2006 Mazda 6 Sport Wagon Review - Little Error

[amorak]

General,

I watched your video review of the 2006 Mazda 6 Sport Wagon - Good stuff! 8)

However, I do have one nit to pick with it... You stated Mazda's past problems with their automatic transmissions as a potential area of worry for the new 6speed automatic.

You see, the 6speed in the Mazda6, and its kissing cousins the Ford Fusion/Lincoln Zyphr, is made by Toyota :shock:

It's actually an Asin (Toyota's wholly-controlled auto-part supplier) 6-speed auto!

Ahh, globalization... Just thought you'd want to know, and so people know that there is no correlation between Mazda's previous auto tranny failings (pun!) and this new 6speed.

[The General]

Thank you for pointing out this item. I did not realise that Aisin made so many transmissions. This same transmission finds its way into the Ford 500, FWD Volvo XC90 and the Mini Cooper.

This does not mean that I feel any better about the transmission and its reliability though.

[amorak]

fair enough! 8)

[XTrail1]

Aisin makes transmissions and other automotive products for the following companies:

* Toyota Motor Corp.
* Suzuki Motor Corp.
* Mitsubishi Motors Corp.
* Hino Motors, Ltd.
* Isuzu Motors, Ltd.
* Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd.
* Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.
* Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
* Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp.
* Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
* Fuji Heavy Industries, Ltd.
* Nissan Diesel Motor Co., Ltd.
* Mazda Motor Corp.
* General Motors Corp.
* DaimlerChrysler AG
* Ford Motor Co.
* Volvo Car Corp.
* Renault S.A.
* Audi AG
* BMW AG
* Hyundai Motor Co.
* Daewoo Motor Co., Ltd.
* Tacti Corp.
* Central Automotive Products Ltd.
* TMY Corp.
* Meiji Sangyo Co.
* Toyota Tsusho Corp.

Aisin is partly owned by Toyota at 23%, so JD I can see your desire to take a poke at the world best auto manufactuer but you're wrong again! Aisin is not wholly owned by Toyota, please get your facts straight.

[amorak]

Xtrail1, you're fact-gathering skills are about as bad as your truck's reliability...

Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. is wholly owned by Aisin AI Co., Ltd, which is wholly controlled by Toyota, which has 28% of total outstanding common shares and 100% of the voting rights.

owned.

[XTrail1]

BTW,Tucson and Sportage has a CR rating of "worst" a big black dot! Have you visited hyundai-forums.com lately ? #1 topic, whining about poor fuel economy, and lately my Sonata is noisy. I now know I have made an excellent choice by buying the X-Trail. The fuel economy on my X-Trail is awesome same goes for others. I would enjoy reading your Toyota/Aisin claim, please provide link.

[Pritch]

Getting back on track here, the General's concerns about the transmission are valid, whether or not he was aware of where it came from.

Truth is that Mazda / Ford are known to have built some fairly shoddy gearboxes in their day.

Friend of mine has a ford contour, sharing the same transmission as a mazda 626 (I dont know this for CERTAIN but im 99.9% positive they do, since they are related cars, Amorak im sure will advise us) anyhow the thing has barely got 120 kms on it and its been rebuilt numerous times.
According to his research on owners forums, this is common.

Ive heard stories of other Mazda's with tranny problems.

Though I dont necessarily think a problem that 2 or 3 people have with their cars means all of that make and model are bad, I do start to wonder when dozens of complaints are logged.

Fortunately warranties nowadays are better and would cover such problems, so those of you leasing the car have much less to worry about if you swap every few years.


Everyones parts are for sale. This Aisin sells gearboxes to many companies. Saab is a Scandanavian company owned by an american company which uses japanese engines. We can all think of certain examples like this one.

By letting companies that specialize in one area of automotive manufacture provide a carmaker with that certain part, you can have a group of experts providing the various components, rather than trying to have a carmaker be good at everything. No one is good at everything.

In theory this global arrangement that facillitates "experts" providing parts should make better cars, though globalization is a relatively new trend, probably with some bugs to work out.

As a little plug for myself, the 6 speed manual in the Mazdaspeed 6 im driving this week is a very nice unit...