Mazda Protege5 Maintenance and Repair
mazdadude1
Member Posts: 49
in Mazda
Since the weather turned cooler, I get early morning engine rattle for the first minute or so of driving. Then it goes away. Someone earlier in the P5 main room said it might be due to the combination of iron block/aluminum head... different metals expanding at different rates when warming up>??? Greek to me.
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Has anyone adjusted their clutch? My pro5 catches at the very bottom brand new, and I would like to back it out a bit so I can have a bit of play. Plus I think it is catching to early because I notice a very very small kick back or bump some times when shifting, even with it fully to the floor.
Every once in awhile I notice my belt buckle is twisted at the shoulder harness and I have to straighten it out. Anyone experience this or have a fix? Else, Ill probably have to let it recoil back slowly.
Has anyone used the fog lights in real fog? how good do they work? seems like a joke to me, seeing they only provide 1ft of light infront of the car. Plus the main lights would reflect back light regardless of what the fog lights were doing. What I want to do is remove the metal shield that is covering the light to get atleast 10ft of light distance from the fog lights alone and maybe a little more side lighting for curbs.
Any ideas on this? has anyone modified or replaced their fog lights. I dont want to blind anyone, but in their current setup, they feel like they are more for looks than for real world use.
Adjusting the head lights. My head lights are too low and can only see 50-100ft ahead. Has anyone adjusted their head lights? How is this adjusted. I dont see the normal long screw on top like most cars.
Yes, I also get the rattle when it starts cold, but I dont start moving the car until the temp gauge starts moving.
Thanks for you input.
Revka
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result, they work awesome now. They now light up 10-20ft distance infront of the car. Plus I can see 45 degrees of extra light on either side of the car allowing me to see dark corners and curbs.
head lights just have one bolt, adjusted that and now i can see down the full length of road. Maybe too far down the road, but I notice they are not as bright as the fogs. Ill have to see how many people flash me during the week, or if they flip the rear mirror. But after 1hr driving last night, no flashes or flips.
Now I just need to figure out that clutch adjustment.
Soon to be P5 owner!
I wonder if this is a safety thing so you don't accidently put it in first while doing 60 mph and then let the clutch out and BAM! There goes your engine and transmission and maybe screw the clutch up.
Generally speaking, if you're still moving, second gear should be ok, maybe a little bogging. If you want first, you need to stop first!
I have had my P5 for about 7 weeks now. Overall I love my little car. Over the past
week though, I have noticed that the ride has
been getting very rough and bouncy. Even on
smooth roads.
The only thing I did recently was add air to
the tires. When I checked them, they were around
29psi. The manual said that 32psi was the recommended air pressure. So I filled them up to
32psi. That was about a week ago too. I am wondering if somehow that affected the ride or if
something is weird with the suspension or shocks
now?
Thanks,
Alana
Also make sure you read the pressure while the tires are cold, as they'll warm up when you drive which increases the pressure. The recommended pressure is for cold tires only.
I found that my tires were inflated to 48psi. The side wall of the factory Dunlops read 52psi max.
Following several recommendations to follow the owners manual(not the sidewall), I dropped the pressure to 32psi. The car drove like my Camry... Soft and smooth. I also noticed the outside of the tread showing signs of dragging, not to mention my gas millage dropped 4mpg!
I spoke to my dealer and they said they recommended always following the sidewall as Mazda did not make the tire. The next set of tires may recommend 32psi, but the Dunlops are stamped 52psi. They also recomended dropping a few punds, in order to compensate for the extremely hot weather we have here in the summer time.
My P5 now has 7400 miles on it. I've kept my tire presure at 48psi and have not noticed any strange tire wear since.
As recomended by hpulley4, you may want to check your tire guege! It sounds like it's reading low!
Higher tire pressure will imply:
1) less roll resistance
2) less heated under speed (since the tires change less its shape while rotating).
3) better mileage (consequences of 1 and 2)
3) less road grip
4) less comfort
Recommended pressure are always given by the car designers, which give a good trade off among all the above effects. The optimal pressure may change from tire to tire, but few psi at most. 48 psi IMHO is too high.
Bruno
Bruno
I've never owned tires which were labeled "Inflate To 52psi Max" only ones that read "Inflate To 32psi max". All I can tell you is that at the lower pressure, the outside edges were showing signs of premature wear and my gas millage dropped to well below Mazda's ratings.
If I were to have a warranty issue with the P5 stock tires and the outer edges of the tread were worn, Dunlop would tell me I ran them too low. If the inside was worn, they would tell me I ran them to high. The tread appears to be wearing evenly @ 48psi.
If I were to inflate them to 32psi, I would be 20psi under the tire manufacturers recommendations. If I were to apply the same logic to a set of tires which recommended 32psi max, I would be running @ 12psi. Where do you draw the line?
Whether that appears to be too much pressure or not, I can only allow the tires to speak for themselves.
Ryan
bellow are few websites about the above topic:
article 1
article 2
Bruno
Not max pressure, but recommended.
Enlighten me... I haven't seen anything about Dunlop's recommended pressure!
