Any Mazda 6 owners or knowledge?

[theCATman]

Hey guys... gotta question about a 2003 Mazda 6i

My 18 yr old nephew is looking at buying one. Is there any known issues with/about them?

Thanks in advance.

 

[PLAINWHITE T]

My wife and I have an '06 with the V6 and 6-speed automatic. We purchased it with roughly 35,000 miles on it. We did have an issue with the transmission at 48,000 miles where under hard acceleration the car would slam in and out of gear. It turns out there was a service bulletin on this problem and our dealer replaced the transmission under warranty. I spoke with the tech doing the work and he said that he usually does 8-10 of them with the same problem every year and the problem was in the valve bodies. We were lucky as the factory warranty was 5 years/50,000 miles. The dealership tech said that otherwise we'd be looking at almost $4,500 in repairs. We now have roughly 72,000 miles on the car and aside from the transmission issue, it has been flawless.

I can't say if the 2003 model had this issue, but I thought it was worth mentioning. If I recall, 2003 was also the first year for that generation of "6".

 

[theCATman]

Thanks for the response. The one he's looking at has a stick. I didn't know that until just now. After reading your post, I called & asked him.

 

[PLAINWHITE T]

Oh yeah, I also pay more on insurance for this car than our (albeit one year older) '05 Silverado 4x4 so that might be something he'll want to check out too. Not sure why it's higher as coverage is the same for both vehicles