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Oil change info for 2010 MazdaSpeed3, 2.3 liter turbo-charged engine
Car must be raised a bit. Can't reach anything otherwise. It would seem that ramps are the best way to do this. If you must jack it up, you can use one or both of the two front / side factory jack points (pinch-weld points) to lift... in this case use pinch-weld adapters in your jacks, or, it appears there is a nice sturdy, flat area right next to each of the front / side pinch-weld spots, you could place a block of wood in this spot and then just jack from under that, thus no pinch-weld adapters needed.
More recently, instead of jacking up the car, I drove the front wheels up on some stacked wood planks, total about 3" thick (raising the front of the car 3")... this gave me just enough room to do the oil change, was tight, but possible... you need to slide yourself in from the front end of the car. Expect to lay directly on the pavement if you use this method, a creeper will never fit. A nice big piece of old cardboard works well in a pinch, easy to slide on, plus a little more comfortable than being directly on ice cold concrete... plus cardboard absorbs minor drips and spills so your driveway stays clean.
The 2010 uses a spin-on oil filter, I bought a box of new filters from the dealer in 11/09. This is a "Genuine Mazda Part", and it says on it, "Mazda Motor Corporation", "Made In USA".... it does NOT say "FoMoCo" anywhere FWIW. The part number is:
LF05-14-302A
The dimensions of this filter: 75mm, 14-flute
My Imperial #IF-7514 socket-type oil filter wrench fits perfectly.
The original filter on the car was a bit different than the new ones purchased... you will need a DIFFERENT type of filter wrench to get the original filter off. I used a universal one that bites into the filter.
No covers need to come off the underside of the car, the drain bolt and oil filter are fully accessible. At first the oil filter may be hard to spot, it is up above a bottom cover, but there is a nice big hole in this cover that exposes the filter.
Be careful when removing the original filter... first off, it's on pretty darned tight, so have a good filter wrench handy... sorry, I did not take note of exactly what type of socket-filter wrench is needed to get the original filter off. The filter sits in a "well" so you cannot use any type of oil filter wrench that has a handle that extends out "sideways" like a pliers type... must be a socket-type or some other "compact" type wrench / strap, or "spider" type, etc.
For whatever reason, the original filter is designed in such a way that it is barely screwed on. Once I broke the original filter loose, it took only maybe one turn from that point before the filter dropped off the engine. WTF? I did not expect this, so the filter slipped out of my hand and fell into my oil drain pan, causing a splash. In 99% of all cases, a filter will take at least 2 or 3 full turns to come free after breaking it loose. So... just beware of this... you don't want to splash hot oil in your face. As soon as you break it free, expect it to drop off in only one turn or so. Perhaps this is why Mazda changed the oil filter for this car so soon, the original one surely does not seem to "fit" so well, it's barely threaded on when installed.
Also, once you loosen the original filter, even though it's a downward facing filter, a decent amount of oil still spills down (even after removing the oil pan drain plug)... so be sure to have a drain pan under the filter when you loosen it.
Get a low-profile drain pan that is at least 16" in diameter... with such a drain pan, you will be able to position it under the drain plug area and filter area at the same time, thus only one drain pan needed. If your pan is any smaller, you'll need two pans.
The drain bolt head is 17mm... a short, 6-point, 17mm socket with nice ratchet handle is ideal. According to a 2007 MS3 shop manual I have here, the torque spec for this drain bolt is 23 - 30 ft/lbs (30 - 41 Nm). If for some reason the 2010 bolt has a different torque spec, someone please let me know so I can correct the info here... but I'd think the bolts and specs would be the same.
The drain plug had a flat aluminum type crush washer installed on it from the factory. Sorry, I did not note the size, but if you wish to replace it, I'm sure your local Mazda dealer will fix you up with the correct one. I have re-used the original crush washer twice now on my MS3 and no leaks or issues. I have re-used crush washers on the drain plugs of other cars many times and never any problems.
