Hello everyone, I have a 2021 Mazda three sedan with the standard 2.5 engine. At the time I purchased a vehicle the salesman told me the oil changes were every 7500 miles. My car happens to burn a little bit of oil and I brought it into the dealership recently. This was about a year after I purchased a vehicle I was told by the dealership service department that Mazda change the oil change interval to 5000 miles when I research the oil change intervals I still find literature for 7500 miles. Right now I am at a 5000 interval and my oil isn’t too dirty or low. My question is do I need to follow the 5000 mile interval to keep my warranty. I know it might sound petty but one of the reasons why I bought the car was for the extended 7500 oil change interval. Over the life of the car that’s going to add quite a bit more oil changes to the maintenance cost. Please let me know what you have heard about this and if you have any links from Mazda, thank you.

 

Welcome to the forum

This is a BIG debate on forums of all platforms.
You can either stay with the recommend service schedule that Mazda gave you with your new Mazda purchase that outlines all the recommended services .... OR... you can do a piece of mind and change the oil and filter service at between 5000 and 7500miles... OR you can do at least one oil analysis and see what is going on in the oil and then make a judgment when to change your oil based on the report.
Blackstone Laboratories (blackstone-labs.com)


What you can't do is look at the oil and determine its relative condition information with an engine with so low mileage.
The main reason is different suppliers of motor oil will be different color and clarity density.

It really as simple as that. Now you can wait for the flood of responses or go to any vehicle forums and read the hundreds of thoughts on the question and subject. LOL

My own personal Mazda gets a new filter and oil at 3000 miles. Even when my current oil analysis suggests I could go 5 to 7 k miles. Oil and filters are cheap and a piece of mind that I am taking care of the engine to have long happy life.

 

I would say your approach is overkill and the rest of the car will fall apart long before the engine does. Your suggestions imply there is not a right answer to the problem and I fundamentally disagree with your approach on having multiple options. Remember my primary concern is warranty coverage, thanks for responding.
There has to be something in writing on any changes made to the servicing but I’m not seeing it online. Various dealership websites call for 7500k , nothing about 5k changes.
A manufacturer can void your warranty if you don’t follow their recommendations and if I don’t need 5k changes then it’s not worth it. The car was bought to commute to work so I won’t do anything that unnecessarily adds costs to a work car. I see no need to do 5k changes unless it’s a Mazda requirement, I am trying to keep my warranty for being voided.
Anyone have information on the official oil change interval on the 2021 2.5 engines? Or just let me know what’s in your manual please? Mine shows 7500 with full syn oil.

 

Ansan: You ask for opinions & when you get input you critize the response. Calisto is consider to be a "extremely knowledge resource". He gave you excellent advice. His mention of the 3000 miles was what he felt comfortable for his vehicle. He never recommended this for others. Why do you request assistance on a forum & then critize a responce?.

 

My car will not fall apart but I can see with your thoughts yours likely will! LOL
BTW the automatic transmission has no service scheduling and Mazda claims it to be a lifetime transmission. Will see you post HELP ME when you start to get close or unove the 100K miles.
HMM I thought I was being very helpful and felt you were genuinely looking for help. Not a challenge? LOL Guess I will know better in the future with questions you ask! HA!
LOL well I am used to members on forums challenging my information. But in this case as I said do what you want. I actually have imperial data from dozens or more oil analysis that support everything I posted having to do with information regarding the condition of oils at various miles.! And I also said that you can do the same. To argue that my information is invalid "BECAUSE" your opinion with no supporting information and then cancel out my suggestions I wonder why you even asked a question on a forum in the first place. I also opened my response with saying the sort of question you asked about oil always gets debates and arguments but in reality, very few members anywhere post documentation to support the armchair theories!
As far as the warranty you are half correct but also half WRONG. Doing any pre "recommended scheduled service" WILL NIOT void a warranty. Also, anything that may be considered a disallowed warranty claim must be proven by the auto manufacture that the lack of the recommend service or delay, or in the subject of this thread you started the use of a none recommend oil viscosity or pre-oil service interval caused the failure and subsequent determination to not warranty. This is likely why there has never been a legal court suit with someone choosing their own viscosity oil to use outside the recommend oil in the USA.EVER!

