Mazda Protege Maintenance and Repair

nikecar · July 2001

and he got a smaller warranty too!!! *teehee*

but for $2000 more also, I could have gotten a better car than the GTI with more space.. but to each their own...

chikoo · July 2001

Haar Haar....

Quiz:
=====
VW Claim: Jetta is an entry level mid-size car.
How does VW prove it?

Ans: By putting 3 headrests in the back seat!!!!

mdriver · July 2001

The Jetta does have excellent crash and resale values. The Protege's resale is appallingly low, although I think it is unjustified. What concerns me is the safety issue though. The Protege's doors seem paper thin compared to the robust doors on the Jetta. Also, the warranty is supposed to change on VWs to 4yr/50k mi for 2002 which will then beat Mazda's warranty.

protegextwo · July 2001

2001 V-Dub Jetta $21,000+ for a well equipped small car? You must be joking? LOL!!! You could buy a nice Honda Accord for that kind of cash!

From my copy of the Consumer Reports: "2001 Annual Auto Issue"

Volkswagen Jetta- "Front seats are comfortable and supportive, but the rear seat is cramped. Reliability has deteriorated from average last year to below average now, so we no longer recommend the Jetta." CR April 2001

Mazda Protege- "The Protege is one of our top-rated small sedans. Interior room is spacious for a small sedan and includes a fairly comfortable rear seat. Overall, the Protege is a solid, refined car, with excellent reliability."

Mdriver,your statements reflecting your point of view are open to discussion, as you have done nothing to support your position. Sam, your observations might hold water in the Honda Civic topic, however we know better here.

Respectfully,
Larry

nikecar · July 2001

also.. for 21K I'd get a Maxima...

newcar31 · July 2001

I'd get the new Altima.....a 240 hp V6 with a six speed, yikes!

nikecar · July 2001

well yeah me too, but they aren't out yet!!!

but the Alty V6 is 5speed not 6 speed... the 2002 Maxima shall have a 6 spd on the SE.

newcar31 · July 2001

I thought it was going to be a six speed. The new Sentra SE-R will have a six speed available, I wonder why they wouldn't put one in a more powerful and expensive car? Dang it Nissan.

yooper53 · July 2001

The Altie was first my choice. I agree with you on that. Isn't it the Maxima that has the 240 hp V6? And 180hp I4 in the Altie? Whatever. Still no regrets on the ES. High fun factor, and for the class of car outstanding steering,and suspension. If only...15-20hp more. Geez the bloody Neon has 150hp, or so I've read. Well I guess opting for an I4 makes the new buggy politcally correct anyway.

) LOL.

nikecar · July 2001

sorry to keep on, but the 2002 Max will have 260HP V6 and the SE gets a 6spd. the 2002 Altima will be base 180HP I4 and the SE has the 240HP V6 5spd.

nsbio · July 2001

Hi everyone,
I am new here to post, although I have been reading the forum for quite some time.
I have a 96 Pro LX 5 speed with 100K miles. Got it used at 72K miles. It has been a good car. However, recently, I have been getting an annoying whistling sound coming somewhere from the front right wheel (at least I think so). The sound can be heard only when it is above 75 degrees around and only after the car has been driven for at least 5 miles.The whistle seems to be most audible at low speeds, although after a while, it shows up at hihgway speeds as well. Since it takes some time for it to develop, it is not very easy to demonstrate it to mechanics. I have done it twice, though. The first one said that it was a noise from the transmission (although it does not seem to depend in which gear the car is (ant it certainly comes from the passenger side), and another one said that the first one was #$#$#$. But still, he did not find anything wrong. Personally, I suspect a wheel bearing as the right one gets warmer than the left one, indeed. I had the wheel bearing checked by the "second" mechanic and he, again, did not find anything wrong. There are no clicks or anything while turning, though.
A Mazda dealer told me, however, that the previous owner of the car had one of the front wheel bearings repacked under warranty (they do not know which one, though).
The brakes are fine, by the way. I had front brakes done recently as a part of maintenance - it did not change anything in terms of the noise.
My question is should I suspect the wheel bearing as the potential culprit or there could be other components as well.
And also, can a wheel bearing be failing without showing up the "classic" sympthoms like clicking etc?
BTW, I have driven the car for around 15K miles with the whistle, including a 400 mile trip to Canada non-stop, so I guess, it is not going to fail tomorrow because the noise is not getting any worse. It is just there. Another option I have is to crank up the radio and wait for the winter...
Thanks.

nikecar · July 2001

I have no clue... but what I can do for you is tomorrow, I'll look in my 99 Service Manual and see if it mentions anything and what items to look for.

mdaffron · July 2001

Funny, I was all set to buy a Nissan Frontier pickup (er, not the butt-ugly NEW style, but a 2000 crew cab) last spring when I got "monthly payment shock" over the $410/mo. payments on the $23,000 truck.

