30,000 miles for the stock specification spark plug.

Long-life spark plugs are available from numerous manufacturers. The long-life plugs have platinum or iridium tipped center electrodes, and a platinum alloy pad welded to the ground electrode.

that's a 1.6L Matty...my dept!..hehe...however the procedure is EXACTLY like you described to him..WOW though dude...can anyone one say engine cleaner??? seriously clean that engine bay dude!!!!!

I change my plugs every 30K miles on a stock engine or 10-15K miles on a turbo/super/n20 motor. Plugs are very important to engine health, they are cheap and easy to swap. There is no reason to drive around with crappy plugs.

yeah, plugs and radiator fluid are probably the most neglected things on a car. plugs should be changed every 30K miles like matty said and radiator fluid should be changed every year.

I would also argue that tire pressure is right up there on the list o' things neglected on most people's cars.

Ok, yes, i completely agree, the engine is a mess with dirt. But I don't know how to clean it. I've read and all over i read that you need to cover up the electrical stuff and then just spray it... how good is that going to work though? And how do i know what is considered electrical or not... the alternator is electrical right? do i need to cover that? or is it just the fuse box i need to cover? I'd really really like to clean the engine... a friend of mine used a little hand held steam cleaner on his vw squareback... does anyone know how safe that is?

Thanks for all the great tips!

Added this:
I was on the mazda website, looking at coupons and various other things, and found a coupon for decarb service, which is described as this:
Quickly and effectively cleanse top of
valves and combustion chambers where
carbon builds, will also help with
engine surge, stalling, stumbling and
hesitation.

Is that basically what cleaning the engine myself would consist of doing? Or is this describing an internal cleaning?

could somebody point me in the direction of the distributor using the picture i posted earlier in this thread?

I called the dealership, and asked them how i would go about cleaning the engine surfaces, the guy said to make sure the distributor is covered and spray the engine with water with the engine running. He also suggested getting some engine degreaser.

And just for kicks i asked what they would charge to change the spark plugs... he said $198.00!! Yeah right! Who would pay that to change 4 plugs? I'm assuming it could only take like 30 minutes at most...

heh heh... goes to show how much dealerships know. your car doesn't have a distributor. there are coil packs directly over the 2nd and 4th plugs. you just unbolt those two and pull all 4 plugs out. the job takes no more than 30 minutes and even iridium plugs at retail price is around $60 MAX. don't give the dealer any of your business. that price is ridiculous. as for washing the engine bay, i've found that a diluted SIMPLE GREEN solution works REALLY well. spray the engine bay down with simple green then hose everything off. all electrical wirings, especially the plugs, should have minimal exposure to the spray. once you're done hosing everything off, wipe down the plugs and coils and make sure no water got down the hole. other than that, you should be good.

Thanks!