Here is what I get from what in my humble opinion you really don't know about an auto dealership. They are an independently owned business with a contract that can and does vary between dealerships and auto manufactures. The dealership can and often will deny some warranty claims at their level. They or the owner of the vehicle can request an escalation of any warranty to go to the Corp office of the auto manufacture. Service departments can and often times do set their own advice and recondition for service recommended work which is at least what the auto manufacture recommends. Uness there is the exact wording REQUIRED by the auto manufacture for any service or use of materials then some service recommendation can be modified to fit the area location of a dealership having any specific influence that operating the vehicle may need to adjust a service recommendation as long as the basic recommended of miles to service is not exceeded.
The chosen use of any viscosity motor oil as long as it meets the SAE or other refined formula standard set by the auto manufacture can be used and WILL NOT VOID the auto manufactures WARRANTY.

Bottom line I would in your Case that's YOUR CASE stay with everything you received pertaining to your MAZDA regarding the warranty and the service scheduling. If you did not get the OWNERS PACK information I highly recommend thet YOU get one. DONT FORGET the SERVICE SCDULING INFORMATION!

BTW and for others reading. MAZDA originally used a oil service scheduling for Skyactiv engines to be 10K miles or every year. They revised that later. However, anyone even a dealership that followed that scheduling would never get a warranty voided.
This my SHOP personal MAZDA Authorized Service and procedure Manual.

Hmmm lookie there. LOL

 

Can't answer the OP's question but reading this I'm wondering why the US has such low oil change intervals compared to the UK.

My current car is a UK spec Ford which has a 2 year or 18,000 mile oil change interval (whichever is sooner).

My Mazda 3 is due to be delivered next week and the oil change interval on that is listed as 1 Year or 12,500 miles.

Surely US spec. cars can't be that different mechanically from UK spec ones?

Many years ago I had a VW Golf GTi (think it was marketed as a Rabbit in the US) and I used to change the oil in that every 20,000 miles, never had any problems with it and it went on to last for over 250,000 miles before somebody crashed into me and wrote it off.

 

Welcome to the forum

Changing the oil at sooner intervals does lower the tailpipe emissions. US regulations requirements for emission are very strict on auto manufactures!
Also lot has to do with what the market is to sell oil is. There are deals and contracts made with auto manufactures that most never get to see or know about.

As for the often seen read and told comment "Never had any problems" this has almost never been supported and in my line of business those engines are actually seldom ever in the best performing condition they could be in had more frequent oil and filter services had been done. In your example of how you oil serviced the engine at those miles the first thing I would have done is a rigorous engine internal cleaning with high detergent oils several time to flush out most of the buildup residue from those long extend oil changes. The combustion chamber cleaning which would hopefully clean the behind the piston rings and ring lands were carbon built up will have been growing also from those long oil interval changes. Simply drawing the oil pan and inserting a paper towel or white rag on a flexible clamp would have results in a sludge that had formed at the bottom of the oil pan also again from those long-extended oil change services. Having an oil analysis of oil from a engine having long interval changes would have surely shown large percentages of less desirable results. Can't argue pure facts form an analysis.

However, I can tell you that no matter what any service schedule is for any engine (gasoline) Empirical Data of oil analysis shows that in the best of conditions the engine oil should be changed no more then 15k miles. And the first oil and filter should really be done at or sooner then 3k miles and then a follow up at no more than 5k miles. Naturally if you follow your Service guide in your country given to you then should you have a problem the Warranty will be there for you?

I would think that you would want to take care of a NEW engine and transmission and oil and filters are cheap and insurance that you will have started a good routine to maintain a well running and reliable engine?

 

I wasn't aware that longer oil change intervals impacted much on tailpipe emmissions so I can see where that might be an issue with local regulations.

Even so, the oil change intervals of 3K & 5K miles seem very low from my experience in the UK.

I've been driving for over 40 years and I've never owned a car yet that had oil/filter changes recommended at less than 10K.

As per my example of the VW Golf I've never had any issues of reliability or poor performance with any of my cars when using the manufacturers recommended intervals.

I used to take the VW on the occasional track day too and had it put up on the Dyno about once every 2 years or so and it was still giving aboout 95% of it's original power with about 160,000 on the clock.

