Need some help from DU'ers with knowledge about cars

I drive a Mazda with a manual transmission. Fifth gear is gone, and my brother tells me no big deal. Keep driving it, you don't need fifth gear anyway. Now, I hope he's right, but how can it be good for my engine to be revving constantly, staying around 3000 rpms? I'd just like a little reassurance that he's not blowing me off here and that I'm not destroying my engine by listening to him. Anyone?

B) Does your brother do anything with cars other than drive them? Car & Driver subscriptions don't count.

And yes, my brother actually knows alot about cars and works on them all the time. BUT, he's the kind of guy who stays so busy that he's been known to give me bad advice at times. Not sure if it's because he was blowing it off and really thought it would be fine or if he just didn't want to be bothered. :shrug:

Mazda uses rotary engines in the RX-7 and RX-8. http://travel.howstuffworks.com/rotary-engine.htm is a good place to get a better explanation that what I can do for you. And I meant no disrespect to your brother at all.

I would get it fixed if you want to keep the car for more than the next 6 months. Less than that, and I would start trying to get rid of it now.

And sorry, I should have been clearer about my brother. He says he has a transmission for it, but seems to want to put off getting it in there.

work to put one in, very true... 626s are nice cars (hell, every Mazda's a nice car IMO) so I'd get the tranny fixed one way or another. But it will not make the car explode to not fix fifth gear.

I just hope he'll do it before my big trip to Charlotte on the 20th. Driving it around town is one thing, not sure if I'm brave enough to hit the interstate and drive two and a half hours to Charlotte in it. :scared:

little while until you can get it looked at...but it's not something you want to continue to do. Good Luck!

With any luck, I'll get the transmission replaced before I need another engine

Revving that high. Not a good idea.

Mine also seems fairly low geared, if that makes sense at all. Soon as I hit 45, it's ready to hit fifth.

o.k. for a while keep off the interstates.Best advice I can give is buy a Chevy.

You actually only need it on the highway. But my husband said to fix it. What year is the car?

There's always the possibility that you have broken gear debris in the tranny and that may get caught in the working gears at some point.

Runs great otherwise, so I kinda want to keep it around for awhile.

you also have to consider what caused 5t gear to go out. At a minimum you have to check the fluid level. Absolutely make sure you put the correct fluid in it. Trust me, long story. Some manuals transmission use ATF and some use gear oil. Check owners manual. I had to drive a car for over a year during college with no 5th gear. I just kept the trips short and changed my motor oil more frequently.

It started gradually, a few weeks ago. It would go into 5th gear, but didn't want to stay there and would pop out after awhile. It got gradually worse until one day last week it just wouldn't shift into fifth at all.

a car that old isn't worth putting a new tranny in unless it's very cheap. 3000 isn't very much rpm and won't really cause any noticable engine wear over 2500 or whatever.


have you had the linkage checked? it may be something as simple as a dirty linkage, especially considering it's front wheel drive, and has a more complicated linkage setup than a RWD car.

i've built many engines, and built cars from the ground up. if it costs more than 500 bucks, it ain't worth it. don't worry about changin the oil more freqently.. waste of money. just drive it and make sure it has oil in it.


i haven't changed oil in a car since '94, and never will again unless i break in a new one. waste of money.

But he didn't really share what that was with me. Just said, you're gonna need a new transmission, but it'll be okay for awhile. That was two weeks and now I have this trip coming up and wanted to be sure that I'm not going to blow the thing up and make matters worse.

you could run it at 5000 rpm, as long as it has oil pressure it will be fine.

people have no idea how much torture an engine can go through as long as it is kept cool and has oil pressure.