First car with AWD - any advice on how to maintain the wheels?

Z

zoomerang

Member
:
CX-5
Sorry for the multiple posts here but just bought a 2017 CX-5 Touring and have lots of questions. (uhm)

This is my first car with AWD. I am reading up on how best to maintain them and wondering if there is any suggestions from forum members. I live in Northern Cal so don't have to deal with snow except if I go to Tahoe for the weekend. Only weather issue to take into account is rainy winters. Should I get special tires for the back wheels? winter set? summer set?

TIA
 
hey zoomerang,
I've been driving an AWD BMW X3 for about 8 years now honestly from a maintenance perspective, there's really no difference.
you'll run the same tires front and rear and no need for winter / summer sets if you're in NorCal and don't have severe weather.

Enjoy the car!
 
Jedi54 said:
hey zoomerang,
I've been driving an AWD BMW X3 for about 8 years now honestly from a maintenance perspective, there's really no difference.
you'll run the same tires front and rear and no need for winter / summer sets if you're in NorCal and don't have severe weather.

Enjoy the car!
Click to expand...

Ok, whew! Glad to know that AWD is not a big deal - I was sweating the decision of whether to get FWD or AWD and decided to go for AWD since that is what was mostly available.

Thanks so much Jedi! Definitely enjoying my zoom zoom!
 
With regards to tires, your best AWD performance will come with all 4 tires matching.

Not only just brand and size, but also tread depth., making regular, consistent, and periodic tire rotations of greater importance with AWD.

I recommend rotation every oil change in order to get maximum life and performance.

Enjoy the new CX-5! A great car for the fun roads of Northern California.
(yippy)
 
Yes, the only thing to watch out for is the tires. Make sure the pressures are equal and if you have a blow out on one tire, you may need to change two or four tires at once.
 
Last edited:
zoomerang said:
Sorry for the multiple posts here but just bought a 2017 CX-5 Touring and have lots of questions. (uhm)

This is my first car with AWD. I am reading up on how best to maintain them and wondering if there is any suggestions from forum members. I live in Northern Cal so don't have to deal with snow except if I go to Tahoe for the weekend. Only weather issue to take into account is rainy winters. Should I get special tires for the back wheels? winter set? summer set?

TIA
Click to expand...
Obviously you need make sure to do routine tire rotation according to maintenance schedule to keep the tread depth the same on 4 tires. I'm doing 5,000-mile tire rotation according to the recommended interval under Schedule 1. But for 2017 Mazda changed to 7,500 miles for tire rotation under Schedule 1. No you don't need special tires in the back for AWD. Living in NorCal, OEM all-season tires are good enough you don't need additional set of winter tires.

For CX-5 AWD you have additional front transfer case and rear differential. For 2017 Mazda only says you need to replace gear lubricant with recommended Mazda Long Life Hypoid Gear Oil SG1 when vehicle has been submerged in water, but many CX-5 AWD owners are replacing gear lub at 30,000-mile interval according to Schedule 2 operating under severe conditions. In addition, many CX-5 AWD owners also found Mazda seems to under-fill rear differential from factory. You should check your rear differential lub level if possible. The capacity of rear differential has further reduced to 0.37 US quarts from 0.48 quarts for previous gen. Since it's such a small amount of lub so making sure you have enough in there is important.

Lastly, in addition to set your tire rotation reminder in Maintenance Monitor, make sure to turn your oil life monitor on by setting oil change interval to "Flexible" for oil change and enjoy your new CX-5! :)
 
The dude that got me the E-Plan discount (District Service Manager) told me to make sure I tell the service department at my first service to specifically do.... something ... to the rear wheels when I take it in for the first check up. I was going to get back to him when I take it in. I will report back.
 
Congrats on the CX-5!

With AWD, all 4 wheels need to be the same, and generally need to have around the same wear.

Therefore, you need to keep up with regular tire rotations, and if you blow a tire, you most likely will need to replace 2 or all 4 tires (depending on wear).
 
In the one hour tech review video from Mazda, I believe they say that one of the things that makes the AWD transmission so efficient is low pumping losses due to a design that works with a very small volume of fluid. I wonder if topping up fluid reduces efficiency.
 
murky said:
In the one hour tech review video from Mazda, I believe they say that one of the things that makes the AWD transmission so efficient is low pumping losses due to a design that works with a very small volume of fluid. I wonder if topping up fluid reduces efficiency.
Click to expand...
"Topping off" means fill the gear lub to the bottom edge of the fill hole. This is supposed full gear lub level according to CX-5's service manual. 0.48 / 0.37 quarts are very small capacity comparing to others. My 1998 Honda CR-V AWD has capacity of 1.1 /1.3 quarts (change /total) in rear differential.
 