I did some quick soul-searching and decided I was letting my emotions get me all interested in this pickup that I didn't need. I wound up with a 2000 Protege ES for $15K and $284/mo.

So what would I buy with $21K? NOTHING! I've had such good fun in 23,000 miles, I'd buy the $15K Protege again and POCKET SIX GRAND!!!

Meade

nikecar · July 2001

I'm sorry.. all the talk about Altimas made me forget I was in the protege room.. I don't have a manual fro a protege, just an Altima.. sorry.

nsbio · July 2001

Thanks anyway. The problem seems weird but it does not appear to be life threatening (I hope!). Eventually, I will have the noise "looked at" again. By a dealer this time. I am really curious what causes the whistling. And again, there was a little cooler yesterday night in NJ, and I had a 30 mile drive - no noise. Today it was warmer and here it goes. Funny!

kaiserhead · July 2001

The engine rattle from my 2000 1.6 is becoming more frequent, time to visit the local dealer. Has anyone had this probelm looked at on their Pros, I know there's a techinical service bulletin for this problem.

nikecar · July 2001

my wife's old Neon would make a weird sound when she drove while it was raining.. it sounded like someone was taking a water hose and spraying the entire wheel well and the extra water spinning off to the frame.. but no dealer could ever replicate it... just those little phantom noises all cars end up having.

sfrat · July 2001

You've got a weird problem there, but despite what you've been told already, to me it sounds like a wheel bearing. Your mileage is about right for one to need replacing. When they went on my old Audi, it was very weird. I would hear this groan at lower speeds around 25 to 30 mph, then it would be this irritating whistle type sound at about 65 mph. Not sure if yours is related to speed or not, it may or may not be. Good luck getting it solved.

nsbio · July 2001

Thank you, guys. I guess I will have it checked soon. I will keep you posted on what it actually was.

norcan · July 2001

Re. Passenger side rattle. Have you checked the molded plastic (from heater) air deflector on the passenger side of the center console? I'm pretty sure this was cause of intermittent rattle in my '01 ES.

kaiserhead · July 2001

The rattle only appears during hard acceleration, usually above 4000 RPM, and appeared when the car hit 26,000 kilometres on the odometre. It sounds like its coming from the engine compartment, I suspect its a loose cover plate for something.

nikecar · July 2001

???? did I say that? I don't think so.. the only rattle we have is from the driver's side somewhere under the dash.. but its only intermittent.

sfrat · August 2001

Probably a coin or something from the ashtray. On a semi similar note, I bought some felt with adhesive backing at the hardware store, and lined the inside of the ashtray. It considerably reduced the noise from change rattling, almost non existent now.

Steve

norcan · August 2001

!!! OK, no you didn't. Since you have a driver's side rattle can you tell us what you have tried to do about it so far? My tip is to check the air deflectors because they were the cause of an intermittent rattle on my car, I had also looked at the passenger seat, belt assembly, etc.

nikecar · August 2001

well its usually my wife hearing it, and no it isn't any coins or anything for me... I've heard the noise and its behind the dash on the drivers side somewhere behind the instrument panel area. it only pops up occasionally. I did press my hands against various areas, buts its located either under the dash or inside. Once I felt something like a dangling harness that I moved and the noise didn't come up for a while, but the next time it did, I tried moving the harness again and it still rattled, so I doubt it is that. the wife took it to the dealer, but of course unless they hear it, they didn't find anything... so the search is on...

black01coupev6 · August 2001

I think I heard my first rattle yesterday. It was coming from the top of the intrument panel near the air vents. It stopped after a few seconds..I'm hoping it was the heat. With less than 150 miles I would be very disappointed if I started getting rattles this soon.

iamz · August 2001

What I mean by shifts hard is when moving the shift lever from PARK to DRIVE or any other position, there seems to be alot of resistance. I took apart the center console between the seats and could find nothing binding in that area. Also checked under the hood where the cable connects into some kind of rotational shift mechanism. There is a rubber boot that extends from the end of the cable sheathing to the arm on this mechanism, but it (the dust boot) did not appear to be binding.

