Mazda USA MSM Production PDF documents initially published by Mazda back in 2005 have been on Mazda-speed.com, Miata.net and many other sites for many years and being published by Mazda themselves, enthusiasts have taken these documents as gospel yet they contain many errors.

Discrepancies found were:

1) There are over 1,160 build dates that are INCORRECT

2) The cars were NOT actually built in Build # sequence
 

1) On the 2004 PDF there are 862 Build dates that are incorrect and on the 2005 list there are 300 Build dates that are incorrect, in all cases of an incorrect date the cars were actually built earlier.

For the 2005 models, the PDFs state 131 MSMs were produced for the US market on August 18, 2004, the first day of production for the 2005 model year. This seems suspect as there were never more that 68 cars built on any one day throughout the entire production history. Upon further investigation it was discovered the Build dates for 89 of those units were prior to August 18th beginning with Build # 1 on August 2, 2004.

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2) The documents are sorted into Build # sequence implying that was the sequence the MSMs were actually built but that is definitely not the case.

For example build # 1 has a VIN of JM1NB354X40404121 but the lowest VIN on the list is JM1NB354140404105 which is Build # 102, supposedly built five days later when it was actually produced the same day. In fact when sorted by VIN sequence there are 10+ cars with a lower VIN than Build# 1 built the same day.

Another example, Build # 108 was actually produced on Jan 14, 2004 the first day of production, making it one of the first 15 produced for the USA so why does it have a Build # of 108?

Another example, when combined with other known VINs with their Build dates that fall into the range (e.g. Canada) everything lines up with the VIN # sequence being the obvious answer. This is further verified when the Japanese and Australian cars are added, as being right hand drive cars, they were assembled together as a group by day.

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I can say for certain they were NOT assembled in Build # sequence.

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How did I come about this discovery?
For the past several years I have been tracking down the Canadian MSMs produced, investigating each vehicle, one car at a time. Using multiple resources I have been able to identify and verify the VINs of the 373 Canadian cars (there may even be more!). During this investigation I came up against some discrepancies which lead to a deeper dive. For example, all Canadian VINs are within the range of the published PDF but their build dates did not jive with their American siblings unless the Chassis # (last 6 digits of the VIN) sequence was used.

 

The Australian and Japanese models definitely are produced in Chassis # sequence so it only makes sense the US market cars would be the same. 
 

I have verified many but not all of these Build date variances so if your car is one highlighted with a Build date discrepancy I invite you to contact Mazda USA (or your local Dealer) to verify your build date and report your findings. If I'm incorrect I'll gladly correct the error but we want to get the information correct so I'd appreciate confirmations as well.

 

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