Last Friday I took our Mazdaspeed 3 in for its 20,000-mile oil change and tire rotation service. The resulting blog post was pretty routine until the post's comments section where I answered a question about whether we used regular oil or synthetic. I wrote synthetic and "5W20," which was listed on the service invoice. Well, liquoredonlife and ms3fun both caught this as the incorrect recommended oil for a Speed 3.
In fact, the recommended oil is 5W30 (the "30" meaning it has a higher temperature threshold). I looked in the manual to make sure. 5W20 is the recommended oil for regular Mazda 3s, but not the Speed. Then the question was: did the dealer use the right oil in the car and just misprint it on the invoice? After all, "5W30" is printed on the oil filler cap and the Speed 3 has a big, honkin' intercooler on the top of the engine to remind people it's no ordinary 3.
So I called the dealer and talked to the service advisor who wrote me up. He said he didn't know but would find out and call me back. OK, I said. I waited for about 30 minutes. Mentally, I was preparing for the situation where he might say that they did in fact use the right oil. But that was going to be unacceptable in my opinion; given the disparity, it seemed to me that the oil should be changed no matter what. Thankfully, when he did call back he said they did use the wrong oil. He apologized and asked when I could bring the car back. I'll be taking it back tomorrow.
It's annoying and a hassle. But I'm glad some owners caught this. Even if I owned our Speed 3 and knew 5W30 was the right oil, I might not have actually looked at the paperwork. Another reason to change the oil yourself?
Brent Romans, Senior Automotive Editor @ 20,422 miles
liquoredonlife says:
12:43 PM, 10/18/10
"Another reason to change the oil yourself?"
Hit the nail on the head.
Or, head to Walmart, pick up six quarts of your favorite brand of 5W-30 synthetic and watch those technicians like a hawk.
vvk says:
12:44 PM, 10/18/10
I find it impressive that they admitted their mistake and are taking responsibility for it.
ms3fun says:
12:55 PM, 10/18/10
"I find it impressive that they admitted their mistake and are taking responsibility for it."
I think they figured it's cheaper to do a new oil change then having to pay for an engine or turbo under warranty.
cribbing says:
01:36 PM, 10/18/10
Same thing happened to me on my MS3. Not sure how the tech can miss the big red 5W-30 lettering on the oil fill cap.
compliance says:
03:14 PM, 10/18/10
It wouldn't hurt it to run the 5w20 for one change. I'm surprised Mazda recommends 5w30 for the speed3, even the rx8 gets the 5w20 recommendation and the 8 is harder on oil than almost anything.
banhugh says:
03:23 PM, 10/18/10
My 1st Honda dealer put the wrong type of oil in my 1st oil change of my new Accord back in 08. So I switch.
The 2nd Honda dealer charged me but never replaced the air filter, then argued that he didn't have to do so (at 20k miles). So I switched.
The 3rd Honda dealer never rotated the tires despite the $20 charge for it.
Expect what you inspect after a dealer visit. Have them give you the tour of what work they claim they did and try to verify their work. OR DIY...
greenpony says:
04:01 PM, 10/18/10
I know of a dealership that "forgot" the important step of actually putting oil back in... in a turbocharged Subaru.
JayG1989 says:
06:16 PM, 10/18/10
"It wouldn't hurt it to run the 5w20 for one change. I'm surprised Mazda recommends 5w30 for the speed3, even the rx8 gets the 5w20 recommendation and the 8 is harder on oil than almost anything."
The reason is because it's a turbo engine. Forced Induction = higher temperatures.
captobvious says:
06:39 PM, 10/18/10
Reason why i NEVER bring my car in for any "scheduled" maintainence that i can't do myself.
roadburner says:
07:50 PM, 10/18/10
What would concern me is the fact that the MS3 engine has been in production since 2006 and yet -after four years- this dealer STILL doesn't know that 5W-30 is the proper oil.
slickersdrip says:
08:43 PM, 10/18/10
That's pretty maddening. I'm happy the dealer admitted to it... but jeez... as roadburner said, that engine has been in production for four years (and is used in the CX-7 as well) and there is no excuse for a dealer to have an oversight like that.
I went to the same dealership to get my mother's Trailblazer SS (Champion Chevrolet in Austin, TX) to get the oil changed for free because that was their deal upon buying a car there. I just assumed that they gave each car the oil that was recommended (for the SS it's Mobile 1 synthetic) and at the 40,000 mile checkup the service adviser said that the oil change wouldn't be free-- that there would be an additional charge for the synthetic. After further discussion, it turned out they were using dead dinos in all of the free oil changes and never mentioned it. I wonder what kind of horrible damage the engine was enduring before then.