I have read through the previous 475 postings but can't find a similar problem.

Any ideas guys?

Thanks in advance for any input,
-Terry

maltb · August 2001

The easiest thing to do is disconnect the cable at the trans and see if it is external or internal and go from there.

iamz · August 2001

Thanks for the quick response. That is one thing I wanted to know about. There is a orange painted nut along with the exposed end of a bolt that connects the linkage. How sensitive is the transmission to the possitioning of the linkage when I bolt it back together? Any thing I should worry about?

Thanks,
-Terry

inkmanmac · August 2001

i would like to replace the brake pads on my LX .
can someone tell me what type of pads these are. thanks.

anwarma · August 2001

I have a 99 Protege with 36,900 miles that has been giving this Wierd crackling or vibrating or knocking noise from the front. I hear it only from the front driver side when going over uneven
road surface at a slow speed from 5 mph to 10 mph - No noise at all at higher speed. My ears hear the noise coming from the front
driver side strut but I may be wrong. I am going to take it to the dealer this Monday.

However I would appreciate if any one else had similar situation and would like to tell me what was the problem and how it could have happened and how much it cost to get it fixed.

Will wait for response.

compensate · August 2001

I posted a new topic in the Maintenance/Repairs section, but no one has responded over the past several days, so I thought I'd try it here, since the car is a Protege:

I bought a set of new tires for my 1999 Mazda Protege ES quite a few months ago. They are Nokian Brand (an off-brand), low profile DIRECTIONAL tires.

At first, the tires were great in all aspects. However, over the past few months, the tires have become VERY noisy. The noise now sounds like our Mazda is wearing off-road tires (loud grinding sound). I checked to be sure the tires were installed in the proper direction (since they are directional tires), but that was OK. I had the tires rotated front to rear and balanced, but there was no reduction in noise level.

Also, I did notice some strange looking swirl marks on the sidewalls of a couple of the tires, near the tread, but don't know if this means anything.

Does anyone have any idea why this has happened? Is there a chance one or more belts inside the tire structure have failed?

Please help. The noise level is becoming atrocious.

Thanks!

jstandefer · August 2001

How many miles are on the tires? It's pretty common for tires to become noisier as they wear. Some tires out there can go from fairly quiet to really loud in just a couple of thousand miles. If one of the belts have failed, you should notice so uneveness and bulging around the tire. The tire tread block size can make a big difference too. The larger the blocks, the louder the sound. Directional tires generally have large tread blocks. I have Nitto NT450 directional's on my '99 ES and they have gotten louder with age. I plan on replacing them next month with Dunlop SP Sport 8000's. They are supposed to be quiet and grippy in both the dry and wet. They're $93 each through The Tire Rack's discount price, but with tires you generally get what you pay for. Certainly, anything is better than those evil Potenza's that Mazda put on!

compensate · August 2001

Thanks for the info! However, the noise I am experiencing is VERY loud. If you've ever heard a "monster truck" ride by on a highway, that's what our Protege sounds like now.

It looks like we may have to deal with the sound until we can replace them again. I'm leaning toward the Yokohama Avid T-4, as my wife mainly drives the Protege now and I can't see her getting too concerned with tires with a lower speed rating. Plus they are pretty inexpensive.

Thanks!

jstandefer · August 2001

Everyone I know that has used Yokohama's were pretty happy with them, but they wear fast due to the soft rubber. However, comments and test results I have seen on the Avid's seem very good.

I know the pains of shopping for tires for the Protege ES. The 195/55R15 size limits you to performance tires of the high-price nature. That's why I switched to 205/50R15. The diameter of this size is nearly identical and doesn't require a speedometer calibration. You get a slightly lower profile and wider tread width for better response and traction. Plus, this tire size is much more common and cheaper.

I've looked around at a few websites for some tires that look good. Where are you located? If it snows in your area, do you have seperate snow tires? If you don't get snow in your area, or if you have dedicated snow tires, I would recommend the Continental Sport Contact CV90. It's a performance tire that has good wet and dry traction, quiet ride, comfortable ride, and a long tread life. From the Tire Rack, they cost $62 each.

compensate · August 2001

Cool info. I didn't realize that I could use a 205/50 tire on the same wheel, but, then again, I'm no tire expert. I assume there would be a little speedometer error (maybe 1 or 2 mph diff?). With these larger tires, is your travel speed a little faster or a little slower than what the speedo tells you?

