How many miles have you logged so far? Who has the most?

[jmcglynn]

As you may know, Consumer Reports hasn't given the Mazda 5 a "recommend" rating because they had there doubts about long-term reliability. But I want to know what you all have to say. Who's gone past 100,000 miles? Has anyone reached 200,000 yet? Besides the well documented issues that have been noted over the years, what sort of issues have you come across on your high-mileage Mazda 5? Is long-term reliability an issue? I'd like to hear from the forum...

 

[Davicho]

113,000 miles still purring. Pennzoil Platinum Synthetic running through its veins.

 

[5zoom]

98k miles so far on my 08. Still on the original shocks/struts and brakes. Biggest maintenance beef has been the tires. I've got about 30k on a set of Michelins now and they are about 3/4 done.

 

[golftango]

I plugged >100K in Cars.com and there are a ton of 130-150K miles AT Mazda5s that look new.

 

[cburrell]

I take what Consumer Reports says with a grain of salt. They won't recommend the 5 over suspensions issues that can easily be fixed by replacing the shocks and struts with aftermarket ones instead of the OEM crap. Some people have had problems with the first batch of 5's with the manual (ford) transmissions going out, but for the most part the 5 has no major reliability issues. Do a google search of 04-08 Honda Odyssey's reliability, and you will find a whole lot of people warning and complaining about their transmissions going out. That is because Honda's engineers upgraded the size of their motors, but not the size of their transmissions. After a couple years of Honda denying that there was an issue, they issued recalls. Yet, Consumer Reports "recommended" the Odyssey for all of those model years. So, I take their analysis for what it is worth. Only, in the last year or two, has it seemed that Consumer Reports blind love affair with all things Honda and Toyota has some what diminished. Maybe they are finding out what a lot of people already know, even though Honda and Toyota are still fairly reliable, they aren't as reliable as they once were. IMHO, I don't think Consumer Reports has ever given Mazda the respect it truly deserves. I think that had a lot to do with Ford owning part of them for the longest time, that in of itself was a reason for CR in the past to rate Mazda's more harshly.

 

[jmcglynn]

Agreed... I always take the Consumer Reports ratings with a grain of salt, because I believe they do have certain biases. That said, I picked up the latest CR new car rating guide, and they showed the 2012 with a "recommended" checkbox. Finally a little respect!

I did a quick scan of AutoTrader.com... for 2006 model year, I found 177 for sale nation-wide, 42 of which had over 100,000 miles. Of those, most were only just over 100K... The highest was 156K, a few in the 140's. These are all for sale, of course, so it's hard to tell how they feel about their high-mileage Mazda. So far those here seem to be doing OK... but I'd like to hear more real-world stories...

 

[Rocket]

2006 Sport with 146,000 miles. I've replaced the thermostat. The shocks are constantly blowing out, aftermarket or not. I'm planning to install rear camber arms to try to stop the tire wear. But all things considered it's been an amazingly reliable car.