2012 Mazda 3 Thermostat location

justin688

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2012 Mazda 3
I'm a self appointed youtube mechanic. The hardest thing I've done so far was my clutch on my 2005 Tiburon so I've got a little practice on doing some of these things. So I bought a new thermostat for the wife's Mazda and can't seem to figure out where it is. Engine is a 2.0 btw. I'm used to just following the large radiator hose to find it but no luck there. At least the part they sold me , which is also the part that comes up in google searches for the part, isn't the part at the end of the hose. I've watched a few youtube videos for older models, but there's no videos for something this new. Low and behold neither Haynes nor Chilton has a book out on it yet. Can someone point me in the right direction? Right side of the engine or left when looking at it? About the same place as older models?

Thanks!
Justin
 
If you can't find the thermostat, it kinda' makes me wonder what you're changing it for in the first place? That said, all Skyactive-G engines are pretty much the same in terms of basic layout. Yours was the first to go into production and should be exactly the same as the 2.0 in my 2013 CX-5 (or the later 2.5 for that matter). On the driver's side of the engine just aft of the mass air flow meter there are two radiator hoses. One attaches to the aluminum housing behind the thermostat and the other to the (dark colored) thermostat housing itself. The thermostat is contained in that housing. This graphic http://nema.club/2014wsm/workshop manual/n6w01/html/id0112h5801200.html (for a 2.5) shows only the hose attached to the thermostat housing, but it gives you a relative fix on the location of the housing.
 
To answer your question, saving money. I do what I can and if I run into a wall, I rely on people smart than me, in this instance you, to lead me in the right direction. I wasn't going to just start pulling stuff off the engine hoping that where I thought it should be would be right.

Now just in case anyone else runs into this issue, 3 parts stores, even pulling the part off the VIN, told me this was the right part https://shop.advanceautoparts.com/w...e//133/large/11610954_mto_512185_pri_larg.jpg It took a picture of the engine and the actual thermostat in hand for them to realize their systems were wrong. After 15 minutes of digging, one was able to tell me the part number, PE01-15-171 which when googled comes up to a CX-5. Thank you paris1 for that one.
 
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