple times and also did a few hard stops. It steered straight with no vibration or wobbling. The interior is also immaculate. After WOT'ing it and cruising just a few minutes around 60mph I noticed a slight odor of oil burning. Upon reopening the engine compartment I noticed what appeared to be a thin layer of oil or coolant on the lower front lip of the engine compartment liner. Is this normal for the age of the vehicle, robust acceleration, or is this a commonality with the supercharger? Please let me know anything else that may be pertinent about this model/year. Thank you.

no leak is normal. the only thing that wont stop me from buying a car is to see a little wet stain around the valve cover. a coolant leak, well, i might go along with that one. if you dont see a check engine light, be wary.... some people just remove the lamp. get a scanner and retrieve the codes. that is the second best thing you can do when buying a used car. the first one? looking at it and driving it. just dont fall in love with it before buying it. fall in love with it after it is yours. 113k for a 2000 car is not bad, in terms of miles. who knows how hard those miles were driven.

we bought our 99 s new, and another 99 s a few years later. my advice to you is if you cannot work on the car yourself, dont buy it. there are very few shops who have any experience with this car, including the dealer. like any car, a lot depends on the prior owner. because of the low production of this model, most of the parts are only available from the dealer. what few parts that are available from the aftermarket are mistakenly marketed as fitting both 2.3 and 2.5 engines, and there is a vast difference between the 2. resale on the millenia is in the toilet. so, if you normally take your car to someone else for maintenance, dont get the millenia.

Folks I appreciate the prompt feedback. The next thing I plan on doing is having the cars computer scanned for codes. Being Christmas we just didn't have a lot of time. Its good to know about parts availability or lack there of. The owner disclosed the check engine light coming on to me. He said that when he had the codes scanned it came back with "#2 spark plug" or something of that nature. I will confirm the code. He said that I am welcome to have my mechanic take a look at it. I do a fair amount of work on vehicles myself but will be taking the vehicle to a friend who was a Nissan mechanic 25 years. Potential leaking around valve cover concerns me as well, but I will get a closer look. I've had turbos on cars but never a supercharger. I've also read briefly on them being replaced on the Milly S which does not sound overly appealing for my wallet. How many mpg are you getting currently on your Millys? I've owned a 6.0 liter V8 SUV the past 7 years and will be keeping it but am looking at the Milly mainly as a daily driver.

valve cover gaskets are quite involved, especially the rear bank. a lot of stuff has to come off. i would also recommend you change out the vacuum lines and tee's(use brass-there are 3 actual 'T' shaped, the rest are 'Y' shaped, the T's will break and cause all kinds of problems). use silicon line, which can be found at any place that sells turbo parts. the problem is that the wall thickness is more, so the od is bigger, and new line will be more cranky to bend. there are also 4 half moons that need to be changed with the valve cover gaskets, and 22 grommets that go on the valve cover bolts. there is also a very small(about the size of a nickel) cover that you should change, it goes on the timing belt side of the rear head, and it will leak oil. mazda calls the supercharger a compressor, because that is what it really does. the miller cycle engine has the intake valves close late, so the intake has to be slightly compressed, or the incoming charge will be blown back out. compressor life really depends on maintenance, and i notice that our black car, which we bought new, really likes synthetic oil, which has been in the car since new. if you remove the rectangular plate on top of the compressor, towards the snout, you can see part of the rotors. they should be clean, and you should see distinct colors, kinda orangy, and then aluminum. if there are oil streaks, i would say it is marginal. the 2.3 is a cop system, and the rear bank plugs are a real bear to get at. i would also change them with the valve cover gaskets, and clean the wells, some will be full of oil. the rear bank gets way more heat than the front. i would swap the coils front to rear, and make sure you number them. front bank coils are easy to get to. since front bank is cyl 2-4-6, make sure your dtc is for #2, and i would replace that coil. used coils are still readily available. if you go to the other millenia site, mazdaworld.org, look for bigb. he just disassembled his whole car, and has lots of parts available. a new coil is like 174 bucks. used should be about 25 bucks. also, be really careful on the plugs. the best is the ngk 3741, which has the correct gap. this is what most of us get for the 2.3. do not be talked into getting a different plug, and regapping it. the wrong plug or gap will kill your coils, and they aint cheap. i can guarantee you the motor mounts are bad. genuine mounts are liquid filled, beware of aftermarket, which are solid. also, the passenger side mount is slightly different 2.3 vs 2.5, and most do not know this. here is a good test. if your nissan tech friend can change the rear mount, then he is good to go on the rest of the car. that sucker is a real challenge to get at. i would also consider changing all the hoses, especially the oil cooler hoses. one of them will try your patience. again, the other site has a great writeup with pics on this. only a couple of the hoses are available aftermarket, the rest is all dealer only. the best place for genuine mazda parts is tasca:
TascaParts.com

