Mazda 626

maltb · May 2003

Due to their lower cost, the older 1.6 VW diesel is used quite often in commercial refrigeration and forklifts. The belts are very easy to change and with scheduled maint, you rarely see piston hit a valve.

Anyway, I'd opt for a chain drive if I had my choice, but belts served a good purpose in the quest for better IC engines.

p100 · May 2003

$ 72?

Actually $ 70. This was the quote from my local Mazda dealer for a 626 V6 timing belt (99 model). I was off by $ 2, which would not even cover the tax (6% in my county), so no exaggeration here. $ 74.20 out the door.

maxx4me · May 2003

Well, I almost cashed the car in this morning. I saw a deer dead on the road ahead. As cars slowed, so did I. Just as I go to put on the flashers to alert cars behind me, WHAM, a second deer takes out my front left side and windshield. Shockingly, my air bags did not deploy. The damage doesn't look too bad; unfortunately, I just had the windshield replaced not too long ago. I'll need some body work on the hood, a new left corner panel, and some work to the bumper. I also need a new overflow jug, which is all cracked and leaking. Who knows what damage they'll find underneath. Great morning!!

qbrozen · May 2003

sorry to hear about your accident.

I'm not shocked at all the airbags didn't deploy. If they did, that would be a bad thing considering the deer hit the side of the car. Glad it reacted (or more like didn't react) the way it was supposed to.

maltb · May 2003

Air bags should only deploy when they sense very rapid deceleration. (ie. hitting an object with enough mass to reduce the vehicle velocity). They will never protect from objects that would like to enter your car through the windshield.

What's for dinner?

slickdog · May 2003

I hit a deer with my 626 when it only had 3000 miles. The deer limped off, but probably didn't live long. My car needed a new hood, bumper, driver side fender, lights, but nothing underneath. Once I got over the initial shock of seeing my new car in that condition, I took it to my dealer's body shop. They did an excellent job, and I got it back looking like new! Three months later, someone threw a stone and gouged my new hood, but that's another story.

maxx4me · May 2003

I guess the only thing that rapidly decelerated was my back (and now my wallet). Despite the creases, I was easily able to open the hood. Everthing looked fine underneath. Maybe I need to get those deer whistles for the front end....oh wait, those attract deer, right?

p100 · May 2003

Be happy you did not hit a moose. I came upon one of those accidents when I visited Alaska two years ago, and it was not pretty. The car (Honda Accord) was totalled and the occupants seriously hurt. The moose cow was killed by impact and there was a huge pool of blood on the road because the poor animal was split open by impact.

p100 · June 2003

This board has been silent for weeks now.

maxx4me · June 2003

I figured everyone traded their 626's in for a real Japanese car!

qbrozen · June 2003

a Mazda 6!!

p100 · June 2003

This board is really great. No posts for weeks on end. Nobody has any problems with their 626s? They must be better cars than I thought.

maxx4me · June 2003

he, he....amazing how a deer strike can improve my 626!! Actually, here's a list of my problems (which I am ignoring because I refuse to put any more money into this worthless car):
1. rack and pinion steering slowly leaks fluid. this is my second R&P, and started leaking after only one year. I have added Prestone anti leak fluid, and it seems to be holding its own.

2. pin hole leak in front exhaust. Since it is covered by a heat shield, the hold has not expanded in over a year.

3. engine light comes on every week to remind me that my catalytic converter is malfunctioning

4. car is starting to burn oil. I'm down about 1/2 quart every 3000 miles; again, not enough for me to worry about.

zoomzoom626 · June 2003

OEM (potenza 92)are wearing out and I need a new set of all season high performance tires. Any recommendations?
My current tire size is 205/55/16 I would like to put on 225/50/16.
Thanks
D

maxx4me · June 2003

For H rated tires, I recommend either the P4000 by Pirelli, or the one made by Firestone that fits our car and is sold through Tires Plus. I can't remember the brand name, but I have its predicesor (Dayton Daytonas) on my 626, and it is the best tire I have ever owned. The new Firestone H rated tire has a technology that allows the tire to retain its "gripability" no matter how low the tread wear gets.

tahugoreng · July 2003

Guys,

I am planning to buy a used 4 cyl, AT, mazda 2002. What is your opinion on this car? I have heard about the transmission problem, does this still occur on the 2002 model.

