Miata Mailing List: April 1994, Message #149
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   From: Al Staats 
Subject: Reccommended Oil for the Miata
   Date: Thu, 7 Apr 1994 22:49:09 -0400

In my recent message on the subject I mentioned that Mazda changed their
reccommendation from 10W-30 to 5W-30 weight oil for the Miata (and
all their other models with self adjusting lifters) because of
HLA noise. This information is correct; Mazda notified all their dealers
in 1991 and this continues to be their position. We first learned of it
from Mazda's regional staff in Parsipanny, NJ who we were communicating
with with concerning this problem in our MPV. Mazda-NJ did
considerable work on this problem, even to the point of building six
blueprinted short blocks, one of which they installed in our MPV. It
helped but did not solve the problem.

The oil reccommendation subsequently been reaffirmed by a
number of personnel including Mazda's current Mid-Atlantic Service Rep
who we have a good working relationship with. Whether or not there was
ever a Service or Technical Bulletin and what its # may be, I'm not sure. 
Concerning your owners manual, it is wrong. It is one of atleast four
errors printed therein.

Thought you would want to know.