Hey everyone,
Names James, from SA and thought I would sign up and write a quick message considering I just bought a mps last week! Was looking around for about 4, 5 months. Probably looked at around 7 cars before making my purchase. Looked at gen 1's to start with but as time went by the gen 2's grew on me and now I have one sitting in my garage. It's a stock silver 09 luxury. Has done around 50,000 k's. I ended up getting 2 new tyres on it the day after because they were pretty bald and road noise was giving me a headache. Besides having to fork out 400+ bones for that and stamp duty/transfer fee, I am pretty happy. Not sure if I am going to keep it stock or do a few mods. What would be your suggestion on the first basic mods to be done?
One problem I am trying to find a fix for is a certain noise I get when changing gears and sometimes when putting foot down. It's not a clunk/bang or metal on metal noise. More of a pop, chirp noise. I have done extensive searching but can't seem to find a fix for it. People think its the characteristics of the car but I don't believe that as I drove a 2010 luxury yesterday and it didn't make the noise. Others seem to think its one of the following.
bushing of rear motor mount
engine, transmission mounts
axle shaft
exhaust manifold/gasket
Transmission fluid - castrol syntrans 75w85 or vmx80 seems to be preferred choice?
mazda suggest changing this at 100k though..
I did happen to find someone who explained the problem which is spot on to what I experience which I will paste below.
3 conditions can replicate the noise.
1) engine brake, then smash the gas (no use of clutch or gear shift)
2) engaging the clutch (after a shift?) without much of a feather
3) moving out of a gear (ie first), as it goes through neutral you get the noise as it moves into the next gear (ie second)
as has been said, cannot replicate when stationary. i do want to point out that this is not the dull thud noise that engaging the clutch sometimes makes... its a chirp that sounds like a bushing or something.