MAZDA 6

[ER-3682]

8 hours ago, Tlks said:

Hi all Mazda 6 owners, which year model you think is the best? And which year model has the most problems? 

2013,1st Batch best...

[macrosszero]

21 hours ago, Snagguy said:

@ER-3682 thanks for the advice!

the car is at 93300 mileage actually.. didn’t hear much sound for the suspension though.. 

 

will check out the side mirror and battery! Is there any reputable workshop in the west that I can visit? Hahhaa

As with any used car, do bring it back to the AD for a check when it was last there for a service and at what mileage.

[Snagguy]

16 minutes ago, Macrosszero said:

As with any used car, do bring it back to the AD for a check when it was last there for a service and at what mileage.

Thanks a lot for the advice!

[yellowshaun]

3 hours ago, ER-3682 said:

2013,1st Batch best...

After which year then got the istop and autofold mirrors?

[ER-3682]

23 minutes ago, yellowshaun said:

After which year then got the istop and autofold mirrors?

All Models have i-Stop.

[Davidklt]

4 hours ago, ER-3682 said:

2013,1st Batch best...

Why first batch best ? 

[ER-3682]

Just now, Davidklt said:

Why first batch best ? 

Used until Today..only changed 1 set of HID Bulbs & Gear Selector Bulb..

[Acewin]

14 minutes ago, ER-3682 said:

Used until Today..only changed 1 set of HID Bulbs & Gear Selector Bulb..

I fully agree as long as MIJ the quality is there. I owe a Vios MIT then Sylphy MIJ now Elantra MIK from my personal experience MIJ is the 👍. Look like I have to change to Mazda 6 but this out of my budget siah. Sad

[yellowshaun]

12 hours ago, Acewin said:

I fully agree as long as MIJ the quality is there. I owe a Vios MIT then Sylphy MIJ now Elantra MIK from my personal experience MIJ is the 👍. Look like I have to change to Mazda 6 but this out of my budget siah. Sad

Like to elaborate about the things that spoilt in each car and at what mileage?

[maxbuzz37]

@Acewin 

totally agree, driving a mazda 6 2019 exe currently. value for $$ MIJ car.102k at 39k COE

My mum had an altis 2012 (MIT) although its dual vvti, the fitting is like shit. nth spoil during the 5 years its just the leather quality and the hard plastic is shitty, u can feel the overall built quality just isnt there. The 2005 corrolla (shaped like a bun which is MIJ) solid built quality, mum drove it till scrap. 

My 1.6M Civic 2010 also drive till scrap, the MIJ built quality is really there. Not much issue car but the OMV too high so did not wanna renew.

MIJ cars have this built quality (solid feel) you cant quantify. The ADs here for some models charge u the MIJ price but u are getting the MIT quality so in my opinion, get a true MIJ jap brand car if possible.  

[Tlks]

@maxbuzz37 I read that the 2018,2019 model got some problems? The folding mirrors and the sound from suspension? Correct me if I'm wrong.  

[maxbuzz37]

My personal experience is my folding mirrors are working. The suspension are noisy on a wet day, i have checked with monster garage and its a norm for mazda cars. 

U can change it to those by autoexe if u want at monster garage.

The 2 problems you mentioned are not major issues. My feel is that if its transmission or engine problems that is a big issue for u not to buy mazda 6. Anw i also dun go back to AD, all servicing done at Monster garage.

My civic FD also have suspension problems between the 6th and 7th year.

No offence but if u are so scared of those problems and is going to lose sleep over it, u are better off not buying a car. 

 

Edited August 7, 2021 by maxbuzz37

[Acewin]

@yellowshaun 

On 8/6/2021 at 12:42 AM, yellowshaun said:

Like to elaborate about the things that spoilt in each car and at what mileage?

The Vios at 2nd onwards year has alot of funny sound like something loose from door panel to back seat which my Father always say got some funny vibration at certain speed around 60 to 70Km/h sold off at 4th year trade in for Sylphy all good normal wear and tear so no issue drive till 9.5 years trade in for Elantra steering shaft sound went in agent more than 3 times still cannot resolve though the sound became softer they say it normal all Elantra like that.

[Tlks]

@maxbuzz37 thanks for your info. I believe it's not about being so scare but rather gaining more information.i.e research. Eg, if u are going to buy an electric car now, will u check on the pros n cons ? Hope that clarifies

[Kia7200]

On 8/7/2021 at 6:29 PM, Tlks said:

@maxbuzz37 I read that the 2018,2019 model got some problems? The folding mirrors and the sound from suspension? Correct me if I'm wrong.  