Also note, for whatever it's worth, this first oil change I did was at 1150 miles, the oil was VERY dark and dirty looking... I cut the oil filter open and there was actually not too much junk in there... yes, a few small bits of "metal" and crud here and there, but nothing worse than with just about every other filter I've ever inspected coming off a brand new engine with about 1000 miles on it. If anything this filter was a bit cleaner... seems to have been a fairly tame break-in.
I then changed the oil again about 2650 miles later (3800 miles on the odo), and once again the oil came out black as night. Glad I didn't wait any longer for the second oil change, not sure why it got SO dark, so fast. And this was with Mobil 1 synthetic. Based on this observation I might recommend the first change at 1000 and second change 2000 miles later at 3000. Hopefully the engine will be a bit cleaner after this. I've never seen oil come out so black with just 2650 miles / 5 months on it.
Refilling the engine with oil... it seems this engine takes 5.4 quarts (5 quarts and 12 ounces) to fill it when using the new LF05-14-302A filter. So don't make the mistake of just dumping in a full 6 quarts as the manual might suggest you do, otherwise you may overfill the crankcase and may have to drain some oil back out which is a pain. Add 5.4 quarts after the drain, start the engine, drive around for a good 5 or 10 miles, get the engine nice and hot, then park it on a dead level surface, shut it off, wait about 10 minutes, pull the dipstick, DON'T look at it, wipe it, re-insert it, then pull again and check. With 5.4 quarts in there you SHOULD see the level right at the "full" mark. If not, adjust accordingly.
I used Mobil 1, 5W-30 (because I have a ton of it sitting around here)... interestingly, the Mobil 1 quart bottles fit PERFECTLY into the oil fill hole on the engine. You can take a Mobil 1 quart bottle and "snap" it right into the oil fill hole and it stays there, nice and snug. This is neat as you can then do other things while ALL the oil drains from the bottle into the engine. I'll let each bottle sit there upside-down for maybe 5 minutes each, in the meantime I'll put away my jacks and tools etc and do some other garage chores. When done, all the oil bottles are completely empty, thus no oil gets tossed in the trash which theoretically is not good for the environment.
.
Car must be raised a bit. Can't reach anything otherwise. It would seem that ramps are the best way to do this. If you must jack it up, you can use one or both of the two front / side factory jack points (pinch-weld points) to lift... in this case use pinch-weld adapters in your jacks, or, it appears there is a nice sturdy, flat area right next to each of the front / side pinch-weld spots, you could place a block of wood in this spot and then just jack from under that, thus no pinch-weld adapters needed.
More recently, instead of jacking up the car, I drove the front wheels up on some stacked wood planks, total about 3" thick (raising the front of the car 3")... this gave me just enough room to do the oil change, was tight, but possible... you need to slide yourself in from the front end of the car. Expect to lay directly on the pavement if you use this method, a creeper will never fit. A nice big piece of old cardboard works well in a pinch, easy to slide on, plus a little more comfortable than being directly on ice cold concrete... plus cardboard absorbs minor drips and spills so your driveway stays clean.
The 2010 uses a spin-on oil filter, I bought a box of new filters from the dealer in 11/09. This is a "Genuine Mazda Part", and it says on it, "Mazda Motor Corporation", "Made In USA".... it does NOT say "FoMoCo" anywhere FWIW. The part number is:
LF05-14-302A
The dimensions of this filter: 75mm, 14-flute
My Imperial #IF-7514 socket-type oil filter wrench fits perfectly.
The original filter on the car was a bit different than the new ones purchased... you will need a DIFFERENT type of filter wrench to get the original filter off. I used a universal one that bites into the filter.
No covers need to come off the underside of the car, the drain bolt and oil filter are fully accessible. At first the oil filter may be hard to spot, it is up above a bottom cover, but there is a nice big hole in this cover that exposes the filter.
Be careful when removing the original filter... first off, it's on pretty darned tight, so have a good filter wrench handy... sorry, I did not take note of exactly what type of socket-filter wrench is needed to get the original filter off. The filter sits in a "well" so you cannot use any type of oil filter wrench that has a handle that extends out "sideways" like a pliers type... must be a socket-type or some other "compact" type wrench / strap, or "spider" type, etc.
