Boingk's Budget Mazda 2

[boingk]

Hi all, long time lurker / first time poster here. I'm from Australia, about an hour and a half South of Sydney in our highland region. Lush countryside, cold winters (-5'C / 23'F) and hot summers. I do a fair bit of highway travelling I suppose, as well as the normal short commute and trip to the shops etc. Basic stuff. Hence the basic car.



So, enter Jerry the 2013 Mazda 2! She's got 160,000km / 100,000 miles on the clocks and is equiped with a five speed manual, 1.5L gasoline 4cyl and not much else. The interior is perfect but the outside needs some attention.

Here's the first bit I tackled - headlights. Hard to drive economically if you can't see where you're going at night. I used water, 2000 grit wet-n-dry, and then some Meguiars ScratchX polish with a microfibre cloth. Very easy and worked really well.

[boingk]

The other side of the car wasn't as good. With a bad scratch along both driver's side doors (yes RHD here in Australia) it was easier to buy two new ones and fit them. I swapped interior trim over to match the existing interior, as well as the lock and audio speaker for matching goodness. I replaced the power window switchblock as well.





Not the best paint match, it was a slightly different hue so I'll retouch the doors at a later date along with the rear bumper and spoiler which are slightly faded.

Onwards and upwards!

[boingk]

Anyway, cosmetic mods aside here are the current ecomods. Economy is rated at 31MPG EPA (29/34) and I got 32.5MPG / 7.2L/100km with a 96 mile / 155km trip involving a bit of city driving, a bit of country backroad, a mountain pass I bounced off redline through, and then a 75mph cruise-controlled freeway stint. I feel 40mpg wouldn't be too hard to achieve and wouldn't be surprised with 45 with a few more mods and a bit of finesse.

Mods as of 24/2/25:

• Factory alloy wheels with 185 width tyres
• Tyres inflated to 45psi max load rating
• Spare tyre replaced with plug kit & hand pump
• Interior cleaned, no extra items/addons
• Engine oil flushed & changed for 5W-30 synthetic
• Nulon E20 teflon treatment added to engine oil
• Fresh air & oil filters

Mods yet to come:

• Gearbox lube about to be changed for full synthetic 75W-85
• Nulon gearbox teflon treatment to be added
• Passenger mirror delete
• Power steering delete
• Lowered suspension
• Front lip / rear kamm

I'll see how far I get and what sort of economy I can push out of this little thing. Bear with me!