rev your engines today I'm gonna talk about late-model Mazdas and their sky activ
technology you see it plastered all over the place in this case the cx-5
crossover because it's a sky activ here too
now of course it's an advertising slogan as most slogans are but it actually
stands for something it's a combination of a bunch of technologies to get more
power more fuel efficiency and better handling now this particular cx-5 it's
the luxury model which is what you'd want to buy if you're buying one because
the 2-liter four-cylinder engine is kind of a dog it doesn't have enough
horsepower but when this 2017 came out the 2-liter was mated with a standard
transmission so hey they were still making standard transmissions to me
that's a plus for mazda because throughout history Mazda has had
tons of problems with their Jatco purchased automatic transmission a company that
Nissan owns Jatco has a long history of making crappy automatic
transmissions now being a luxury model this Mazda that's got the 2.5 liter
engine and an automatic 6-speed transmission and I know people are gonna
say Scotty you said don't buy Mazda because their automatic transmissions
stink well yeah they used to stink because they were jatco
transmissions but this baby has a Mazda designed and built automatic
transmission it's called an fw6a - el automatic transmission yeah stupid name
I agree but that's what it's called but this transmission is not made by jatco
it's made by Mazda it's an interesting transmission because it contains a
torque converter like a normal automatic transmission but it also contains a
clutch like in a standard transmission which is six speeds it allows you have
plenty of power and good gas mileage and it even has a manual shifting mode as you
can see here there's Drive you can shift into the manual mode we can go down or
up gears when you're driving quite quickly it doesn't have the lag that
some of these manual shifting automatic have and it's nothing like those
slip-and-slide CVT transmissions that Jatco often produced I do have to give
Mazda kudos on this they don't use CVT transmissions they're
going to these fancy automatics and they're SKYACTIV technology which i
think is a big plus here Mazdas playing on their other
advertising slogan zum-zum they want to make little cars that go zoom zoom they
don't go zoom zoom if they have a transmission that slips then they go
zoom slip zoom so they're engineers have made a transmission that fits their
philosophy and I haven't seen any problems with this yet this one's three
years old no problems at all with it I haven't seen them have breakdown
problems like the jatco transmissions too now the other main part of the SKYACTIV
technologies the engine will take a stupid crappy Beauty cover off so you can
see inside it has a usual coil on plug and it's also a GDI engine with
gasoline direct injection and it's got a solid chain for a liability as you can
see by the sign here this car actually is made in Japan let's face it the best
Japanese cars are still made in Japan even jatco with their automatic
transmissions the worst transmissions I see that they make are the ones that are
produced in Mexico and in China they're not even making that stuff in Japan
anymore and if you're like man you wanna buy Japanese car you want one made in
Japan you don't want one made in China or Mexico you're paying for a Japanese
car you should get one that's built by Japanese people now one reason I like
this particular Mazda is because it has the 2.5 gei engine but it is not
turbocharged they didn't offer turbocharged enemies until 2019
personally I would not by 2019 yes I would have no qualms about buying this
2017 I have to admit it's got a pretty sporty interior back seats look pretty
good it's got a lot of trunk space inside lots of room inside here and it
does handle quite well I always talk about how rav4s are well made this
thing out handles a rav4 by far there's no arguing that and personally I
can't wait to see what the future will bring very interesting technology
six-speed automatic transmission holds up over time Toyota on the
other hand is having problems with a lot of their eight-speed automatics that
they're using so who knows what the future will bring
I never advise people in the past to buy him because they look good but they
didn't hold up well with this new technology that they've thrown in if that
automatic transmission holds up for years and years just once three years
old it's still holding up quite well I changed my opinion I'm telling people
whether or not to buy them my new Scotty's a conservative guy so I still
get a wait till they're five eight years old see what the history of the
transmissions are I personally don't trust anything until it's been out there
for a long time cuz if you think about there's a big difference between
spending a 30-something grand on a car this is better than 800 bucks on a phone
okay yeah you get tired of all new technology comes out you buy another
phone thirty something thousand dollars you're in another ballgame then and as
I've already said I'm not a big fan of turbos because things wear out faster in
these 2019 and newer you can get a 2.5 four-cylinder that has a turbo I
wouldn't advise doing that this thing's got plenty enough pick up with GDI that
you're gonna hear for a four-cylinder try it's quiet it's smooth but when you
step on the gas it's got some zoom to it
and realize that this SKYACTIV technology in this engine pretty much
mazda technology the problem that the Mazda engines had in the past was they
had a lot of ford VVT technology in them I saw that they broke when I took them apart
I saw that they had ford motor craft parts on the systems these things of
Japanese design now for what I've seen they're much better than when they were
making them with for perhaps this is one of the reasons behind that Toyota Mazda
dual plant that they have in Alabama they're finishing it up now they got a
merger between Toyota and Mazda making Toyota Mazda vehicles on the same exact
assembly line maybe Toyota is onto something here now you know a little bit
more about Mazda SKYACTIV technology and how mazda might be onto a good thing
here, so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos
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