Change automatic transmission fluid?

I did a drain and fill at both 50 and 75K miles. When I hit a 100K I'll probably drop the pan and put in a new filter too. Good find!
 
I'm willing to try this out when I change mine but don't plan to do the filter until 80k miles. Just gonna drain and fill for now. I'll keep an eye on it if it does break down like bmninada experienced.

I'm tired of dealing with RTV... I've never had to use on autos but on power-sports repairs.
But, you won't need to mess around with the new gasket and dropping the pan if you're just going to drain the fluid. Isn't there a drain built into the pan for this?
What Kedis82ZE8 meant was he wont bother to drop the pan and change ATF filter cartridge until 80K miles. Hell only do drain-and-fill before that with drain plug.

Yep applying silicon RTV manually for a gasket really requires some special skill to do it right! :)
 
That was exactly my plan at 80k miles. That company in Taiwan with kit stated the following:

"This filter kit comes with one filter LS#71726 and one NBR gasket LS#71506.

(NBR: a kind of normal rubber gasket used widely).

The Farpak Pro material is also available for this gasket (LS#71506-FPR).

For the other gaskets, cork rubber might be available but we didn’t develop the cork rubber version for this one."
 
Mazda has tried hard to keep people from mucking with this transmission, yet we have all this. 74,Xxx and shifting fine without messing with it so far, here.
 
Changed mine today. Oil and filter.

So I checked it first and that was the result:
klDl68u.jpg


Considering it was brown colour, I decided to drain it,
6u6jWXU.jpg

3.2 L roughly
dGwNnP6.jpg


Should have been blue eh? It's good it's lifetime....... After I've seen the oil pouring out of the drain plug I decided to go for the filter.
Oil pan wasn't that bad as that japanese guy's at 13000km!
6FK9a9i.jpg

All the shavings were on the magnet.
nkjkPSK.jpg

Filter:
hTJKEwk.jpg


Cleaned the pan:
OtS2Trg.jpg


Put new filter, silicone, put back the pan and filled it up with 4L of new oil.
Haven't driven the car yet as the silicon is on cure.

Will update you on Monday.
 
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Changed mine today. Oil and filter.

So I checked it first and that was the result:


Considering it was brown colour, I decided to drain it,

3.2 L roughly


Should have been blue eh? It's good it's lifetime....... After I've seen the oil pouring out of the drain plug I decided to go for the filter.
Oil pan wasn't that bad as that japanese guy's at 13000km!

All the shavings were on the magnet.

Filter:


Cleaned the pan:


Put new filter, silicone, put back the pan and filled it up with 4L of new oil.
Haven't driven the car yet as the silicon is on cure.

Will update you on Monday.

Thanks for the post and pics! Good info. Any particular reason you decided to go with the silicon instead of buying the gasket?
 
Changed mine today. Oil and filter.

So I checked it first and that was the result:
klDl68u.jpg


Considering it was brown colour, I decided to drain it,
6u6jWXU.jpg

3.2 L roughly
dGwNnP6.jpg


Should have been blue eh? It's good it's lifetime....... After I've seen the oil pouring out of the drain plug I decided to go for the filter.
Oil pan wasn't that bad as that japanese guy's at 13000km!
6FK9a9i.jpg

All the shavings were on the magnet.
nkjkPSK.jpg

Filter:
hTJKEwk.jpg


Cleaned the pan:
OtS2Trg.jpg


Put new filter, silicone, put back the pan and filled it up with 4L of new oil.
Haven't driven the car yet as the silicon is on cure.

Will update you on Monday.
Wow.....thanks for all the great pictures and explanations! It was really informative and interesting reading your post.
I didn't realize metal shavings came off in the transmission fluid.
it's good to know that there's a magnet in the pan to collect those shavings.
wonder what kind of damage that would do if the magnet didn't collect them? Thanks for taking the time to post all the information [emoji106][emoji108][emoji122]
 
Thanks for the post and pics! Good info. Any particular reason you decided to go with the silicon instead of buying the gasket?
Silicon is the industry standard. Gaskets suck. They like to leak. Silicon/RTV, not so much.
That. Working as a mechanic, Ive seen so many cars with gaskets leaking. Bad quality silicone or very old. One leaks too, but not as fast as a normal cork or rubber gasket.

wonder what kind of damage that would do if the magnet didn't collect them? Thanks for taking the time to post all the information [emoji106][emoji108][emoji122]
Just try to guess if instead of having the rubbish put in one place, it would be floating all around your transmission and going in where they arent meant to. :)
 
That. Working as a mechanic, Ive seen so many cars with gaskets leaking. Bad quality silicone or very old. One leaks too, but not as fast as a normal cork or rubber gasket.