Thanks a lot for your tips.

carguy58 · July 2003

After the Mazda tranny problem or Ford should I say since 4 cyl trans is Ford(the 6 cyl unit is Mazda.) Mazda did improve the Ford Tranny in 1996 with a little tuning. Most of the problems with 626's were in the 94-95 4 cyl models.

maxx4me · July 2003

save your money now and go buy a used Toyota. While I don't believe the tranny on the 1998-2002 models are the same 4 cylinder junk they put into the 93-97 models, I still wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Take it from a 7 year 626 veteran who is crossing his fingers until the next well designed wagon comes out in January (and no, it isn't a 6!) Oh, by the way, I'm on my 3rd tranny, and my year is the "retooled" 1996. Don't believe it for a second. Spend your money wisely.

p100 · July 2003

Get a manual transmission 626, or another car. I have a sneaky suspicion that this 2002 was dumped by its original owner for a good reason. For one thing, the depreciation he had to swallow would be painful. It is quite possible that this vehicle has problems that nobody knows how to fix. Is this car on a deler's lot or is this a private sale? If a dealer is selling it, I would ask to contact the original owner and ask him about the car.

windowphobe6 · July 2003

The last significant revision to the CD4E was during model year '99.

Over on the 626 Troubles thread, I noted that I wasn't having any problems with a similar '00, but wondered why a car only a year old was already on the used market. Apparently I'm not alone in my paranoia.

carguy58 · July 2003

I noticed CR didn't reccomend the 626 for the 94 model year with good reason but I thought post 96 was better. I did have a 98 626 for 3 years that I leased and it was fine but it had like 28,300 miles on it so that isn't alot of miles to prove a cars reliability. As far as Toyota is concerned they have quality control issues like any other manufacturer.

As far as 626 being on used car lots I have seen 2000 and 2001 Accord's and Camry's on Domestic Big 3 car lots too. That doesn't mean their bad cars. That just means somebody wanted another car and was willing take the heavy loss on their trade-in. The new 6 doesn't have a Ford Tranny. Thats a great thing.

As far as depreciation is concerned Domestic Big 3 cars and Hyundai's have worse depreciation than Mazda's do. I know Mazda's don't have as good as resale as Honda or Toyota but that doesn't mean their bad cars.

maxx4me · July 2003

carguy: as I've posted before, I'll let and April new car edition of Consumers Reports do my talking for me: 626 vs anything made by Toyota....enough said.

carguy58 · July 2003

They went cheap on the power equipment on the power/door locks in the 98 Corolla. They also have had problems with the 02+ Lexus ES300 with the 5 speed automatic transmission. I just think people are more patient with Toyota to straighten out their quality control issues than they are with Mazda.

qbrozen · July 2003

It is not unusual in the least to see a barely used car for sale. Happens every day and it happens with EVERY mass produced vehicle out there. I can find one year old Hondas, Toyotas, Lincolns, Chevys, Lexus, etc, etc, etc. People default on loans everyday, get their cars repo'd, trade in for something bigger, something smaller, something softer, something in a different color, whatever. Doesn't mean ANYTHING.

p100 · July 2003

People generally do not trade their one year old cars in if they are happy with them. Yes there are exceptions, but also quite a few year old vehicles are traded in because they are either lemons or have some hidden defect that nobody knows how to fix.

carguy58 · July 2003

the Saturday car ads and see one to three year old cars listed along with new car deals. There are 3 year old I30's, Avalon's, 626's, Accord's, alot of 00 Altima's and 99-00 Galant's I notice listed in there too. These cars are not bad cars by any means but people do get tired of cars easily. I say if you plan keeping a car for only 3 years you mine as well just lease it but than again alot of people drive cars more than 36,000-39,000 miles in 3 years. 3 years 36k-39K miles for 3 years is the usual term for 3 year leases.

