My car sat in the first owners driveway (my neighbor) for almost two years. This was good and bad(mostly bad). Everything on the inside of my car that is plastic is about as brittle as a saltine. Everytime I try to take stuff out or get to different things, I break a clip or take off the backings for screws. Example: The passenger side speaker cover I took off to replace the speak. Out of I believe 6 screws only 2 work and they are on the right side. My speaker is too heavy and keeps popping it out. IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO TO REPLCE SOME OF THESE ODDBALL PARTS AND PIECES THAT ARE BREAKING OR AM I GOING TO HAVE TO LIVE WITH MY BROKEN INTERIOR FOREVER??!! This angers me very much. Thank you for your time, please respond.


-Matt

 

go to a junk yard
you can find odd pieces in better condition than yours
i lucked up here and there and found a few pieces for mine

 

There are very few junkyards around where I live and none of the closest ones I know of I have called and they have no 7's.

 

Most plastic stuff is getting too old to hold together. I try and take as little apart as possible to preserve it. Junkyards aren't much help as the stuff there is just as old.

Going to have to come up with a new way to hold things together. Double sided tape or add some material back in for the screws to hold to.

 

Welcome to my world. I have completely stopped interior mods due to the fact that breathing on the interior pieces wrong will crack them.

 

Buy a new interior parts, dont buy used!!!

 

Please tell us where we can order new parts from!

 

Man.... This post was 22 years old...

 

If the original posters thought the plastic was brittle in 2002, imagine what they'd say if they could see the plastic now.

At this point my interior is more JB Weld than plastic...

 

No kidding lol.

I'm surprised my clock surround is mint still. I think the first things to go were my dash defroster vents, fell apart like sand.

 

Ive been buying NOS from mazdatrix when i can, but man is it pricey.

 

I've been threatening to get a 3d printer so I can make my own interior pieces like I've seen some others do.

 

if you do this please let us know. Ill pay for this

 

I wonder if there is a chemical that will put plasticizers back into these brittle pieces? Wouldn't it be great to spray a little on, and after waiting a day the part can be removed without breaking it in pieces!

The first things to go on my GXL were the tabs for the bottom of the back license plate holder. I just take it for granted that all the tabs that hold the plastic piece in will snap off trying to remove them. Has anyone been successful in reattaching a broken tab? Perhaps with JB Weld?

I'm just glad that some of the parts for our cars can still be found as NOS!

 

Mazda actually still makes a lot of stuff. they even built a new place to make the parts

 

How cool is that!