Just try to guess if instead of having the rubbish put in one place, it would be floating all around your transmission and going in where they arent meant to. :)
Thanks for the pics!

I have several questions if you don't mind. Did you check ATF or coolant temperature before ATF level was measured? Did you measure ATF level with engine running and after you went through all gears? Finally, did you take intake airbox out while you're doing it?
 
That. Working as a mechanic, I’ve seen so many cars with gaskets leaking. Bad quality silicone or very old. One leaks too, but not as fast as a normal cork or rubber gasket.


Just try to guess if instead of having the rubbish put in one place, it would be floating all around your transmission and going in where they aren’t meant to. :)
Thanks for your insight![emoji106][emoji108]
 
Thanks for the pics!

I have several questions if you don't mind. Did you check ATF or coolant temperature before ATF level was measured? Did you measure ATF level with engine running and after you went through all gears? Finally, did you take intake airbox out while you're doing it?

I haven't. The car was driven for 10 mins from my home to work place. It's 3 km. I waited for the coolant light to go off and left it running on the hoist extra 5 mins. I checked the ATF while it was running with airbox off. I don't like working in tight spaces. If I can remove stuff easily, I do. If it stores a DTC I can always clear it afterwards. And You don't have to remove the whole box. Disconnect the top air box cover, do not remove MAF sensor plug. Lift up the box, remove the filter and remove the bottom box by removing the two 10mm bolts on the radiator support and pulling it upwards. Since the MAF is still plugged in, it won't store the DTC.
 
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Coincidence

Well said! And I believe Unobtanium's bad experience on his ATF flush is because he's been waiting too long to do the ATF "flush". Many people have said if you waited too long to change the ATF, especially doing the flush, it'd dislodge all the existing tiny debris which may actually cause transmission problems. And it'd be better off not to change the ATF if it haven't been changed for a long time.

Like all good anecdotes, the one for "if you waited too long to change your transmission fluid, then don't because it will be worse if you do" sounds reasonable. There are many examples of people changing their trans oil at 100+K miles only to have the transmission fail soon after. This is a perfect example of correlation does not equal causation. The oil stayed in too long and the transmission was already mortally wounded. Changing the fluid didn't cause the failure - not changing it timely did.
 
That. Working as a mechanic, Ive seen so many cars with gaskets leaking. Bad quality silicone or very old. One leaks too, but not as fast as a normal cork or rubber gasket.

Mazda did design the thing to be sealed with RTV or whatever it is versus a gasket. I wonder why a gasket would leak though considering the transmission isn't under heavy pressure (right?). I guess its because the ATF fluid is super thin and easily seeps through crevices.
 
Mazda did design the thing to be sealed with RTV or whatever it is versus a gasket. I wonder why a gasket would leak though considering the transmission isn't under heavy pressure (right?). I guess its because the ATF fluid is super thin and easily seeps through crevices.
The reason why those traditional cork or rubber ATF pan gasket is easy to leak is because they tend to be hardened pretty fast due to the heat.
 
So here's a question.

I did my first drain/fill sessions around 71k, which admittedly I should have done sooner, but oh well. I was thinking maybe 30-40k around 100-110k miles, but wasn't sure. What do you think a good next mileage interval would be? Would it also make sense to just go ahead and drop the pan and change the filter too by that point and mess with this RTV or whatever?
 
So here's a question.

I did my first drain/fill sessions around 71k, which admittedly I should have done sooner, but oh well. I was thinking maybe 30-40k around 100-110k miles, but wasn't sure. What do you think a good next mileage interval would be? Would it also make sense to just go ahead and drop the pan and change the filter too by that point and mess with this RTV or whatever?

Interesting. Last time in (something very minor) the service manager said to not change the tranny fluid that it was life time. Doing so was not a good thing.
 
Sorry if it*s been shared before but I think this cat has the right idea: https://youtu.be/RuNNqh8-jkw

Colorado, give it another 50k. 125k sounds like a nice round number :D People over at BITOG are way more aggressive though. I saw somebody suggest fluid changes every 20-25k after the initial change, but I think that*s overkill for this animal.

Or do it when you*re flushing/replacing your coolant around 100k if you can*t wait lol.
 
Interesting. Last time in (something very minor) the service manager said to not change the tranny fluid that it was life time. Doing so was not a good thing.
My fluid analysis on drained atf says otherwise.

And my local dealer says the exact opposite of yours, but then they try to sell a flush which can't be done on these. Long story short, most dealers don't know jack and either tow the company line of "lifetime" fluid, or they say change fluid is necessary but then they sell you a service that can't be done lol. Very few good, honest dealers it seems.

Go with common sense. Mazda also refused to define what "lifetime" means in years or miles when I reached out to them, so if you plan to own your CX-5 forever like me, makes sense to regularly change a wear item.
 
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