I see our battery requires maintenance, add battery water into the battery. It's been long I use a maintenance battery. How long do you check the battery level, and how much to add? I saw some car after lift bonnet saw corrosion at the bonnet area directly above the battery. Is it too hot and battery acid squirt out?

I asked the SC today, the person said normally battery need to change every year. Maybe the owner didn't maintain the battery properly?

This post has been edited by RicoT: May 12 2015, 06:18 PM

Have to check battery maintenance method then. No choice, else, RM700+ for battery replacement.

I suspect Mazda SC do not refill your battery, and being wet battery without proper maintenance, you only get 1 year lifespan when the plates holder were eaten away at the top and the whole cell is out of action.

So, top up your battery fluids guys and girls, once every two/three weeks perhaps. Best time to do it is after you drive around town for at least 30 min, then when you back home, let it rest for 10 min, pop the hood up and use a torchlight to look at the battery water level. Each cell has its own cap, so check each cell. Top up the water until it reaches slightly below the upper limit (to prevent battery squirting). Top up only with distilled battery water (never use tap water), you can buy at DIY shops/petrol stations. Just ask for battery water and they will know. The cap is like an 'L' shape to ease putting it into the battery hole, you need to press intermittently so the water will come out. Cheers!

I am trying to get Fineworks Performance to get the proper Q-85 maintenance free battery either from GS Battery Thailand or Panasonic CAOS Pro Japan. See what is their price, if it is not too expensive, we can do group buy, but this one is after 3 years warranty.

According to the SC in Setia Alam, the battery has 3 years warranty with the car, and can only be claimed once under the warranty. So if they honour their words, then our battery should last more than 3 years, if they have such high confidence. Of course, the proper battery water level must be maintained, else, they will say it is the owner's abuse or negligence caused the battery to fail and void warranty.
Other brands like Merc Benz do cover battery failure under their 4 years car warranty. But being Mercedes... Expensive brand of course expect this kind of special treatment.

Yes, yet again I forgot to show them the warranty booklet. So, don't know which to follow. Maybe the warranty booklet is for all Mazda models, and the battery applies to those without i-Stop like CBU CX-5?

On another note, I saw a CX-5 on the hoist replacing the gearbox. The car was WAXXXXS, so it is about 1 year old? The SC told me of a whining sound coming from the gearbox. Manufacture defect? Or abuse? Don't know...

Is it just me or anyone noticed that the engine feels sluggish after first 1000km oil change? The FC went up as well.

Feels like the SC poured a high viscosity engine oil in. High viscosity is like honey and low viscosity is like water. High viscosity = more resistance, but cheaper.

This post has been edited by RicoT: May 13 2015, 05:48 PM

My FC before 1000km oil change from KLIA2 to Kuchai Lama...


This post has been edited by RicoT: May 14 2015, 03:20 AM

Sometimes, light scratches are unavoidable. Hence, for every 3 to 4 months (some 6 months), a layer of wax is applied to "resurface" the clear layer and sometimes, the scratches are slightly deeper and touch the surface of the paint layer, waxing could "seal" those scratches and restoring a protective layer of wax on top of it. Wax is not a hard material, hence, it would wear off over time and won't help protecting against future scratches.

Coating on the other hand, is quite a recent thing. If you remember, last time there is a big rush to coat windscreen with something call RainX or some other brands, to make the windscreen hydrophobic and allows the water to disperse quickly when driving during rainy days. Those hydrophobic coating only works on glass surface. Hence, coating usually done by applying a thin layer of quartz (glass) on to the clear layer (or paint layer if polishing was done before coating or older cars), and then followed by a hydrophobic coating. There are cheap coating which only gives hydrophobic effect, and expensive coating, which have a certain "claimed" hardness level, 9H is the hardest so far. So this hardness will protect it against scratches. It works pretty much like Corning/Gorilla glass on certain smartphones, or sapphire glass on watches, the glass is hard enough to protect it against scratches. However, with enough force and sharpness of the scratching material (particularly lady's diamond rings, nothing can beat diamond in hardness), scratch will still form on the car surface. So, in the end, you get some protection against scratches, but with hydrophobic effect on the car surface too. So after rain, your car won't have a lot of water on it, and looks "shiny and clean".

Polishing is to skim off a thin layer of clear layer and sometimes, peeling off a very thin layer of paint, hence, smoothing out the surface (slightly deeper scratch will become smooth). It is always followed by a few layer of wax or coating to protect the paint surface. It is recommend to do polishing every 2-3 years only, because it will wear down the paint layer every time a polish was done.

