Hi there. My wife and I recently drove 170 miles from San Diego to Ventura because we thought we had found the perfect used 2012 Rav 4 from a dealer up there. Well long story short, when we arrived we found the poor little Rav to be in pretty bad shape. Tons of scratches and touch up paint, dents, stains and just really cheap inside (base model). We walked away discouraged. Well there just so happended to be a Toyota dealership across the street so we figured we would stop by to see what they had. They didn't have any Ravs that met our criteria (AWD and prefered white). They did however have this stunning 2010 CX-7 Touring edition with 51k miles. We hadn't been considering something with that many miles but then again it was 4 grand less than we were going to pay for the Toyota and MUCH prettier with heated leather seats etc.. It was already marked way down and we negotiated even further to what we felt was a steal. We spent about 1 hour in the car researching it but that's about all the time we had. Anyway, we love the car. It suits our needs perfectly and drives like a dream compared to the 02 Civic it replaced. However, I'm now finding some very troubling info on forums from people complaining that the turbos and timing chains on this model fail A LOT. I'm really nervous about this because we have a car payment for the next 5 years and really can't afford to drive something that is going to require costly maintenance. I'd love to hear from some satisfied CX-7 (2.3) owners with positive experiences. Anyone out there with a high milage rig without complaints? Thanks for all input!

 

Regular oil changes are a must on any car and the CX7 needs lots of servicing love. Make sure it has had regular oil changes. Turbo's are reliable. Listen for any rattling when started from dead cold-this will indicate timing chain or VVT trouble.

 

Thank you I truly do love this car and plan to take excellent care of it so I'm feeling good about it.

 

The engine is defective and will fail. Mazda will not return your calls when you try to explain and get them to fix the defect. Good luck.

 

Mazda has a defect with the 2.3L Turbo engine. The turbo fan will "come apart" (a quote on the mazda repair order) that will cost $2300 to repair and Mazda will not return your calls when you try to find out about their problem with this issue. Hope you don't get F..ked like I did.

 

X Mazda Fan, what do you base your comments on?

The engine is by no means defective.

The biggest problem is lack of maintenance due to stupid lazy owners/drivers.

In all my years working on CX-7's, i've never seen a turbo "come apart".

Yes, some of the early built ones had defective VVT actuators and even less had issues with the timing chain tensioner.

I've never seen 1 die.

 

I bought the car with 52k mikes on the clock. During the 60k service I had to replace both rear wheel bearings and shocks. It was very expensive. I'm taking her in today for a synthetic oil change at 65k. So far no problems whatsoever with the engine or turbo. Drives like a dream. I wasn't happy about the wheel bearings but I do the full synthetic every 5k and ALWAYS let her idle 30 seconds before shutting her off. I'll keep you posted but so far I like the car.

 

Hi Mandy, ours is a very second hand 2007 model with 165k on the clock. Had some interesting lessons with it. Motor doesn't like the high octane fuel we can get in Australia actually runs better on 92 to 95 octane. Cheaper too. Went to change the front wheel bearings after some horrible noises and found them OK. Problem was hard plastic around the left side brake pads. Must have picked up a plastic bag at some time. Only real issue is with the strange oil filter arrangement on the earlier model. The leak isn't actually the filter itself; it is at the join between the alloy filter housing and the black canister that sits on top of it. Doesn't look hard to fix. I'll get to it next time I change the oil. Found an odd thing when I was looking for the leak though. There is a tiny crack in the alloy of the housing that weeps a little oil. Only about an 1/8" long it opens up as the motor heats up. I'll try to find it from the inside and fill it, not much more than a curiosity in a modern car. We are very fond of this car.

 

Can you elaborate on that? My CX7 started to do a 2 seconds strange sound when started from cold, it sounds like a chain slipping. The sound stops immediately and if I then start again the engine I cannot hear it anymore, that is even a few seconds of engine power and temperature seems to invalidate the problem.
I asked for a quick chain check and nothing resulted.

 

Cold startup rattle is a sign of the variable valve timing actuator slowly dying. May also need a new timing chain & tensioner.