For whatever reason, the original filter is designed in such a way that it is barely screwed on. Once I broke the original filter loose, it took only maybe one turn from that point before the filter dropped off the engine. WTF? I did not expect this, so the filter slipped out of my hand and fell into my oil drain pan, causing a splash. In 99% of all cases, a filter will take at least 2 or 3 full turns to come free after breaking it loose. So... just beware of this... you don't want to splash hot oil in your face. As soon as you break it free, expect it to drop off in only one turn or so. Perhaps this is why Mazda changed the oil filter for this car so soon, the original one surely does not seem to "fit" so well, it's barely threaded on when installed.
Also, once you loosen the original filter, even though it's a downward facing filter, a decent amount of oil still spills down (even after removing the oil pan drain plug)... so be sure to have a drain pan under the filter when you loosen it.
Get a low-profile drain pan that is at least 16" in diameter... with such a drain pan, you will be able to position it under the drain plug area and filter area at the same time, thus only one drain pan needed. If your pan is any smaller, you'll need two pans.
The drain bolt head is 17mm... a short, 6-point, 17mm socket with nice ratchet handle is ideal. According to a 2007 MS3 shop manual I have here, the torque spec for this drain bolt is 23 - 30 ft/lbs (30 - 41 Nm). If for some reason the 2010 bolt has a different torque spec, someone please let me know so I can correct the info here... but I'd think the bolts and specs would be the same.
The drain plug had a flat aluminum type crush washer installed on it from the factory. Sorry, I did not note the size, but if you wish to replace it, I'm sure your local Mazda dealer will fix you up with the correct one. I have re-used the original crush washer twice now on my MS3 and no leaks or issues. I have re-used crush washers on the drain plugs of other cars many times and never any problems.
Also note, for whatever it's worth, this first oil change I did was at 1150 miles, the oil was VERY dark and dirty looking... I cut the oil filter open and there was actually not too much junk in there... yes, a few small bits of "metal" and crud here and there, but nothing worse than with just about every other filter I've ever inspected coming off a brand new engine with about 1000 miles on it. If anything this filter was a bit cleaner... seems to have been a fairly tame break-in.
I then changed the oil again about 2650 miles later (3800 miles on the odo), and once again the oil came out black as night. Glad I didn't wait any longer for the second oil change, not sure why it got SO dark, so fast. And this was with Mobil 1 synthetic. Based on this observation I might recommend the first change at 1000 and second change 2000 miles later at 3000. Hopefully the engine will be a bit cleaner after this. I've never seen oil come out so black with just 2650 miles / 5 months on it.
Refilling the engine with oil... it seems this engine takes 5.4 quarts (5 quarts and 12 ounces) to fill it when using the new LF05-14-302A filter. So don't make the mistake of just dumping in a full 6 quarts as the manual might suggest you do, otherwise you may overfill the crankcase and may have to drain some oil back out which is a pain. Add 5.4 quarts after the drain, start the engine, drive around for a good 5 or 10 miles, get the engine nice and hot, then park it on a dead level surface, shut it off, wait about 10 minutes, pull the dipstick, DON'T look at it, wipe it, re-insert it, then pull again and check. With 5.4 quarts in there you SHOULD see the level right at the "full" mark. If not, adjust accordingly.
I used Mobil 1, 5W-30 (because I have a ton of it sitting around here)... interestingly, the Mobil 1 quart bottles fit PERFECTLY into the oil fill hole on the engine. You can take a Mobil 1 quart bottle and "snap" it right into the oil fill hole and it stays there, nice and snug. This is neat as you can then do other things while ALL the oil drains from the bottle into the engine. I'll let each bottle sit there upside-down for maybe 5 minutes each, in the meantime I'll put away my jacks and tools etc and do some other garage chores. When done, all the oil bottles are completely empty, thus no oil gets tossed in the trash which theoretically is not good for the environment.
.
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