I keep looking for - but can’t find - info on recommended scheduled maintenance on such critical things as when to change the (manual) transmission fluid, timing belt or chain (I don’t know, it doesn’t say), stuff I’d expect to find in the manual. Is there a separate book with this and how can I get it? Pretty sure it’s a way for the dealer garage to overdo service by keeping you in the dark.
Give Mazda corporate a phone call, and they just might send you a copy of the maintenance schedule for your mystery vintage Mazda 3. Contact info is contained in the Owner’s Manual, for sure.
It is also very possible that you can download a maintenance schedule from Mazda’s website. Have you attempted to do this?
I’d bet too that the service department would download and print a recommended maintenance schedule for your car free of charge.
A Haynes manual from the parts store would also have one.
Check into it, but I bet it has a timing chain, which needs no maintenance, and many makers list no change interval for manual tranny oil. You’re free to change it, 50k miles would be fine in my ‘book’…
I just checked the Gates timing belt catalog, no listing for a Mazda 3, which tells me it’s a chain.
go to www.mazdausa.com, then click owners, then manuals and references and you will find a place to put in your year and model, then everything you want should be available for you.
Thanks for your specific info about the chain and trans oil! I looked at the diff between why you need to change the atf vs manual oil (breakdown vs contaminants) and for manual, they say 30-60K. So 50K sounds good to me for my manual. The dealer, of course, is recommending it now, at 30K.
Also, I do have an owner’s manual. The website has the same thing I have, which is incomplete, to me. I found on a Canadian Mazda forum that for Mazda 3, they used to have this info in 2005, but dropped it in 2006 (why!? - weird). I have a 2008.