slickdog · July 2003

You may want to run a carfax report if you're concerned about the car's history. You're not going to find any repair history on it, but it may shed some light on why it's back on the lot so soon. If the car was obtained locally by the dealer, they may also be willing/able to provide you with it's service history. I've come across 1-2 year old models that were former rental, fleet, or commercial vehicles, or even stolen, repo'd, whatever. Get a report then decide whether you're comfortable with the vehicle's history. Then decide whether the transmission is an acceptable risk for you, assuming you can get a consensus on whether or not it's still a problem in the 2002 models. Of course just because it was traded in so early does not mean that it's a loser. Let's not forget that a 2002 model could very well have been manufactured in 2001, which could make it 2 years old by now. You guys have heard of 24 mo. leases now, haven't you? My grandfather used to buy a new car every two years just because he liked to drive a new car. Doesn't mean his trade-ins were trash to be avoided by everyone else.

I'll also reiterate my belief that despite the negative experiences of p100 and maxx4me, which we're all brutally aware of by now, generally speaking the 626 is not a bad car. Several of us on the board seem quite happy with our vehicles, and for good reason I'm sure. There are plenty of other cars out there that you'd have a lot more trouble with. Furthermore, if you'd rather have a Toyota, be prepared to fork over the extra $$$, but don't expect it to be flawless either. Usually you get what you pay for, but Toyota has it's problems too.

tahugoreng · July 2003

Thanks a lot for the advice.

This is what i got about the fact of the car:
- it was an ex-rental car from Hertz.
- it is about 18000 mileage
- it is asking for US 10,300

I am going to test drive the car on Monday, and also have it checked by a third party. If everthing is fine, most probably i would buy the car.

One more thing to clarify:
I heard that the car warranty does not cover the transmission problems. is this true?

Thanks,

p100 · July 2003

Mazda warranty on their vehicles is 3 years or 50K miles, whichever comes first. (I think they increased it to 4 years, 50K miles on 2003 models). This is a bumper to bumper warranty and it covers everything on the car, including the transmission. I do not know if Mazda limits their warranties on ex-rental vehicles, this is something you should find out about from Mazda. As you know, many companies do not offer the same warranty on products used commercially. For example, if you buy a weed trimmer, your warranty will be much less if used commercially. Use of a car for rental purposes is considered commercial use.

The price is OK, and it illustrates the deep depreciation these vehicles take: this asking price is about half of the original MSRP. Three years from now, this car will be worth about $ 5K.

zoomzoom626 · July 2003

My advice to you is to stay away from that car not because of it's reliability issues but because it was a rental car. Only god knows who used it and ABUSED IT. Get a used car that had only one owner and that will save you lot of money and trouble down the road.

qbrozen · July 2003

I agree with zoomzoom. Personally, I'd never purchase a rental because I have been a renter. I beat the heck out of rental cars. Recently, I got a Prius rental. I was the first renter to drive it. The odometer read 40 miles. I can tell you that break-in meant absolutely nothing to me and that poor little car might not see a harder 100 miles in its life than I put on it.

p100 · July 2003

I agree that buying an ex rental car can be a mistake. Some are good cars, but some take real abuse. If I had to buy an ex rental car, I would buy a luxury model becuase this type of car is usually driven by older mature individuals, not by a pack of college students on their spring break. Personally I try not to abuse rental cars, because I know that somebody will eventually buy the car and I do not have to contribute to their problems and disappointments.

maxx4me · July 2003

I am also kind to my furry rental friends. I WILL tell you not to buy it because it is a 626!

maltb · July 2003

I have 14k on my 6 month old Mazda6 and it will be going to auction in the next week. Not because it's a bad car but because my company chooses to sell them before they get up there in mileage. My next car? same thing. It really is a blast to drive.

