Greetings!

As a brand new Mazda 5 owner, we just picked up a ‘10 with 88,000 miles on it, I am very interested in how the ‘7 lowering springs have held up over time. I have no doubt we will be loading the Mz5 on occasion and I would love to proactively address some of the rear suspension issues.

Thanks!

 

I have about 18,000 miles on the 5 since I put the CX-7 lowering springs in. Car still drives great. I’ve only had it really weighed down twice since then. Once was six people (three adults, three kids), plus a loaded roof box. Drove fine, and no bottoming out issues anywhere. The other was transporting firewood. As it turns out an 1/8th of a cord fits from the middle row seats to the back door without cresting the top of the seats. In neither case did it bottom out, or sag with all the weight added.

I just replaced front and rear endlinks and sway bar bushings. All of them were significantly worn with a lot of wiggle room

 

This is excellent news! Thanks for the info! Looks like the hunt for a set of springs just got real. Would be nice to get them installed before the Thanksgiving trip to the In-laws.

 

What years did you pull from or does any year work? Mine looks like yours loaded down and with 150k miles its rattles like crazy. Was thinking of just this job.

 

Sorry, haven’t been on much this week. I think sourcing springs for any CX-7 will work. They didn’t make them for all that long, and nothing much changed on them. Pretty sure the guy who I got the suggestion from on another forum picked the ones from a AWD CX-7, so they’re in theory a little heavier since that model is about 500lbs heavier (and there’s separate part numbers for them). I used aftermarket springs, and it didn’t list specifically for a single year CX-7

 

Well, as life would happen, I didn’t get the springs installed before Thanksgiving. In fact, they are in a box in my hallway giving me a look once in a while. On the brighter side, we didn’t actually load up the 5 and head out for Thanksgiving, so the car hasn’t been overloaded again, yet.

On the other hand, we did have an upper shock mount shatter, necessitating a quick change. Along with one bolt shearing off and having to be drilled out, etc. But I digress…

I am on the cusp of ordering new rear shocks and replacing the sway bar. I have located rear bars on MazdaSpeed3’s. What year would be optimal for my 2010 Mz5? I lean towards the ‘12 bar, along with new sway bar end links.

For shocks I am leaning towards the Volvo S50 Bilsteins. Does anyone have experience with them on their 5?

Thanks again for any input!

As an aside, I was somewhat disheartened by the amount of rust up there when I was repairing the shock mount. Sigh……

Well, now there’s your problem. The phone call was “heard a big clunk. Then a rattling noise.”


Finally, is there an inner wheel wheel cover made of plastic that is missing on my 5? Looks like there could/should be a wheel well liner of some sort in there.