Benjamin

Perhaps this belongs in the lounge, but it pertains specifically to the FD. It's not that I'm not mechanically inclined, but until I bought my FD, I was always the person that would just as soon pay someone else to do any and all repairs on my car before touching it myself. Given that I wouldn't trust most Mazda mechanics to work on this car, I've made every effort to learn about the complex systems 'driving' this vehicle. I recently replaced the fuel pump. It was the one of the biggest pains in the *** I've ever experienced. I would have rather been working overtime scooping dog ****, but when it was done, I felt a great feeling of accomplishment. The other day, my boost dropped to nothing, and used you guys to help diagnose my problem. It turned out to be IC piping that had torn at the seam. I had to pull out a bunch of stuff to even figure out what the problem was, but when it was all said and done, I felt the same satisfying feeling. For those of you who would normally take the car to the mechanic, I strongly urge you to use this site as a resource, and 'do it yourself.' In addition to learning more about cars than I ever have, I've gained a new hobby. Thanks to all of you that have contributed to my and anyone elses posts with helpful comments. --BN

Silex

And yet another one is converted .
/me makes another check on the list

paw140

I think its pretty hard to own an FD and NOT be your own mechanic. I've been working on my own cars ever since I've owned any, and I know I've saved a lot money, grief, and time doing work myself. Not to mention I've learned a ton about mechanics. The ~$1K I've spent in tools has more than paid for itself.

I've done so much work to my FD since I've bought it (almost all maintenance) that I can't imagine having to take it to a mechanic. I've put around $600 in parts alone (gaskets, vac hoses, FPD)... that number would probably be more like $2K if I'd taken it somewhere.

Maybe I've just had bad experiences with mechanics, but every time I've ever taken a car in to have someone else do work on it, they screw something up. About 2 years ago I purchased a new Chevy S10 pickup. Since it was under warranty, I took it to the dealer to get my numerous oil leaks fixed. For each leak, it took them AT LEAST 3 TRIES to fix it!!! And that was 2 different dealerships! Each time I told them what was wrong, they diagnosed it as something else, and I had to keep taking it back till they'd replace the part that I originally told them to! And thats a simple Chevy V6! Imagine what an incompetant mechanic could do with a Mazda Twin Turbo Rotary!

Ok..... I'm done ranting. I'm sure there's good mechanics out there, but I've never dealt with any of them.

paw140

Oh yeah, by the way... The Chevy S10 that I had to keep taking back for oil leaks... well, because the Chevy dealerships were so incompentant and it took them soooo many tries to fix the four oil leaks I had, I contacted a lawyer and made Chevy buy the truck back under the Lemon Law. I got all my money back, even interest on the loan. Chevy sure paid for their crappy quality on that deal.

im4u

oh dude u think is hard??haha dont ever do a turbo upgrade.u will appreciate the simplicity of the pump later.but good job.

im4u

the fuel pump*
sorry this goes in the first sentence (typo)

Street King

That's how it starts. You do the simple things until your porting and rebuilding your own engines. Now you have something to be proud about as your self has invested time in the machine. Now you will always feel different toward it (in a good way).