The foldable mirror can be resolve by putting silicon wd40 at one spot

[arataka]

After almost 2 months of ownership and a little less than 3000km mileage on the Mazda 6 2.0L executive, I thought of putting up some follow up thoughts. The overall sentiment is truly value for money for what you get - the size, safety, handling, aesthetics, interior. Personally, I think it's impossible to find a nicer looking interior at this and even higher price points. When I went for my first service, I had itchy fingers and went to test drive the Lexus IS hybrid, and BMW 3 series. No doubt they are better drives due to the hybrid powertrain on the lexus and turbocharged engine on both. To be frank, the Mazda 2.0L is underpowered. But there is where I feel the advantage ends. I feel the difference in NVH, comfort, technology and interior is not substantial and at times not noticeable. And most definitely I am not getting 100k more worth of car. So on to my opinions: 

 

a) Engine and Power

The engine is loud. Especially at about 3-4k rpm, the engine gives out an unpleasant high pitch roar. I can't definitively say that it is underpowered because the car does move when you put your foot to the pedal. But the engine roar gives you the impression that is struggling. My wife who is heavier footed than me echoes this sentiment. The gear shift can also be a little unresponsive. It took me about 500km before learning the shifting pattern to avoid shift shocks, and I still get them occasionally when climbing particularly steep ramps or hills. This is the only characteristic of the car that gave me some buyer's remorse. Too bad, TEK has discontinued the 2.5L.

 

b) i-STOP

Because of the way I brake, I don't activate the i-STOP unintentionally. You have to actually press the brake pedal quite hard when the car is in a complete stop to activate it. As I come to a stop, I usually lighten up on the brakes to reduce brake jerk to give my passengers a more pleasant ride, thereby also preventing i-STOP from activating even in a complete stop. Therefore, I am able to decide whether I want i-STOP to activate depending on the traffic lights condition. Interestingly, the electronic brake hold activates at a slightly lighter brake depression than i-STOP making it very convenient for me to control whether I want to activate 'Hold' only or 'Hold and iSTOP' or none at all.

 

c) Infotainment

I find it perfect and absolutely love the simplicity of the design and the use of the rotary wheel to navigate. I have personally never liked the use of touchscreens in a car. I way prefer tactile feedback especially when driving. I have 2 gripes with the system: firstly its the slow startup, and secondly if the passenger wants to change the radio station, he/she needs to exit my navigation screen to get to the radio channel select screen. Anyway most of this is moot because with Android Auto, I am rarely ever on Mazda's OS. I control both my navigation and entertainment needs using Google Assistant.

 

d) Quality of Life issues

- Lack of boot release button in the cabin. This is just plain silly

- Lack of central locking button in the cabin. A small but surprising inconvenience because it is supposed to be a premium make in the Mazda line.

- Very small glove compartment. Can't even fit A4 documents. Also if there is a front passenger, it cannot fully open because it will be blocked by passenger legs.

- Very small central storage compartment. Cannot fit a box of tissue.

- Placement of front USB port inside the central storage is weird. This results in the only logical place to put the phone is in the cup holders.

- Cup holder location is weirdly designed too, a tall water bottle or large Mcdonald cup or my handphone with the cable pointing upwards would make it uncomfortable to access the gear stick.

- The rear hump is gigantic - not only is it tall, but its also very wide. To make matters worse, the centre seat is raised a little too high. With a child car seat installed, it can get uncomfortable for 2 adults to sit behind. The person in the centre will not be able to comfortably rest their feet on the hump but will need to straddle it.

- Interior lights not LED

- The walk away lock is far from perfect. Admittedly this is the first time I am owning a car with walk away lock. The distance from car that activates the autolock is so small. Just moving around the car from driver to front passenger side locks the car. And if any door is opened when you move away from the car, the autolock will never activate even after the door is closed. For example, after parking, my wife closes the front passenger door then goes to the back passenger side to get stuff while I close the driver door and wait for her in front of the car. Because I am now out of the autolock range when my wife closes the back passenger door, the car will never autolock. I found this out the hard way by finding my car unlocked after being parked outside for hours. Though it might just be me on this.

 

RON95 vs RON98 and Fuel Consumption

In an earlier post, I made a comment that 98 vs 95 was like night and day, and I would like to stand slightly corrected. I pumped 98 all the way till 2000km, then switched over to 95. It's not night and day, but there is a noticeable difference. The best way to describe it is that the engine feels less responsive with 95. All the issues that I described in Engine and Power is exacerbated. After 2000km of pedal muscle memory on 98, I needed to depress the pedal just a little more to get the same power with 95. The shift shocks came back as well until I relearned my pedal behaviour. Most interestingly, my wife was not privy to the change, but after her drive, she said the car feels different, like a bit heavy. So there you go, conclusive evidence there is a difference using a very unscientific method. haha. 