Bruno,
Thanks for the articles, they conflict each other! One says go with the manufacturer's recommendation, the other says choose something in between.
Thank you both for your responses. Everything is still as clear as mud though! Maybe I'll try 42psi... It seems like a nice compromise.
Ryan
Just so you know, 48psi is a stiff ride, but not as bad as you may think. When I test drove my car, it had 52psi in all the tires and I loved the ride then! Like I mentioned earlier, the P5 feels like my Camry with 32psi. I'm sure my passengers will like a softer ride too. I'll try dropping it down again. I just hope I don't loose 4mpg again!
Ryan
I have had my silver P5 for 3 months now and if I brake while reversing the brakes make a high pitched squeak.
I am reluctant to think that I have worn down the brake pads to the point that I already need new ones. I've only got 2000km on the car and I really don't drive it very hard at all.
Since I am not really a "car person" can anyone give me any ideas on why this may be happening?
Any solutions (other than going to the dealer of course)?
Thanks.
ok, j/k
It begins as a pretty heavy thump/wop as if I had a flat spot, or a belt seperated, but I don't know why this would fade after 10 minutes, or why it would remain after rotating. Anybody else?
Revka
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To elec3 & phoenixmp5- Glad to hear that your Protege5 is serving you well. Happy motoring! ;-)
Revka
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Revka
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OT: Love my 95 DX sedan :-)
Anyone have similar problems and how did you guys fix it? I'm thinking of sending it back to the dealer, but I'm not sure if they'll do anything about it.
But there's always been some type of wind noise over my left shoulder - sounds like its coming from the hatch area. More annoying is the noise coming from somewhere under the dash, seemingly behind the speedometer. Only started when it got colder. The cabin looks very tight and flawless -so I'm surprising that Im' hearing these noises.
I'd be interested to hear whether anyone got anywhere with their dealer. The problem is recreating the noise so they know how they might fix it!
If you open your driver side front door and look at the dash panel, there's a flat piece of plastic that covers the side of the dash. That piece of plastic is pretty thin and there's quite a big gap between that plastic and the door frame. I was wondering if that's the culprit.
Some guy in another forum said that he heard some noise coming from the front dome lights, and the dealer fixed it by tightening some screws. Seems that they will actually try to fix it.
Douglam - seems we have the same problem! Really annoying - the wierd thing is that it doesn't always happen! How do you explain that to Mazda? This morning on my drive to work I didn't hear it once - but its a bit warmer today so...
One other problem... Anyone having problems getting started when the engine is cold? The engine seems to studder sometimes on startup if the engine is cold. This morning I wondered whether it would even start! And it was above freezing this morning, so its not like I live at the North Pole Maybe I just need to keep the ignition cranked for longer until I release...but I swear I did that this morning and still go the studder... anyone else? My next maintenance will be at Mazda where I'm hoping they can fix some of these problems....
Yeah, the rattles are sometimes so faint that i'm afraid that the dealers can't hear them.
Another problem is that the windows will rattle when they are partially down. Anyone agree?
Oh, and about starting your engines when cold, i had the same problem, but now i have a solution. (my dealer told me this). Before you start your engine, turn your key far enough so that it's at the fully on position for 2-3 seconds (when you see all the little warning lights go on). After that, then turn the key further to start cranking. I do this as a habit now, and it works like a charm.
I'm not sure why we need to do this, becuase my previous 6 year old civic starts right up at subzero temps without the need to "prime the fuel pump"!
Also, since in the Pro, the AC Compressor is ON in every Climate Control position except for Full Face adn Face/Feet... I try to turn to one of those settings when starting the car in the cold.
Fewer things to crank over.
fwiw.. I live in cold VT and have no problems with cold starts. (UNheated garage)
Also, there are a number of plastic pins that hold the trim panels to the door itself. They may not all be correctly fastened. If you can easily pull away any edge around the door trim panel, then a fastener isn't correctly plugged in. Hold a flashlight to the gap and you should be able to see what is wrong.
Cold weather will shrink your plastic parts to where they can separate enough to rattle. The rattles will go away when your interior part temperatures go up above freezing. Tightening screws may not work as they may not exist there. You can try to put thin felt material between the offending parts or squirting in some rubbery glue.
I sometime hear a rattling sound in the instrument cluster (I have a '99 LX, but the dash isn't that different from the P5's), which seems to be rpm-related. I figure it's either the cable that feeds the speedometer or tach (I tend to think tach, as I've never heard this in a vehicle that lacked an analog tachometer). This seems to go away a few minutes after the engine warms up.
Also, there were about 10 screws in the back of the panel. I didn't know what exactly what they did, but I tightened them further anyway (i thought they weren't as tight as they should).
And before putting the panels back, I added some insulation in the panels myself. I bought some sheets of polyester battling (used to make quilts and comforters). They're about 0.5 inch thick and are pretty fluffy (cheap too). I'm sure that this will absorb some of the noise and rattling going inside the panels (road noise also).
Haven't had much time to observe if my mods killed any rattling, but i'll keep an ear on it and let you guys know.