We get little snow here (Nashville, TN area), so I never need snow tires. Thanks for the tip on the Continental (although I owned one set of Continentals that developed sidewall bubbles, so I am a bit leery of using them again).

Thanks again!

nikecar · August 2001

go here...

http://pw1.netcom.com/~sgalaba/tiresize.htm#ustires for speedometer change

or here for graphical overlay of the tire.

http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

jstandefer · August 2001

Thanks for the great link!!! I compared the 195/55 to the 205/50. At 65mph, you lose 1.05mph with the 205's. In other words, your speedometer would have to indicate 66.05mph for you to be travelling 65mph. That's not much of a difference at all!! I've played around with the calculations, and a 215/50R15 tire would have less than .05mph difference at 65mph. These would be great, but I don't think you could fit a 215 on the stock 15" wheels of the Protege. Or can you? Hmmmm....

jstandefer · August 2001

I was playing on the Tire Rack again, and it looks like the Pirelli P7000 215/50R15's are designed to fit 6"-7.5" wide wheels. Well, it just so happens that the Protege ES has 6" wide wheels. Well, well, well... I already know I have plenty of clearance with the 205/50R15's I have now... Bye, bye Dunlop SP Sport 8000's... Hello Pirelli P7000 215's!!! Oh wait... How much more expensive are the Pirelli's? Ouch!!!

chikoo · August 2001

what about the 205/55R15?

nikecar · August 2001

you know.. now that I look hard, I've always misread the darned section.. I always thought it was if you do 65, you actually were at 66.05. cool. better still. then next time I can go for those and the wife can be going slower than the Speedlimit...

and for chikoo... you can go to http://www.discounttire.com/ and they will tell you what the various sizes (including Plus+ sizing) will fit. then you can input them into the previous speedometer links about to get new speeds and sizes in relation to OE.

jstandefer · August 2001

The 205/55R15 is a slightly larger diameter than the 195/55R15. At 65 mph indicated on your speedometer, you are actually travelling 66.2mph. The closest match in diameter to the 195/55R15 is the 215/50R15.

195/55R15
65mph indicated = 65mph actual (0.0%)

205/50R15
65mph indicated = 63.96mph actual (-1.6%)

205/55R15
65mph indicated = 66.2mph actual (+1.85%)

215/50R15
65mph indicated = 65.52 mph actual (+0.8%)

protegextwo · August 2001

Have you head your alignment checked? A misaligned front or rear suspension not only causes strange tire wear, but that chopping tire wear can/will cause a very noticeable deterioration in tire quietness. Camber correction may be required, have your Mazda Dealer check your alignment on an electronic side slip meter.

Respectfully,
Larry

compensate · August 2001

Since the car didn't pull to one side or the other, I didn't even think of alignment as a potential problem. I'll have the dealer check this!

Thanks again!

chikoo · August 2001

jerry,

great info.
I read somewhere that upto 1.5% error on speedo is allowable.

So I guess +0.3% on allowable should be fine?

BTW would 215 width wheels fit in the wheel well?
If YES, I am game!!

maltb · August 2001

don't forget that snow and water traction will diminish with an increase in width.

chikoo · August 2001

That is right Maltb!

Do you have any info on pricing, performance in dry/wet and light snow on TOYO PROXES T-1S?

There is a size which we can use:
205/55VR15 with UTQG 280AA A.

tomciviletti · August 2001

Anyone had any luck debuzzing the dash area ['99es.] It's not the coin slot, ashtray or glove box.

On changing tire sizes: remenber to consider tire-well interference. I'd worry about putting a 215/ on the pro, even if the height is the same as stock. the added width could cause a problem.

Has anyone tried the Kuomo's?

jstandefer · August 2001

"Anyone had any luck debuzzing the dash area ['99es.] It's not the coin slot, ashtray or glove box."

Sure, turn the radio way up. :-)

I have 205/50's on my '99 ES right now and there is still plenty of clearance with the tire-well. I don't think 215's would be a problem, but I will let you all know when I change them in the next month.

protegextwo · August 2001

How many miles did you get out of your Nitto's 205/50 vr 15's? Would you recommend them to a friend?

Respectfully,
Larry

Mazda Protege Maintenance and Repair

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