No.5 said:
Understood newF. I have read all your posts and understand the background. Since you've been sick, I've sorta been waiting patiently to see if others perhaps were doing anything else.
As for Sentra Boy. Yes, all cars have problems, but reading all the Mazda literature, the MSP is it's benchmark performance car (not mentioning the RX8 ofcourse), meant for DRIVING ENTHUSIASTS. People that purchase this car will pay more particular attention to 'issues' than your average driver.
I honestly believe that Mazda will produce a permanent fix, but the question is "when?". Hopefully newF continues to lead this campaign for us all......
please don't kid your self it's the exact same thing as a Spec V, an econobox trying to turn sport. Driving Enthusiasts, no the car was NOT designed for driving enthusiasts, and it is not the benchmark car, the car was designed for one thing, to bring the honda civic si crowd over to mazda, it's a good car (you could even say great), but not an entusiasts car, true entusiasts would of bought a RWD car, a true performance 2-door. The RX8 is a good car...it's no RX7 replacement though...if mazda doesn't get a true RX7 replacement out soon...the STi looks mighty tasty
To go a little off topic here...I know it's sad...but it's the truth...the only econobox that really has endless potential is the Civic platform...I'm not joking, you may be laughing your ass off. Honda did something right, without trying to do what it was doing. A properly built up EG/EK civic, will blow the doors off a properly built spec v or MSP, in all catagories, it's due to the almost endless aftermarket for these cars, but honda made it easy to swap engines/trannies from other hondas into these cars, to keep costs down it used the same foot prints. This is where the MSP/Spec V fail. the Spec V although it has a very capable tranny, the engine will not run any more than 7 psi of boost reilably unless if you strengthen the engine (which isn't too costly) but the aftermarket isn't there. The MSP same thing almost...the engine is capable (well more capable than the tranny) but the tranny won't beable to take much more boost before you can't run it reliabliy long term, I have no idea how much it takes to rebuild a tranny..but it sounds more expensive than strengthing an engine (JWT turbo kit for the spec is 5K US, and it comes with full internals). Which is pretty funny, since I used to laugh at all the civics...civics are only given a bad name because of all the ricers...well so are most imports to domestic drivers.
Back on topic now...I have no doubt mazda will try to fix it if enough people keep on pushing for it. But if you think about it, it's still a Protege Mazda's econobox, their low end model.
The Spec V has a prominant paint problem, where you gotta like wax it good so you can protect the paint, since it tends to chip easily, (I haven't had any problems, cept the time when a fucker sideswiped me, but I've put on like 3 coats of meguires gold class wax when I first bought the car)
Nissan has done jack all for the sentras, the 350Z however, one guy gets like small paint chips on his car, and nissan offers to buy the car back.
the MSP was aimed at a crowd that typically doesn't have too much money (compared to those who would buy an RX8) that's the target demographic, obviously mazda will take care of any RX8 problems before tackling the MSP problems.
I've never driven an MSP so I don't know how bad or annoying this clunk is. newf, it's a good thing that you're leading some sort of action to get this fixed. I don't know what actions you've done, but the Spec V owners go the attention of nissan (for the 2002 trannys being gay) by constantly phoning the consumer deparment lines of nissan, and constantly nagging dealerships until something was done. Now there is some sort of recall for some 2002 trannys to be swaped to a 2003, which is the fix for that problem.
I also believe you shouldn't just leave this to newf to do by himself, everyone should get involved, everyone should take a stand, don't leave newf to do all the work.
I suggest everyone with an mp3/msp should phone up the consumer 1800 # and complain about the clunk, and go to their dealerships to see what they can do to help get this issue resolved faster.
Good luck with your clunk hopefully it'll be resolved soon.
