The trans didn’t shift with the perfectly oiled precision of a bolt action rifle, so I decided to change the fluid and check the oil in the shift turret. The maintenance schedule calls for a fluid change every 30K miles. My car has 123k on the clock. I’m not sure it was ever changed.
When I pulled the drain plug it looked like dirty dish water draining out. Ewwww. I put in two quarts of Motorcraft XT-M5-QS manual trans lube as recommended by the folks over at miata.net. The stuff is EXPENSIVE, two quarts ran me $45 at the local Ford dealer. Of course, the shift turret was in sad shape too. Both boots were torn, but Cory Fairbanks Mazda had them in stock so I was still able to make it a one-day project.
I ended up spending about $135 total on everything, but the shifting is much improved. Hopefully the life of the poor transmission will be extended a bit too.
