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Yeah, I feel like I've tried every local mechanic near me and never been that impressed, even with people with amazing reviews (though mostly I was underwhelmed because they want to do work that I know is unncessary or charge me $100 for a $10 part and its a part that's crap quality). But, for...

He was okay with me bringing in the clutch kit myself if I want to, so I assume he'd be okay with me getting the rear main seal from Mazda. I hadn't considered that there would be much risk of mechanic error. Is it a tricky job? I guess I could wait and if he says it's leaking, then get the part...

What about an OEM rear main seal, from Mazda? Is it plausible that even that is not good quality anymore?

I need to have the clutch on my 2006 Mazda 3 replaced (I've got 177k miles on the car, with the original clutch). I know people always say you should do the rear main seal, while the transmission is out. But I was talking to a well recommended local transmission shop, the guy seemed really...

I had a similar thing happening with my system. It seemed like it was especially under load, either accelerating to get on the freeway or going up a very steep hill. There were two things wrong with my system, the clutch was literally falling halfway off the compressor and I had a leak, so I was...

I think it's pretty well understood at this point that it is time and not miles that determines battery failure. With the early Priuses, you saw all these posts about how someone went 200K or 300K miles and the battery was still fine. But these were heavily used cars that did it in short periods...

Well, I installed the compressor, new discharge line, and drier and then borrowed a vacuum pump and manifold gauges from Autozone yesterday and recharged the system myself. There were no leaks (I was really dreading that there would be) and everything is working great. My old compressor, with...

Somewhat tangentially related to this question: When I installed my new compressor, drier, and discharge/high pressure line, I added 3 oz of oil to the compressor and 1.5 oz to the discharge line. When I pull a vacuum on the system, before charging it, how is the vacuum pump not going to suck...

I wish Mazda offered more interesting versions of the Mazda 3. The fuel economy is the one thing that's really disappointing on this car. In Europe they have diesels and the SkyActiv X, but in the U.S. the options are so limited. My partner does have a Prius, so I appreciate the heads up...

I replaced the ac compressor in my Mazda 3 and now need to recharge the system. I was going to take it into an ac shop to have it charged, but they're not available until Monday, so now I'm thinking of borrowing the vacuum pump and manifold gauge set from O'Reilly's and just doing it myself, for...

@JGmazda Good luck with your repairs. Hope it goes well.

@wtd Thanks. Yeah, that's what I did, I put the extra oil in the high pressure line. I found that suggestion already in a YouTube video. Actually, if anyone is interested, this video is probably the best thing I found on YouTube about dealing with the oil in the AC system. I guess this guy is an...

Well, I only got 0.7 oz out of the old compressor (I took my time and turned the clutch a lot--there was really not even a drop left coming out). The tech who evacuated the system said the machine pulled out 1.75 oz. I wonder if that really all came from the compressor? So if I follow your...

@nthach Thanks. Yes, I think that's all been pretty much covered above in the thread, but I appreciate your summary of the usual advice.

@justalubetech Thanks for your thoughts. My compressor came with only shipping oil in it, so I have to drain it. And since I have a leak in the high pressure line, which I'm replacing, I need to compensate for that. Plus whatever was in the drier, which I'm replacing. They also warn you in the...

This is kind of a silly question, but I can't figure out if the compressor I'm installing has an oil drain plug or not. There is a big bolt or nut on the bottom of the compressor that looks like somthing that would be a drain plug. But it has a foil sticker on the top of it and if you push down...

Both of the lines to the drier connect on the bottom. It seems like if I pour oil in there, it's going to drain back out when I install the drier. It would be hard, I'd think, to turn it rightside up with the ports down and connect both lines quickly enough not to have oil running out.

Thanks. Yeah, draining the old compressor is what the service manual says to do.

So I had the system evacuated. The technician at the AC shop said the machine pulled 1.75 oz of oil out with the evacuation. He also said that they always make sure there are 4 to 5 oz directly in the compressor, before they install it. I explained that the spec from the Mazda service manual...

Yeah, I used to follow the user reported repair ratings on my year Mazda3 at the site TrueDelta. It seemed like I was having a lot more frequent repairs than most other owners of 2006 Mazda3s. I got the car with 30K miles on it, so maybe the original owner really abused it (though it looked and...