What have you done to your Mazda5 today?

I have recently washed and waxed her, installed Corksport shorty antenna, Corksport LED fogs, Mazda rear scuff guard, Thule Aero bar roof rack, CanvasBack rear liner and changed with oil with Amsoil. Tonight I tried to put Lamin-x on the front and rear - that didn't work out. I ended up trimming the taillight pieces (very light tint) and getting it on over the silver portion of the tail lights. The fronts (which were clear) ended up in the trash. (inout)

On Friday I ordered some 2012 rear springs and am planning to get some urethane rear sway bar bushings and new tires soon.





 
Looks really nice! You will love those LED fogs, they really look nice in falling light, like dawn and dusk. Sort of like the OE fogs they don't illuminate a damned thing but they look good LOL Lamin-X really needs a better set of install instructions. Something on the order of: Attention, if you have curved head or taillights be prepared to lose your cool trying to install our product. Without a heat gun and two helpers getting these things installed is damn near impossible. LOL
 
JBR Rear Sway Bar

I got a great gift for Father's day...a JBR Rear Sway Bar! Installed it yesterday evening, using the middle position of the three available. Photos attached below. I noticed a huge difference driving it just to and from work today. Steering feels so much sharper and, while I haven't put it through the ringer yet, there's so much less body lean. I wonder how well the stock end links will hold up to this much stiffer bar. Moog makes a compatible set of rear end links for about $30-$40 (Part# K80867)


061713-JBR Sway Bar Out of Box.jpg
061713-JBR Installed 04.jpg
061713-JBR Installed 03.jpg
061713-JBR Installed 02.jpg
061713-JBR Installed 01.jpg
 
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Wax on... Wax off....

Heard good things about it so I went ahead and did the whole wash, claybar, polish and wax thing today. Pleased with the results but damn my arms are tired.


Took with my Samsung Galaxy S4. Reflections from the tailgate of my kids/wife bike hanging on the garage ceiling.
Clean5a.jpg


My 5yo son in the garage with me. Side door reflection.
clean5b.jpg


The finished product.
clean5c.jpg





Pro tip even though I'm not a pro. Ever get wax on plastic trim? Just use a pencil eraser to "erase" it.

Before
eraserbefore.jpg



After - You may have to rub it a 2nd or 3rd time to perfection but it is super quick and even easier. Seriously takes 5 seconds.

eraserafter.jpg
 
Do make me want Miata wheels very much badly LOL Looks very very nice! Every time I get mine even close to that shiny I end up driving into a maelstrom of bugs LOL
 
Last week I installed a new JBR adjustable rear sway bar on my 2012 Mazda5. Today, I took the stock sway bar from the 2012 and installed it on our 2008 Mazda5. I'm not expecting any performance improvement, just replacing old for new. The two sway bars are identical, but the brackets and bushings for the 2012 look a little beefier. Plus, the 2008 sway bar was starting to show some rust where the paint had started peeling off. Took about 45 minutes from start to finish, including jacking the car up and down and cleaning up the tools at the end.
 
Two Mazda5s! Look out Worlds Largest Yardsale LOL I have got to stop procrasinating about fixing my rear end clunkety clunk, it is driving me nucking futs!
 
^^You were on here the same time i was back in 07 when I bought my new 5 ^^ I was Slvrsleeper then. I got me another one as well....
 
Finally decided to replace the accessory fuse so I can use the rear 12V DC socket. First time using micro fuses and they seem to cost more for no good reason.

A childish rant but damn you Mazda for being so cheap that you cannot provide a 2nd fuse extraction tool in the interior fuse panel but instead require owners to go under the hood to fetch it. It is a simple plastic that probably cost a few cents. End rant.
 
Got around to installing my coilovers, however I did run into some problems. If I'm not mistaken, I remember someone was running 9.5+35 in the rears; I also read up that he set his camber to "max positive", than lowered it, making it become negative? I have a similar width and offset in mind, but can someone school me on the setting it to max positive = negative? Is that for clearance issues do to the width and offset of the rim cause I'm used to setting camber plates to negative if I wanted to run negative camber, not positive.
 
Do you have adjustable arms in the rear or are you going to use camber bolts
null_zps74eb9d4d.jpg

On stock shocks and springs and wheels
 
For now, it's just stock, but camber arms in the future. Sorry for confusion, I was actually talking about the front, I set them max negative and was able to fit 8.5+35 up front and it sits pretty flush. I'll get up pictures soon. I just wasn't sure if I was supposed to set the camber plates full positive first, than slam, which would equal it out into making it negative? But for now, I know I can clear 8.5 or 9s up front
 
Is it safe to be driving around like this, my dampening knobs are really close to the strut housing. Pretty sure it's rubbing against it, but I don't hear anything. I have my camber plates set to negative.

photo (3).JPGphoto (2).JPG
 
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