This was fun. Slow, but fun.

 

The 135 is going back to the shop for the 4th time in 6 months, or 1000 miles. Oil change, then Oil Filter Housing Gasket, then reprogramming the transmission, now to find out what this very odd, metallic noise is. It doesn't sound like rod knock and N55s aren't known for wastegate rattle particularly. I'm hoping it's a loose heat shield or the belt tensioner and not the wastegate or bearings.

But honestly at this point, I may just go trade it in on a cheap, used Focus hatch or Mazda 3 hatch for the next year or so. It's hard to enjoy the car when it's constantly having issues.

Pretty ridiculous for a car that doesn't even have 34k miles on it.

 

I may have a Mazdaspeed 3 (2007) for sale soon if you're interested. Where are you located?

 

Thanks for the offer, not really interested in a 12-year old turbo car and I already owned a 2010 Speed3 years ago.

The point would be to get a few year old economy car, that's already taken a nice depreciation hit, still has some of the factory warranty and will generally not cause me a bunch of grief, while having modern amenities.

 

my parents BMWs ALWAYS had the flapper on the exhaust ports come loose and i'd have to replace the pin to hold the actuator arm back in place. could be that?

 

Are you talking about the wastegate on the turbo, or the valve at the back of the exhaust that controls volume?

Wastegate - If it's that, it needs a new turbo, apparently it can't be replaced on the N55 like it could on the old twin-turbo N54s.
Exhaust valve - I'll have him rip it out or rig it or something.

I really hope is the exhaust valve or belt tensioner. Those would be reasonable enough to be fixed.

 

Picked this up last month with strong incentives from Mazda. Leftover '18 HB.

 

I suspect the incentives wouldn't be strong enough for me. If I trade it, the point would be to get as close to the 10k mark for something that isn't going to hassle me for the next 18 or so months. At that point, only remaining debt would be my mortgage, and then I could basically buy anything I want under $70k.

But I still probably won't even do that given how little I drive. I'm starting to get a hankering for another project car. So in that case, a truck as a DD to be able to tow an HPDE car makes more sense. But I'm not sure if I'll have the budget to do as much HPDE as I want, so that may not make sense.

Main thing right now, the amount of maintenance per mile since I've had this car has really bummed me out, to the point I don't really enjoy driving it anymore.

EDIT: I did go look for the heck of it, the Mazda dealers around here are advertising $5500-ish off '18 hatchbacks. If I planned on keeping it for awhile than giving it to the better half to replace her fit in a few years, that would be a hell of a deal.

 

I did better than that, but I was at the right place at the right time. Wasn't really in need of something right now, but the deal was too good to pass on.

 

Yeah, I bet I could do better. Just saying even advertising that much off makes it a pretty good deal.

 

I've never negotiated a car through an internet sales team. I sent them an email and got an unbelieveable offer. I assumed the offer included every rebate that I wouldn't be eligible for. I was wrong. No rebates in the offer and I was eligible for owner loyalty.

 

The wife's sedan....purchased one week prior. She did really good. We were looking at Corollas but couldn't get past the CVT trans.

 

Yeah, there is a '16 Focus Titanium trim hatch with 33k miles on it for $13k down here. But I think that still has the despised DCT in it.

 

I am surprisingly satisfied with the 6spd auto in the hatch. I was growing tired of a manual in traffic. No it doesn't shift as fast as a DCT, but it is better than most autos I'm familiar with. Putting it in manual mode, sport engaged and using the paddles takes the boring out as needed. I believe it shifts a tiny bit faster in sport mode.

 

exhaust valve. we had two BMWs and MINI all do it. just replaced a circlip or something on all them.



Coworker showed me his appreciation in the parking lot today:

 

my 135i was a giant pain in the *** too. I had all sorts of issues with the DCT gearbox randomly throwing an overheating fault, even when the sensors were reading normal temps. Traded the car in and never looked back.

As for the rattle, the n55's aren't as prone to it as the n54's, but it can happen. I had a similar rattle on mine that turned out to be the belt tensioner however. Worth checking that out first since it's cheap/easy to fix. Braineack also brings up a good point on the exhaust valve flapper. IIRC (and im a little fuzzy on this since I got rid of my 135i back in 2015), you can just go into the driver side trunk near the taillight, disconnect line running to the actuator and jam a golf tee in the line to disable it.

 

I also recently took advantage of some pretty incredible savings on a 2018 Mazda3 for my wife. Got the Bose and sunroof package for significantly less than the base model prices and she absolutely loves it. Win win. Seems to be a good little car so far, especially for the price.

 

Yeah. I have to say, it's a great car to drive, but my idea to drive halfway across the country to buy a 1-owner, low mileage car (27k when I bought it last January) has thus far been met with mediocre results. I couldn't get it to make the noise on the way to work this morning, but noticed that oh-so-familiar click as I pulled into the office parking lot today.

At least one of the rear 245/35/18 Pilot Super Sports has a nail in it. At least it's in a place that it should be an easy patch job.

I had all the adaptions reset in the DCT, and that seems to have fixed most of it. But talking to other owners, most have resigned to the fact that they have to do it once, maybe twice a season to keep it acting right.

 

Worst fears confirmed, rod knock. Only noticeable at high rpm/load. It is someone else's problem now.

A used Mazda 3 is in the garage.

 

lol that was quick