2000 Mazda Protege Transmission
 

Not sure if I posted in the right area but I was wondering if others have had transmission problems with the 2000 or later Mazda Proteges (LX). My car has less than 30,000 miles and is only 2 years old and I just had to have a new transmission put in it! I picked it up only 2 weeks ago and now the overdrive light is flashing and my check engine light is on again! I am a stickler when it comes to tune-ups for my car and only take it to the authorized Mazda Service Station in my area, so it isnt from neglect. Someone told me that it was because in the year 1999-2000, the Ford Company bought out Mazda and there has been other people with the same problems with thier transmissions. I'm planning on writing to the company about this if there are more of us out there. Please reply if you have experienced problems such as this. Thanks! :(

There should be no Ford parts in your tranny - yes, Ford owns a controlling share of Mazda, but so they can use the Japanese parts in Ford cars, not the other way around!

Anyway - are you still under warranty? I have heard of a few reports of "Mazda automatics being no good", but nothing specific as to why or what. And my 2002 P5 has no trouble with 35,000+ miles on it.

Best of luck with it!

~HH

2000 Protege 3rd Gen Transmission
 

Im still under warrenty (actually expires in Dec of this year) so all the costs have been covered. The problem has been that it is just been a pain. I live and work in Southern CT so the closest Mazda Certified Service Station is back in White Plains, NY. I wind up having to be late for work, make arrangements to be picked up and dropped off at the Mazda Service Station. I just spent over $500 for a 30K service to be done on it which took 2 days, then the transmission goes and the car is held for a week. I finnally get it back about 2 weeks ago and looks like I have to take it back. Anyway, I still love my Mazda. Its my first brand new car I bought all on my own when I got my first "real job" at a company. I got it with the power moon roof, windows, locks, car alarm, CD and tape player, duel air bags, and in silver. Exactly what I wanted. Its just a bummer that I am having problems now running it. Thanks for all the advise though everyone. Hopefully me and my Mazda will Zoom Zoom into the sunset once again!;)

The car jerks when putting it reverse, it sounds like its going to stall in idle/when coming to a stop.

I work less than 2 miles from home so most of my daily travels (mon-Fri) is the short distance to the highway and the short distance on the highway. Not really alot of stop go traffic. Occasionally I travel 3 hours to upstate NY but since I have had transmission problems I havent gone up there. I tend to have a heavy foot but the car never seemed to have a problem getting up to speed. It seemed to shift through the gears okay until recently. I know the mechanics said they were a bit baffled about it as well. They did the original diagnostic on the transmission twice to make sure that was what it was.

I had to have my tranny replaced at 25,000 miles,but mines a stick!!...no problems since,coming up on 43,000...still under warranty on mine though

Yes, I come to a complete stop, foot on the brake, press the release button on the stick and put it into reverse. I just brought it into the shop today so when they tell me what the problem was I will post it. Now I have to decide whether I want to keep the car and see how it goes and pay for the extended warrenty or do a trade in. Decisions, Decisions.

My first post:

I have recently researched alot on the transmission on the Auto Protege's. I have posted in the other forum I belong to and provide the link at the bottom of this post. Our trans is the same as a Ford Focus except a different case. Whether it is actually manufactured by Ford or by Mazda, I could not find that info. The Mazda type is a FN4A-EL and the Focus is 4F27E. I found a site that sell stock parts for these transmissions, but no aftermarket yet. I found a site that will rebuild the transmission. The site builds what they call Bullet-Proof trannies. I e-mailed them for prices and there reply was this:

Dear Sir ,
We do offer a pts transmission system that will be able t handle up to 3 times the factory power. It will also get rid of all the lag and the hesitation off the start and take off anywhere from 1/2-1 second off 1/4 mile times. It will get rid o the factory lazy luxury shifts and replace them with throttle oriented shifts. It will last longer and run cooler internally. Pts system includes pts clutches, pts steels, pts bans, pts
hydrosyetem upgrade ...
pts transmission system will be able to handle up to 3 times the factory power!!
pts transmission system $3264.
pts torque converter upgrade $498.

Thanks for the inquiry!
http://www.levelten.com/bullet_proof.htm

To me this is quite pricey for complete rebuild so I have decided to look around a bit more. However the torque converter I would like to buy and probally will as soon as I finish my suspension mods. I will also be putting a oil cooler on my transmission to hopefully keep the temps down if this is possible. As yet I have not research this yet. Well I hope this is helpful it is all the research I have.

Thread in the other forum: http://www.msprotege.com/vbb225/show...ight=automatic