After chewing them out, I got nothing from them. The people at Champion Chevrolet went so far as to forget going into the back seat and leave the seats propped up and the electronics open without a word, I'll never go back. The oversight from some dealership is staggering.
I can't imagine not changing the oil myself on my and my family's car for any reason unless I have no choice.
clarkma5 says:
09:34 PM, 10/18/10
It's good that you caught them on it and they agreed to fix it, but the fact of the matter is that you could probably have gotten away with it, particularly since we're in the winter driving season where temps are cooler. I would've been pretty tempted to say screw it and change the oil right the next time, or maybe just change it in April with the right weight regardless of the mileage on it.
ms3fun says:
01:22 AM, 10/19/10
roadburner says:
07:50 PM, 10/18/10
What would concern me is the fact that the MS3 engine has been in production since 2006 and yet -after four years- this dealer STILL doesn't know that 5W-30 is the proper oil.
I'm pretty sure the dealer knows....but not the probably newly hired high school dropout that gets paid a little more then minimum wage and does all the oil changes. He just knows he has been putting 5W-20 into all Mazda 3's and the Speed3 is a 3 after all.
Sometimes it's just baffling how stupid certain "technicians" are. Years ago I owned a Thunderbird and went to a transmission shop to have the ATF changed. After the work was done, I chatted with the guy who changed the fluid and during the conversation he actually asked me if the car was stick shift or automatic!?!?!?
arcangelcesar says:
06:16 AM, 10/19/10
Is what clarkma5 says correct? don't you normally go down in oil weight for the winter? and by winter I mean mid west, east coast winter. 5w-20 sounds right when its -20 in January in Wisconsin.
also this will be my first winter in my 2010 MS3 is it unsafe to not clean out the snow in the hood scoop? we get some wicked snow here and I can imagine the whole scoop well into the inter cooler packed with the white stuff. I'm sure Mazda did winter testing but what are the long term effects?
will the melting snow from the engine heat flood the inter-cooler ?
these are a lot of questions but any one who really gets Snow has these questions burning in the back of their minds.
stress83 says:
07:42 AM, 10/19/10
What is probably the case is that the dealer's fixed ops (the service and parts side) buys bulk oil. They get the best deal on 5w20 from the distributor, so that's what ALL cars get when they come in. How else do you think they do it when they pull their oil gun from the ceiling? They don't have 4 different guns at each bay.
Unfortunately for the dealer, that's not an excuse. They should know better to recognize that the MS3 is a special circumstance.
liquoredonlife says:
06:09 PM, 10/19/10
Clarkma5 couldn't be any further wrong. The oil is run through the turbo through oil feed lines and under normal driving conditions, that snail will get the oil quite hot. In fact it's recommended when driving hard to let the engine idle for a minute or more to keep feeding oil to the turbo until it cools down where the turbo won't coke the oil.
The latter value you need to maintain as the minimum recommended by the manual. The early value (5 in this case) can be 0 for extremely cold weather conditions (below 0F), so 0W-30 would be fine. But anything -20 would not.
One other consideration- anyone who's owned this car and taken a whiff of the oil fill hole after putting on a few thousand miles on oil can likely attest to a familiar scent of fuel. This is caused by fuel dilution that is likely a combination of this car running rich from the factory as well as being direct injected. Excessive fuel dilution will reduce the oil viscosity. So a 5W-30 oil can become diluted down to a 5W-20. Want to know what'll happen to 5W-20? Well, I don't.
ms3fun says:
04:13 AM, 10/20/10
To arcangelcesar:
The second number on motor oil is the "hot" number. It means the oil viscosity doesn't get too thin with hotter temperature. So a 20 oil will be more liquid (more like water) then a 40 oil at the same temperature. If you're driving in August through Death Valley in 120 Deg. F, the engine is better protected with a 40 oil compared to a 30.
The first number is what you should look at if you have extremely cold winters. As lower the number as colder it can be before the oil gets too "thick and doesn't flow well anymore.
If it gets extremely cold where you are, you are better off at using a 0W oil then a 5W.
I am using Mobil1 0W-40 in my MS3, mainly because I read some European blogs of the MS3 and there had been some engine issues from people that used 5W-30. Over there Mazda changed their recommendation on the MS3 to a 5W-40 or a 0W-40.
I think here they kept the 5W-30 because it gets 1% - 2% better MPG.
arcangelcesar says:
06:56 AM, 10/20/10
Thanks for the tips guys.
roadburner says:
07:24 PM, 10/20/10
"This is caused by fuel dilution that is likely a combination of this car running rich from the factory as well as being direct injected. "
My 2007 MS3 must be an outlier; I have had a UOA performed at every oil change -eleven in all- and the percentage of fuel found in the oil has been found to be less than 0.5% in all but one UOA- and that UOA only found a trace of fuel dilution.