Traditionally, the sequence goes like:
Wax once every 4 months
Polish once every 2 or 3 years, and wax on 3 times straight after polish (usually car detailing shops will wax straight after polish, number of times wax depends on package)

Now, with coating it goes like:
1st time coating RM2k
Touch up with very light polish and recoat on affected areas every 6 months (some need to pay for every touch up session)
Polish once every 3 years (depends on warranty period) to get rid of slightly deep scratch.
Reapply coating RM2k

All these are to protect against slightly deeper scratch, those deep scratch which touched the metal surface have to be resprayed to cover the metal surface to avoid rusting/corrosion. So, in the end, normally people go for respray every 5 to 6 years if they want to keep the car glitters and restore its former luster.

This post has been edited by RicoT: May 14 2015, 04:19 AM

Good new, I managed to contact Fineworks @ lelong.com.my on the Q-85 maintenance free battery. Let's see what is his offer. Will post it up later when he got the price.

I gave him two options:
1. Thailand GS Battery Q-85 MF
2. Japan Panasonic CAOS Pro Q-85 MF

Sadly, I removed it today and there are sticky mark from the adhesive on the screen.

Anyway to remove those adhesive mark? Alcohol swab? Cellophane tape? Wipe with water?

Did you learn from this Engineer's Flowchart?

Haha!

I will try wet wipes first, if fails, then alcohol swab. Will post the results. My poor car MZD...

little-sama Please post to front page: To future owners, you must pull off the plastic from the MZD connect panel once you got your car if the dealer didn't help you do it.

Before peel after three weeks:


After peel with glue residue on:


After using about 7 × isopropyl alcohol 70% alcohol swab (those comes in packets) and numerous tissues:


This post has been edited by RicoT: May 16 2015, 02:58 PM

Apparently that lelong.com.my Fineworks doesn't want to help source for Q-85 battery.

You mean to change to those Phillips white light? Or use back original?

No HID conversion.

Yellow to white, but not until to extend of becoming blue or purple.

Until 5500K colour temperature I believe. Slightly more shouldn't be a problem, so log it is not visibly cyan or blue.

Yes I have.

I consider Mazda 2 is very sufficient for my usage.

When I am doing my decision making process, there is only Mazda 3 CBU available.

But while waiting for the car, Mazda 3 CKD was launched with Lo and Hi spec.

After test driving, my verdict on Mazda 3 CKD as follows,
Lo spec:
o Equipment wise same as Mazda 2, no cruise control, high profile tyre, no i-ActiveSense, halogen headlamp
o Advantage over Mazda 2, extra rear room leg space, 2.0L engine
o Disadvantage over Mazda 2, higher maintenance cost (tyres, service, spare parts, fuel, etc. as expected for C-segment over B-segment), no leather seats, no HUD

Hi spec:
o Equipment wise better than Mazda 2, cruise control, low profile tyre, i-ActiveSense, LED headlamp
o Price difference RM40k, those low profile tyres are noisy
o Even higher maintenance cost for tyre, spare parts (LED DRL headlamp)

Therefore, I could save that RM40k and put it into maintenance and petrol for my Mazda 2. I don't have children, and the back seats aren't that small for us asians.


Come and think of it, I feel Bermaz did a lot of consideration for not putting LED headlamp into Mazda 2 and 3 Lo-spec, and it is a wise decision indeed. Imagine that if that LED DRL headlamp kaput, the whole unit needs to be changed, RM5k a pair!

For those who can afford RM130k Mazda 3 Hi-spec should have no problem affording RM5k spare part (wallet still bleed, but it is still within their affordability, maybe only change once every 5 years, so have to ready RM1k/year? Still, it is an affordable price for them.

Putting the LED headlamp into Mazda 2 and 3 Lo-spec, it is like asking the just-able-to-afford owners to borrow from friend, family and ah long to cover the replacement cost, and if the cost for spare parts is high, RV will be low. Hence, the easier-and-cheaper-to-maintain halogen headlamp. In Malaysia, it is still not the norm to put LED projector headlamp into B-segment. Honda City still using halogen.

The Q-85 battery cost RM740 already. Yes, it is expensive to us, but we could afford to change it once every 2 years perhaps? Which in turns translate to RM370/year for that Q-85 battery.

It happened to me once with my old Honda City, the bloody gearbox kong out just right after warranty ends. RM21k! Even worse than the LED DRL headlamp! Luckily my family members is okay to loan me the money and I slowly pay back over 5 years. 3-5 years RV for old Honda City is lower than B-segment norm then. Another example is VW's infamous DSG problem, and high cost of maintenance. RV dropped 50% in 3 years!

4WD is not suited for our road condition, it is meant for snowy and ice roads.

FC for 4WD is slightly worse than 2WD. If full-time 4WD, then the tyres will be used up earlier, and all 4 tyres have to be changed.

Our roads are wet, but not as slippery as snow.

Could be aftermarket spoilers the owner/dealer agreed to install by 3rd party before register the car?

This post has been edited by RicoT: May 18 2015, 11:52 PM

Where is the place?

Okay, keep posting.

Welcome to the family! 😄

little-sama