Yesterday and today I completed my 3000 and prewinter service. The pictures are pretyy self explanatory. The exception the condition of the spark plugs. For those that know how to accurately read a spark plug and not those antiquated from the 1950;s charts and pictures, I use octane booster and also 100 octane fuel and even diluted after a few trips to the Chevron to fill up the results will still indicate that type of fuel. In other words, the plugs are firing properly with no issues.

 

 

 

The next task will be to wash the engine compartment

 

Currently I have about 3 years onmy tires and 25,000 miles. They are down to between 0.169- 0.0181 wear. So roughly 1/2 half thier life. I also did a durometer check and that is what got me to go ...yup time change them. Measuring the hardness is as important as measuring the treads depth. At least IMO. The harder the rubber gets the less predictable the tire will be that you are used to steering various conditions. I seldom, and more so almost never give recommendation on forums and threads asking what to use for a tire. It seldom works to help unless you are helping a person with exactly the same platform as you and close to the same driving experience level. So that said I choose this time to go with a wider tire by 1 inch and also a directional type as well. I have personally used this tread design on a a few similar cars and I like the control and steering feedback. I will say I can out drive these tires and have on a road track but then these are primarily for my daily driver Mazda 3. They will be a handling upgrade from the Continental Pure Contact currently on the Mazda but will also be a little noisier. I can live with that. In 2 years, the places I frequently drive are more off the highways and more routes less taken so these will be a treat for sure.

 

HAPPY HOLLOWEEN

 

Well looks like I will be removing my trunk lid to repaint it. We went for a drive ended up in a state park. The parking lot was surrounded with tall pine tree's . No wind nice sunny day. Returned and found a tree limb next to the car. Didn't think nothing about it until this morning when I went out to the garage.
This is in the worst place. Inside the truck the reenforce panel is right aligned with the dimple. So the dent will need to be filled and the whole truck lid repainted. Oh well it happens.. It is still after all a daily driver.

 

I finally got around to changing to my new Raptor tires. I also did a complete undercarriage pressure washing and detailing.

But here is a funny thing...I really am human I know some of you think otherwise. So here is what happened. My dad was coming by to give me a lift with my wheel and new tires up to Firestone fior the mounting and balancing of the tire and wheel only. NO ONE DRIVES MY MAZDA! . In my haste I did 2 errors. Before raising the car on the quick jacks, I did not check the hoist cylinder psi to make sure both sides had 50 psi. Try ZERO psi. First mistake.
The second is I did not set the safety bar on the hoist so that my Mazda was not being held up by the hydraulics alone. I returned to find my MAZDA all the way on the ground. The problem with this is the Quick Jack cannot raise any vehicle form its closed position. I was lucky that by raising the rear with my floor jack I was able to raise the back of the Mazda enough off the quick jack that it started to to cycle properly and raise my car back up off the ground. I was lucky not even a scratch on any of the control arms.

 

 

Cool mod. Would be interesting to see flow data before and after.