Today I picked up a 2017 Mazda 3 Touring in soul red metallic. Absolutely gorgeous. I work for Grubhub and I was driving a 2017 Toyota prius which is a good car for it but I got sick of the way it drives and of course the way drivers act around me while I was driving it. The overall stigma really sucked. So I told myself I'll take half the miles per gallon for double the smiles per gallon. And here I am. This Mazda 3 is an automatic. I absolutely love it. The steering is engaging. The throttle especially in sport mode is immediate. I want this car to last me a long time. Would it be a good idea to do full synthetic oil changes every 5k to make sure the engine is in good condition to get to 200k to 300k? Thanks.
Best OCI to make it to 200k to 300k.
- Thread starter Jbrow327
- Start date
What does Mazda say to do? 
Do you live in an area where rust is a problem? If so, you'll want to get rustproofing done on it (Krown, Noxudol, etc). In much of the country, rust is a big deal, and a big problem with Mazda, too. The car will rust before you have any problems with the engine or transmission.
Do you live in an area where rust is a problem? If so, you'll want to get rustproofing done on it (Krown, Noxudol, etc). In much of the country, rust is a big deal, and a big problem with Mazda, too. The car will rust before you have any problems with the engine or transmission.
I follow Volvo’s service interval (7,500 miles for OCI) and oil specifications (A3/B4) on my wife’s XC which now has 268,000 miles on it. Internals of the engine are clean, the turbo is original. Even the transmission is original to that car.
Stick with what Mazda recommends, you’ll get to 200,000 miles on the engine easy, the challenge tends to be keeping the rest of the car intact to that age. Salt, rust, other component failures often make the engine the least of your worries.
Stick with what Mazda recommends, you’ll get to 200,000 miles on the engine easy, the challenge tends to be keeping the rest of the car intact to that age. Salt, rust, other component failures often make the engine the least of your worries.
Any engine if it's not abused should last 250K+ miles on 5K mile conventional OCI's. I'm currently running conventional 10w40 in my '16 Versa and doing a 7500 mile OCI. The oil still looks and feels clean at oil change time and is a dark honey color on the dipstick. I do an oil blot test every 1500 miles and the blot test still looks good at 7500 miles. If I were running synthetic I'd run it at least 10K miles and maybe as much as 15000 depending on how it was looking on the blot test. I ran an '88 Ford Escort to 518K miles on conventional 10w40. Over it's lifetime the oil change intervals started at 3K and increased to 5K years before I quit using it.
What does Mazda say to do?
Do you live in an area where rust is a problem? If so, you'll want to get rustproofing done on it (Krown, Noxudol, etc). In much of the country, rust is a big deal, and a big problem with Mazda, too. The car will rust before you have any problems with the engine or transmission.
+10000
That is exactly what I was going to say. If you live where salt is used on the roads in the winter, definitely get that Mazda rust-proofed by some professional rust-proof company ASAP. Rust is Mazdas weak point.
They have a great design of the way they pair the exhaust of cylinders to provide a continual flow of exhaust to keep the turbo spinning very well at the low RPMs which results in an engine with plenty of power and good throttle response even when asking for acceleration when the engine has been running at low RPMs (ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM), which is where many other manufacturers using turbos have problems with throttle response.
But rust will do them in if you live in a rust belt area.
Zee09
$200 Site Donor 2023
If cash isn't an issue I'd use full synthetic every 7500 miles with a top tier filter.
Nick1994
$100 site donor 2024
Toyotas do fine on 10k mile OCIs, why not Mazdas?
He's driving for grubhub so cash is an issue. With that kind of mileage, he could easily go 10k on synthetic and he'd be changing the oil every 2.5 months. Walmart Supertech is fine unless he can find some clearance oil at Autozone if there's any left.
Zee09
$200 Site Donor 2023
He was willing to go 5k instead so his money was getting stretched already at 7500 right?
AutoMechanic
Site Donor 2024
I recommend doing as the owners manual says. Personally I never go above 5000 miles but that’s just me I’m old school.
Yeah, but there's a difference between spending money wisely and recklessly and he came here asking for advice. I used to go 7500 with synthetic blend and never had an issue with the engine. I do 10k now on synthetic. If OP was worried about it, I'd do 7500 with synthetic and get a UOA and if they say it's good, do 10k. It'd probably be fine. Waste of money to keep getting them all the time.
Here's what Mazda says:
To summarize the document above, you should change every 5000 miles as delivery service would fall into maintenance schedule 2. OR, you can just rely on the computer to track your driving and tell you when to change it.
To summarize the document above, you should change every 5000 miles as delivery service would fall into maintenance schedule 2. OR, you can just rely on the computer to track your driving and tell you when to change it.
I agree about taking all precautions against rust. I don't live in a rust prone area but, when I had a Mazda B2000 years ago it developed 2 or 3 holes nearly big enough to stick my head in. I've never owned another brand automobile that had rust problems like the Mazda did.
AutoMechanic
Site Donor 2024
Really? I’ve got an 89 B2200 it’s solid I’m in the south so not much rust here the only thing that has rusted out on it was the tailpipe rusted in half but that’s it their is no rust on the body at all or frame.
While I agree with you on taking precautions against rust, I never really see car washes with under carriage washes being mentioned. I do that with my car all the time. Usually get it washed a couple of times after a snow storm. The first wash doesn't always get off all the salt and there's still salt on the road a couple days after a storm so usually a few more days afterwards to get rid of any extra it might have picked up in the meantime. I had a Taurus at one point where the wheel wells on my car never got rusty but it was very common to see them around with the wheel wells all rusted. For me, the car lasted over 15 years before the torque converter went and I got rid of it.
Just keep it well supplied with oil. 230+ K Miles on 08 Forester. Probably averaged 6K miles oci. Probably no difference if I woujld have gone 8K miles