As for fuel consumption, it would be impossible to say that which one is better. I am an impatient driver and like to get up to maximum safe speed asap. So, I would guess that 98 would be more fuel efficient since I would be revving it less. But I am quite certain the difference will not justify the cost. 95 is still cheaper. I average about 11km/hr on both fuel types. Driving patterns have been varying wildly with all the change in WFH, gathering and dining in out rules, there has not been a routine in my driving or even daily life yet. That's why there is no way to directly compare between the efficiency of the fuel types.

 

Conclusion

No regrets and I am likely to get the same car on hindsight. Again, only remorse is not seriously considering a second hand 2.5L. I think the 2.5L would have been the ideal car within my budget.

Edited August 16, 2021 by arataka

[R32]

16 minutes ago, arataka said:

After almost 2 months of ownership and a little less than 3000km mileage on the Mazda 6 2.0L executive, I thought of putting up some follow up thoughts. The overall sentiment is truly value for money for what you get - the size, safety, handling, aesthetics, interior. Personally, I think it's impossible to find a nicer looking interior at this and even higher price points. When I went for my first service, I had itchy fingers and went to test drive the Lexus IS hybrid, and BMW 3 series. No doubt they are better drives due to the hybrid powertrain on the lexus and turbocharged engine on both. To be frank, the Mazda 2.0L is underpowered. But there is where I feel the advantage ends. I feel the difference in NVH, comfort, technology and interior is not substantial and at times not noticeable. And most definitely I am not getting 100k more worth of car. So on to my opinions: 

 

a) Engine and Power

The engine is loud. Especially at about 3-4k rpm, the engine gives out an unpleasant high pitch roar. I can't definitively say that it is underpowered because the car does move when you put your foot to the pedal. But the engine roar gives you the impression that is struggling. My wife who is heavier footed than me echoes this sentiment. The gear shift can also be a little unresponsive. It took me about 500km before learning the shifting pattern to avoid shift shocks, and I still get them occasionally when climbing particularly steep ramps or hills. This is the only characteristic of the car that gave me some buyer's remorse. Too bad, TEK has discontinued the 2.5L.

 

b) i-STOP

Because of the way I brake, I don't activate the i-STOP unintentionally. You have to actually press the brake pedal quite hard when the car is in a complete stop to activate it. As I come to a stop, I usually lighten up on the brakes to reduce brake jerk to give my passengers a more pleasant ride, thereby also preventing i-STOP from activating even in a complete stop. Therefore, I am able to decide whether I want i-STOP to activate depending on the traffic lights condition. Interestingly, the electronic brake hold activates at a slightly lighter brake depression than i-STOP making it very convenient for me to control whether I want to activate 'Hold' only or 'Hold and iSTOP' or none at all.

 

c) Infotainment

I find it perfect and absolutely love the simplicity of the design and the use of the rotary wheel to navigate. I have personally never liked the use of touchscreens in a car. I way prefer tactile feedback especially when driving. I have 2 gripes with the system: firstly its the slow startup, and secondly if the passenger wants to change the radio station, he/she needs to exit my navigation screen to get to the radio channel select screen. Anyway most of this is moot because with Android Auto, I am rarely ever on Mazda's OS. I control both my navigation and entertainment needs using Google Assistant.

 

d) Quality of Life issues

- Lack of boot release button in the cabin. This is just plain silly

- Lack of central locking button in the cabin. A small but surprising inconvenience because it is supposed to be a premium make in the Mazda line.

- Very small glove compartment. Can't even fit A4 documents. Also if there is a front passenger, it cannot fully open because it will be blocked by passenger legs.

- Very small central storage compartment. Cannot fit a box of tissue.

- Placement of front USB port inside the central storage is weird. This results in the only logical place to put the phone is in the cup holders.

- Cup holder location is weirdly designed too, a tall water bottle or large Mcdonald cup or my handphone with the cable pointing upwards would make it uncomfortable to access the gear stick.

- The rear hump is gigantic - not only is it tall, but its also very wide. To make matters worse, the centre seat is raised a little too high. With a child car seat installed, it can get uncomfortable for 2 adults to sit behind. The person in the centre will not be able to comfortably rest their feet on the hump but will need to straddle it.