p100 · July 2003

I would like to know how much this car will bring at the auction. Its resale value has to be better than that of the 626, because it is hard to find a car with lower resale value than the 626.

skibry1 · July 2003

The resale value of the 626 didn't even enter into the criteria for the purchase of our FIRST new car.Back in doubleought our 14yr old our Taurus 4cyl w/a clutch w/100K+ was in dire need of replacement. Thru much research (thanx Edmunds) and test drives we felt our best use of 16K and that rust-bucket was with Mazda. Frank @ Heritage Mazda in Peoria IL was a fair and decent chap and the whole buying experience was definately a thumbs-up. We've played in a 6i ....yes it's a sweet machine..but we'll stick with our stick...and a less than 5K debt. 40K on our Freeport and could'nt be happier Zoom/Zoom

carguy58 · July 2003

Pontiac Grand Am and Dodge Neon come to mind. The 01+ Chrysler Sebring doesn't have very good resale value either. Hyundai's have pretty bad resale value. I don't thik resale value is that important. I mean usually the cars with lousy resale value have discounts attached to it which offset the resale value most of the time but not in every case though.

p100 · August 2003

None of the cars you list are Japanese cars. So you do not think that resale value is important? Maybe not if you are lucky enough to get a good car and you keep it for 15 years. If you like to buy a new car every few years, the resale value is very important. And what guarantee do you have that if you buy a new car that you will not buy a lemon? And if you are unfortunate enough to buy one, the only practical way to end your headaches and frustration is to get rid of the car as soon as possible with minimal losses. As far as discounts go, the $ 2500 rebate I got on my 99 ES V6 was hardly worth it. The sticker price was inflated anyway to begin with ($ 23K). And making payments on a car that you hate driving and cannot sell to break even until it is almost paid off is truly a miserable experience.

mazdamad1 · September 2003

I have a 1998 Mazda 626 and the Cd player has always been very finnicky about which CD's it feels like playing..... It almost never plays burned CD's ( IS ANYONE HAVING ANY LUCK PLAYING BURNED CD's in their factory unit?)

But know it won't even play commercial CD's either?

I am at my wits end.. Is there any cheap cleaning kit I can get to fix it?

Any suggestions would be Awesome!

mazdamad1 · September 2003

I was just wondering if this was all Mazda units or just mine that refuses to play and PC copied CD's?

Thanks

lngtonge18 · September 2003

My friend had no problems playing burned cd's on his 00 Protege factory CD system.

zoomzoom626 · September 2003

most of my cd's are burned and my 2000 626 plays every single one of them without any problems.

slickdog · September 2003

Same here, my '00 626 plays anything I put in it. Sometimes if I burn on poor quality media it takes a few seconds to hunt around and find the tracks when changing songs, but other than that it works flawlessly.

I suppose it's possible that older units don't play nicely with some or all CD-R and/or CD-RW discs (this used to be true for some CD-ROM drives before CD-R drives were popular), but if you can't consistently play high quality commercially produced discs I would say you definitely have a problem of some sort.

Cleaning the laser lens is probably the best first step. One can purchase special CD's which supposedly accomplish this, but I've not tried any myself so I don't know how effective they are.

windowphobe6 · September 2003

The only problem I've had is when I've been goofy enough to slap a label on the CD-R; one got stuck in the player once. I was able to extract it, but it was an annoyance.

Otherwise, the player in my '00 626 isn't finicky; once in a blue moon something will skip, but I've always been able to trace it back to some sort of crud on the disc itself - unless I'm doing something insane like going over a wornout railroad crossing at 92 mph.

p100 · September 2003

I just replaced both of the drive belts in my 99 626 V6. The car has 71k miles now and the original belts had numerous transverse cracks on the belt ribs. The car uses two drive belts and they are both flat ribbed belts. To replace the belts you must jack up the right front wheel, remove the wheel, the bottom engine splash shield and then loosen the center nut on the tensioner pulleys. For the outer belt this is possible from above, but not for the inner belt (power steering and water pump). This is the first car I have ever owned that required front wheel removal to replace engine drive belts. And to replace the inner belt you must completely remove the lower tensioner pulley, because the belt will not slip out past this pulley. The cost of two replacement belts with some discount from Mazda was about $ 26. I avoid aftermarket belts on Mazdas because I had very bad experience with them on Mazda Protege.
Even though access to the belts is difficult, the tensioner pulley system is great. No need for pry bars on this one. It took about an hour to do this job.