the engine is non interference, and the timing belt is like iron. you will probably lose the tensioner long before the belt. changing the timing belt is labor intensive, and there aint much clearance there to work in. following is a list of parts i have changed multiple times on our 2 cars:
axles, esp driver side
tilt steering motor
seat heaters
radiator
suspension links, front and rear
ball joints
sway bar end links(no rear bar on 2000, but 01-rear bar bolts right in)
tie rod ends
rack boots-make sure you dont let them go. changing a rack in this car is a REAL job
front control arm rear bushing
motor mounts-they seem to last about 60k

the car has multi link suspension, and the various parts go bad frequently. there was a sib on the rear upper link, i have changed several. the ball joints on these links go bad a lot because the dust boots tear, and they lose all the grease, and get dirt in there. watch out for aftermarket buttco brands on these parts. i recommend you also go to the other site, it has a lot more info on this car:

Millenia - Mazda Forum

you will have to register, but if you get the millenia, the tech section will save you a lot of money. i think they are great cars, but need good maintenance. you will be lucky if you find a shot that has even seen one of these before, and beware of paying someone to learn how to repair this car. beware of a shop that will quote flat rate, they will lose their ass, and then they will shortcut, and most of the time, end up worse

there are 4 solenoids on the rear bank, right next to the egr valve. the second and fourth control the abv(air bypass valve, same as a wastegate). heat kills these solenoids, and if they go bad, and they will, you will get p1525/1526/1540. the car will go into "limp home"-only rev to about 2500, tcs off/tcs lites up on dash. feels a lot like fuel cut. there are like 13 solenoids in the vacuum system, about 21 feet of vacuum line. you can change the line now, or later, but you WILL have to change it

Kennin...this is really good info. I appreciate you taking the time to provide me it. Sounds like it will need lots a TLC. We'll see what the gut and or wife tells me here soon. Much as Gracias!

me? after reading all that keninn wrote? i would pass. i would not buy a millenia. same as i did when about to buy a cosmos years ago.

A car that old with original supercharger is a money pit!
Kennin is the milly expert here as he has one and has obviously worked on it, and has almost 800 posts (4 more to go!) mostly on the milly I presume! Also he has many years on the forum (impressed).

super chargers need seals and stuff. they dont last forever. thats what muscle car freaks like me call a ¨blower¨. just my opinion. its just that the post gave me the the reasons not to get one. i have seen the millenia. and like the 1985 honda prelude, not a lot of space to get your hands in.

like any car, a lot depends on maintenance. on the 2.3, if the owner cannot do a lot of the maintenance/repair, i always advise them not to get it. both our cars have 150k+ on them, and i have done the vast majority of the work. of course, there is stuff i cannot do. wheel alignment is one. there are others that i dont mind paying for, but i always check the work. both of the superchargers on the cars are still in great shape, and very little to no oil is used between services. i also regularly change out stuff like coolant, brake fluid, transmission and power steering fluids. if the check engine lite illuminates, i immediately scan it and take care of it. i still think they are great cars, but they do need to be properly maintained. like most dealers, the mazda dealer network is very poor on the 2.3, they know nothing. all they do is connect it to an analyzer, and then quote ridiculous charges. there is no longer any diagnostics, it is now replace parts until the problem goes away. all the repairs i have done i have had to learn the hard way. i like to share my experiences with the car, and generally i only post a fix if i have done it myself. of both our cars, only 1 has ever been to the dealer, and only 1 time. that time, it cost me 564 parts and labor. the part they changed lists for like 5 bucks, and i got gouged for labor, and other minor charges. they changed a plastic 'T' in the vacuum system, and i have since replaced all the tees and vacuum line with brass and silicon. i also found several nuts and bolts that were missing, removed but not reinstalled. when i do the job, it is done right.