In honor of "710 day", I performed the first oil change in my new Mazda6 yesterday evening. I went with the Mazda GF-5 w/Moly 0W-20 oil and a Mazda filter. (Go ahead BITOG, tell me I wasted money by draining my FF at 2,100 miles ; )
In spite of this being my first OC on this car, the operation went very smoothly. I had already purchased the correct allen head socket, filter cap socket, and drain plug crush washers (thanks to information gathered from BITOG!) The only hiccup was discovering how fast warm 0W-20 flows out of a drain plug hole - fortunately, spillage was minimal.
I also found a new, interesting way to document my oil changes. The labels on the Mazda oil quarts are stickers, and they peel off easily - so I peeled the front and back off all 5 bottles and applied them to a piece of copier paper, then wrote the date, mileage, and the oil's lot number at the top. Folded in half, that piece of paper fits perfectly in the owner's manual case.
Now I get to contemplate my second OC. What do you think, another 2,900 on this fill (to make it an even 5,000), or take this fill out 5,000 for a total of 7,100? (FWIW, my commute to work is only 2 miles; I do get the oil up to temp a few times a week, but definitely not every day. I'm confident I'd fit under Mazda's 'severe' service schedule of 5,000 mile OCIs)
In spite of this being my first OC on this car, the operation went very smoothly. I had already purchased the correct allen head socket, filter cap socket, and drain plug crush washers (thanks to information gathered from BITOG!) The only hiccup was discovering how fast warm 0W-20 flows out of a drain plug hole - fortunately, spillage was minimal.
I also found a new, interesting way to document my oil changes. The labels on the Mazda oil quarts are stickers, and they peel off easily - so I peeled the front and back off all 5 bottles and applied them to a piece of copier paper, then wrote the date, mileage, and the oil's lot number at the top. Folded in half, that piece of paper fits perfectly in the owner's manual case.
Now I get to contemplate my second OC. What do you think, another 2,900 on this fill (to make it an even 5,000), or take this fill out 5,000 for a total of 7,100? (FWIW, my commute to work is only 2 miles; I do get the oil up to temp a few times a week, but definitely not every day. I'm confident I'd fit under Mazda's 'severe' service schedule of 5,000 mile OCIs)