- Interior lights not LED

- The walk away lock is far from perfect. Admittedly this is the first time I am owning a car with walk away lock. The distance from car that activates the autolock is so small. Just moving around the car from driver to front passenger side locks the car. And if any door is opened when you move away from the car, the autolock will never activate even after the door is closed. For example, after parking, my wife closes the front passenger door then goes to the back passenger side to get stuff while I close the driver door and wait for her in front of the car. Because I am now out of the autolock range when my wife closes the back passenger door, the car will never autolock. I found this out the hard way by finding my car unlocked after being parked outside for hours. Though it might just be me on this.

 

RON95 vs RON98 and Fuel Consumption

In an earlier post, I made a comment that 98 vs 95 was like night and day, and I would like to stand slightly corrected. I pumped 98 all the way till 2000km, then switched over to 95. It's not night and day, but there is a noticeable difference. The best way to describe it is that the engine feels less responsive with 95. All the issues that I described in Engine and Power is exacerbated. After 2000km of pedal muscle memory on 98, I needed to depress the pedal just a little more to get the same power with 95. The shift shocks came back as well until I relearned my pedal behaviour. Most interestingly, my wife was not privy to the change, but after her drive, she said the car feels different, like a bit heavy. So there you go, conclusive evidence there is a difference using a very unscientific method. haha. 

As for fuel consumption, it would be impossible to say that which one is better. I am an impatient driver and like to get up to maximum safe speed asap. So, I would guess that 98 would be more fuel efficient since I would be revving it less. But I am quite certain the difference will not justify the cost. 95 is still cheaper. I average about 11km/hr on both fuel types. Driving patterns have been varying wildly with all the change in WFH, gathering and dining in out rules, there has not been a routine in my driving or even daily life yet. That's why there is no way to directly compare between the efficiency of the fuel types.

 

Conclusion

No regrets and I am likely to get the same car on hindsight. Again, only remorse is not seriously considering a second hand 2.5L. I think the 2.5L would have been the ideal car within my budget.

Coming up to my second year of ownership of a 2.5 wagon so here's my responses

a) Strained engine seems typical of the exhaust system, if I try to accelerate harder, it will be a not-nice kind of loud too. However the natural torque of the larger capacity means I don't really need to use the higher ranges of RPM. The auto gearbox is as you describe - dimwitted at times especially if you change your mind last minute. If you're smooth and predictable, it can keep up. 

b) That's a good way of describing it. Some owners disable iStop completely, but it resets after each engine off. For me, I have iStop on and brake hold off. 

c) The infotainment is pretty driver-centric but if you have a mobile phone holder your passenger can control the entertainment from your phone (I use iOS). 

d) Wagon gets no tailgate release either. 

- Your driver's door lock is the central locking switch

- Storage space is generally lacking but at least the central armrest and cupholders are large enough to store odds and ends.

- Rear space is cramped compared to other mid-size sedans. Its worse for wagons as the wheelbase is slightly shorter. However there is slightly more headroom when you enter the car due to the wagon shape.

- I personally prefer non-LED, but its personal preference as LED can make the interior look quite stark even if its not bright white. Something to do with diffusion of light I guess.

- The walk away auto lock is biased towards the rear of the car - you can walk all the way around the rear without triggering it to shut off. Walking around the front as you have found out, you leave the detection range and the car won't auto lock because it doesn't detect the key leaving while the door is still open. Look out for the beep sound or set your wing mirrors to fold as an easy visual indicator that the car is locked. 

Petrol and engine choices

I found that the 2.5 is much more thirsty than the 2 litre in urban driving (lots of stop and go) and will consistently underperform the 2 litre by about 20% across all types of driving conditions. My average is around 9.8km per litre, 10.5 if I really concentrated on driving efficiently. However I consistently use only 95 octane and have swapped between Shell, SPC and Sinopec with no discernible differences. 

I would look out for noise issues concerning the front suspension of the car. I hear it when I have coming down a MSCP ramp while turning, and also crossing humps head on when the suspension is wet. Both issues were reported to TEK during servicing and rectified under warranty. Other users report side mirrors failing to fold properly, seems to be a common Mazda fault as my friend in a Mazda 5 suffered the same issue. My solution is simply not folding the mirror, as none of my other cars had auto-fold mirrors anyway.

Other nice features I enjoy are the head up display, the much-maligned 360 degree parking camera, and ventilated seats. 

[RogerNg_185295]

On 8/4/2021 at 10:35 AM, Snagguy said:

@ER-3682 thanks for the advice!

the car is at 93300 mileage actually.. didn’t hear much sound for the suspension though.. 

 

will check out the side mirror and battery! Is there any reputable workshop in the west that I can visit? Hahhaa

The mileage usually has been tampered with . Not to scare you, but preowned cars all like that one.