Unfortunately UK prices for oil/filter changes aren't particularly cheap (need to be done at a dealer to maintain the warranty) around about £300 for my last one not sure what that is in $'s (about $360 I think)
As I've never had a problem with any of my vehicles I've always stuck to the manufacturers recommendations.

Just wondered why US recommendations seemed much lower then UK ones and you've answered that thanks .

 

As a new member, this is a MAZDA forum not VW.
IT really is not the best idea to compare a vehicle that is for the most part completely different from most all Mazda and specially any of the Mazda with Skyactiv engines!
The Dyno information while it is nice to know I would really need to see the complete run and how the program for the Dyno was set up! Also, why every 2 years?
Not that it matters but since I purchased my Mazda in Oc 2018 I have no less than a dozen or more Dyno runs?
You experience driving for 40 years not sure what this means for me 48 years LOL
The cost of oil and filter is cheap when compared to preventive maintenance.
Auto manufactures are really only concerned with getting through the basic warranty periods.
Service intervals are generally written under advisement of many factors not all about what is best for the vehicle after system and parts fall out of the warranty.
And lastly HOW DO YOU KNOW the true condition of your engine and transmission based on the phrase you never had a problem. Maybe you just don't remember or have only owned a couple of vehicles cuzzz everyone I have known has had some problem at some time with some vehicle they have owned. LOL? As of last year, in the shop having service close to 1000 vehicles I always hear some customers say I have never had a problem until...... LOL

 

Yes I realise it's a Mazda forum, I've just joined in anticipation of my new Mazda 3 Skyactive X being delivered next week

I wasn't comparing the oil change intervals or the reliability of the VW vs Mazda as such, just using it as an example of the much higher intervals that we seem to have in the UK vs US and the fact that it remained reliable and still performed well over quite a high mileage whilst using the manufacturers recommendations.

I only used to get the VW dyno'd every few years just to keep tabs on the state of the engine, having a car dyno'd in the UK in the 1980's was a pretty rare thing as there weren't many places offering that facility. It was also expensive so I only did it occasionally.

I've had a fair few cars in my 42 years of driving and driven an average of 35-40,000 miles a year for most of them.
Had about 5 used Fords (Cortinas, Escorts and Sierras) mostly bought with about 30,000 on the clock, never had any engine problems with any of them.
Most problems with those early 1970's and 80's models were with things like water pumps and electrical faults and just general rusting.

The VW never missed a beat, only thing I replaced was the battery, exhaust (rusted after 5 years) and the brake discs/pads, if my memory serves me correctly I think I changed the clutch at about 110,000 miles.

Had a few Toyota MR2's which only ever needed rear brake calipers which seemed to fail fairly regulalry for some reason.

More recently I've gone back to Ford (Fiesta with the 140 PS 1 litre ecoboost engine) and that's the car with the 18,000 mile or 2 years service/oil change interval. Again I've usually taken them close to the 18,000 miles (about 6 months for me) before I get the oil change/service and have never had any problems.
I understand your point about the cost of oil being relativley cheap compared to any issues that may arise from longer intervals, but I can only go by my experience in that I've never had any issues.
Maybe I'm just lucky or maybe it's my driving style

True I can't know for sure about the state of my engine (I've only ever had manual shift cars so transmission fluid is not an issue), and most post 1990's cars with manual gearboxes here don't require any oil changes, they are sealed for life. But the way I see it is if I've never had any reliabilty problems or performance issues in over 40 years I can't be doing anything badly wrong.

Anyway, back to Mazda ...... I've finally chosen to go for a Mazda as the Ford I wanted is no longer being produced. My main concern was getting a car which handles well and is reliable and has good mpg.

My current Fiesta has been all of those, I'm getting about 55mpg average in the summer months and about 48mpg in the colder weather. That's a big factor over here as Petrol is extremely expensive now, around about $10 a gallon in your prices and US Gallons.
There's a guy who comes into my local pub who has the Mazda 3 Skyactive X and he has been very happy with it and is getting about 58mpg so it was high on my list of potential next cars.

Hopefully my run of reliable cars will continue with the Mazda which will be getting 3 oil changes per year with its very low (by UK standards) 12,500 mile intervals.