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Just regular rotation and know that if you get a flat it becomes a lot different of an issue than a RWD or FWD car. The tread depth cant different 3/32nds of an inch. A lot of the times I got a flat, I was forced to replace all 4 tires on my evo. if you don't, it puts a lot of strain on your drivetrain.
 
Cx-5 is not an evo.

just try to get the tyre wear around the same, all round if possible, but mainly on the axle.
I also regularly tow with different tyre pressures front and back as recommended by Mazda, and had zero problems.

Even the permanent 4wd audi i had only required all four tyres being with in 3mm of each other, but as the p6000 tyres fitted only had around 7mm depth when new it was never an issue for me, even after a puncture running with the spare, i rotated the spare as well.
 
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With AWD, you need to pay extra care on PSI and potentially more $ on tires.
Owned a CX9 for 8 yrs.
 
yrwei52 said:
Obviously you need make sure to do routine tire rotation according to maintenance schedule to keep the tread depth the same on 4 tires. I'm doing 5,000-mile tire rotation according to the recommended interval under Schedule 1. But for 2017 Mazda changed to 7,500 miles for tire rotation under Schedule 1. No you don't need special tires in the back for AWD. Living in NorCal, OEM all-season tires are good enough you don't need additional set of winter tires.

For CX-5 AWD you have additional front transfer case and rear differential. For 2017 Mazda only says you need to replace gear lubricant with recommended Mazda Long Life Hypoid Gear Oil SG1 when vehicle has been submerged in water, but many CX-5 AWD owners are replacing gear lub at 30,000-mile interval according to Schedule 2 operating under severe conditions. In addition, many CX-5 AWD owners also found Mazda seems to under-fill rear differential from factory. You should check your rear differential lub level if possible. The capacity of rear differential has further reduced to 0.37 US quarts from 0.48 quarts for previous gen. Since it's such a small amount of lub so making sure you have enough in there is important.

Lastly, in addition to set your tire rotation reminder in Maintenance Monitor, make sure to turn your oil life monitor on by setting oil change interval to "Flexible" for oil change and enjoy your new CX-5! :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the informative post. What does the flexible schedule mean?


Sent from my cell phone
 
avim said:
Thanks for the informative post. What does the flexible schedule mean?


Sent from my cell phone
Click to expand...

Flexible means that the onboard engine computer determines when it feels it is time to change the oil instead of going by a specific time or mileage interval.
 
Flexible Oil Changd Interval

mazdadude said:
avim said:
Thanks for the informative post. What does the flexible schedule mean?
Click to expand...
Flexible means that the onboard engine computer determines when it feels it is time to change the oil instead of going by a specific time or mileage interval.
Click to expand...
Flexible OCI can maximumize oil life and reduce unnecessary waste. Everybody should use it. I was surprised Mazda didn't make this as the default in its Maintenance Monitor.

Another benefit for us is if you drive minimum miles annually, you can change your oil annually within 7,500 miles for 2017 and 10,000 miles for 2016 instead of fixed 6-month interval without void your new car warranty. You can change oil earlier if you want to, just reset your maintenance monitor after the oil change to start new calculation. Of course make sure to use Mazda recommended oil or the best synthetic oil as the computer calculation is based on recommended oil.
 
The 2017 CX5 Manual states:
Avoid sharp turns, excessive speed and
abrupt maneuvers when driving this
vehicle:
Sharp turns, excessive speed and
abrupt maneuvering of this vehicle
is dangerous as it could result in the
increased risk of loss of vehicle control,
vehicle roll-over, personal injury or
death.
This vehicle has a higher center of
gravity. Vehicles with a higher center
of gravity such as utility and AWD
vehicles handle diff erently than
vehicles with a lower center of gravity.
Utility and AWD vehicles are not
designed for cornering at high speeds
any more than low profi le sports cars
are designed to perform satisfactorily
under off -road conditions. In addition,
utility vehicles have a signifi cantly
higher rollover rate than other types of
vehicles.
 
avim said:
The 2017 CX5 Manual states:
Avoid sharp turns, excessive speed and
abrupt maneuvers when driving this
vehicle ⋯
Click to expand...
This's standard disclaimer for a CUV / SUV from every auto maker. You'll find this in the owner's manual from every CUV / SUV sold in the US. :)
 
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