slickdog · September 2003

Wow, you used the same belts for 71K miles!?! That's impressive, I usually notice some cracking after only 2 years on my cars (I'm nearly dead on average at about 12K per year). I'm sure they'd last a lot longer than that, but I'm too much of a perfectionist to leave them on once they start showing cracks. Guess those OEM belts were good quality, eh?

I've already started thinking about how I would change the belt in my '00 2.5, and it looks like the plastic shield on the bottom of the wheel well definitely has to come off as you say. Seems pretty simple to remove, though. Better than some cars which don't have a panel to remove and only a small space in which to put your hand and a wrench between the pulleys and the wheel well.

p100 · September 2003

The bottom splash shield has to come off and you either need a high lift or you remove the right wheel. I tried turning the wheel to the right as far as it would go, but that did not provide enough space. After you loosen the locking center nuts on the tensioner pulleys, you turn the tensioner screw with a 10 mm socket to loosen the belts. Unlike V belt tensioning pulleys, these tensioners push on the backside of the flat belt. Incidentally, the belts from Mazda are US made. The problem I ran into with some aftermarket foreign-made belts was that they kept stretching and required frequent retightening. And this is not a pleasant job on this car as you have to go through splash shield and wheel removal to do it.

jgdubliner · September 2003

I am considering buying a 1998 626 ES 5spd V6. The car has 55,000 miles on it and a current $100 deductable policy on it that would cover it until 103,000 or Oct 06, whichever comes first. They have an opportunity to cash in the remainder of it or pass the cost along to me in the price of the car. I'm not asking you to make my decision for me, but from those of you who own a vehicle approximately like this, what is your repair history and how much do you suppose adding the warranty to the price of the vehicle is worth. He could get as much as $1150 back on the policy so depending on how much I am willing to add to the price of the vehicle, he may just cash that in to give me a lower price. I would appreciate any info you current owners may have for me. Thanks in advance.

slickdog · September 2003

Thanks for sharing your experience, p100. I'm getting my wheels balanced today, and always have to jack up the car a bit to re-torque the wheel lugs when I get home. Maybe I'll do the little bit of extra work to pull that wheel right off and get the belt changed. From what I can see up top, I only seem to have one, but I suppose it's possible there are two since it's really difficult to even see the bottom half of the engine on that side. Haven't invested in the service manual, so I have to rely on visual inspection. Anybody know if the '00 V6 has one serpentine belt or two?

p100 · September 2003

I do not think they changed the layout of the belts in 2000, it should be an exact carryover from the 99 2.5 l engine version. One belt is slightly narrower and shorter and drives the power steering pump and the water pump, and the other wider and longer belt drives the alternator and A/C compressor. Each belt has its own tensioning pulley. The shorter belt pulley cannot be seen from above. You see it when you remove the bottom splash shield. The upper tensioning pulley is so close to the inner fender metal that you cannot use a socket on the pulley bolt. You must use a wrench. And you may want to get a really long one because these bolts are large (something like 17 mm head) and are very tight. It is easier to loosen the upper pulley bolt working from below.

I still have not changed the timing belt in my car - this is next. I am trying to get a few more miles out of the original one because I intend to change the water pump, tensioner, and cam sprocket seals, as well as the crank front seal. One thing you have to do when replacing the timing belt is to jack up the engine slightly by the oil pan (using a square piece of plywood), and then remove the upper engine mount. There is no way to slip a new belt over the mount. This looks like a fun job. The other two mounts are under the transaxle, which is rigidly bolted to the engine.

Mazda 626

Comments

Helpful Tools

Most popular vehicles