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Do you mean around the body panels, or under the car as well? Undercarriage rust has been pretty scary on the 2nd gen ones I've looked at. Though I might be spoiled coming from a German car... Body panels have all seemed fine, though.

Thanks, folks! Rust seems to be a big issue on these cars. The extent of it on the cars I'm seeing is... not encouraging.

Strongly considering buying a 2011+ Mazda5 (the mini-minivan, not the CX-5). Anyone know of a good forum for this car? Or at least for Mazdas generally? Most of what I've seen for the 5 seems primarily aimed at the pre-facelift (2010 and older), and a lot of it is buried in subforums – though...

One time, my wife and I had to go to a town with a lot of casinos, and the cheapest way to get there was by bus. The bus tickets came with a slot credit. When we got there, we used the slot credit at one of the machines, cashed out every time we won, and never put a cent back in. Free bus...

Need a PPI on a car I might want to buy. I want someone who 1. Knows their way around late C-car platform cars, and 2. Will tell me about anything and everything that might affect quality of life for the next 5-7 years. Any recommendations?

I like!

Gotta be Castrol at this point, I'm thinking. The switch from Shell to Castrol was announced early 2021, and all the oil I've had analyzed since then (3 OCIs' worth so far) has had a noticeably different additive package (e.g. there is titanium now). Are you aware of any VOAs on this stuff, by...

Previous UOA here. 142308 miles on the engine at the time of this sample. Shortly after the beginning of this OCI, the car registered misfires on all bank 2 cylinders, throwing the car into limp mode. Ended up driving it (gently) with that problem recurring periodically for somewhere between...

So here's why I'm looking at this but not urgently: 1. Car has >140k miles on it 2. Has consumed oil since I got it >60k miles ago, though I can't tell how much was from leaks (just fixed) vs. burning 3. Occasionally throws ghost codes (no CEL) for cat efficiency; I'm pretty sure those have...

My car has 4 cats and they have to be able to withstand a good amount of heat. “Biting the bullet” is not trivial. >$3k for a good aftermarket option, >$5k for refurbished OE. Dropping the exhaust, by contrast, is not hard (I can do it alone on my back if necessary), and I’ll probably have to...

Came across that. Avoiding it. The fact that I don't know anything about this topic makes me leery of anything he says on it (I wouldn't be able to separate fact from fiction myself).

Seems like there are a lot of purported ways to clean a catalytic converter (lacquer thinner, dish soap + water, etc.). The discussion I've seen seems to focus on which methods do or don't restore efficiency in the short term. That's great, but what I want to know is which treatments might or...

Ah. I plan to keep it as long as I need a single car that does everything from errands to family trips to track days – and not a moment longer. No idea how long that'll be, though. :ROFLMAO:

Why do you ask?

😂 No worries. It is kind of mystifying that they used the "TwinPower Turbo" branding for this oil given that exactly zero turbocharged engines spec it.

Nope. 100% stock powertrain.

xW-60 should be above 21.9 cSt @ 100º C. All runs with the previous version of this oil ended up below 19. This version stayed at or above 19. The high-RPM (8k+) naturally aspirated engines from BMW's M division all spec a 10W-60. Not 10W-60 generally, or 10W-60 oils that meet a certain...

Previous UOA here. 136939 miles on the engine at the time of sampling. Longer OCI this time. Figured that wouldn't be horrible given that a lot of these miles were from multiple 7+ hour road trips. Just after this OCI, I had a crazy misfire issue that seems to have been due to an O2 sensor...

The base fuel, yes. Not necessarily the additives. Nope. Like I said, it was only on cold starts, and only when I used one brand almost exclusively for weeks/months, and I didn't notice any other differences (power, mpg, hot starts, etc.).

This might be a car-specific thing -- not just make and model but individual builds. My previous car was a Mazda RX-8; my current car is an '08 BMW M3. Both have low-volume, very high RPM, largely hand-assembled engines that are unrelated to other models (especially the RX-8). Plenty of scope...