So, for starters, the job went well all in all. Putting the car in and out of maintenance mode went without an issue as well.

However, there is one thing I came across where I feel some members could get a bit hung up on and I want to suggest some pointers and tools that you may want to have on hand to remedy the issue.

The issue pops up with one of the first steps in the removal of the caliper. The slide pin bolts may be a little seized to the caliper. Not an issue as the corrosion will break free fairly easily with a breaker bar.

The main issue comes after you break the bolt free from the caliper. Once you break any corrosion free, you'll notice the bolt and pin will spin together. That's by design though. You are supposed to use a wrench to hold the pin in place and then spin counter with a ratchet on the bolt head. Normally, that would be enough to break the bolt free from the pin. They are only supposed to be held on by 20 or so foot lbs.

That is of course unless the factory used blue locktite to hold the bolts in place inside the pins like they did with mine.

Again, shouldn't be too much of an issue if you use a breaker bar for leverage. The issue though is that none of my standard or metric wrenches were able to get a good bite on the pin side. Even using multiple, different sized adjustable wrenches would lose their grip. The main issue from what I can tell is that there are parts in the way that keep the wrench on the pin side from achieving a solid enough bite. Not sure if Mazda uses some sort of specialty wrench or tool for those but whatever size I tried, all of them would let go or not get a good bite. And I have A LOT of wrenches...

EDIT: After some research, it seems the correct wrench size for the pin side should be 18 MM. I have an 18 MM box wrench but I was still experiencing slipping. Seems that while you need an 18 MM wrench, you need one that is thin enough in order to get a good bite on the sides of the collar. Mine obviously wasn't thin enough and as I stated, my adjustable wrenches kept slipping as well.

I then worried about stripping the pin side after multiple attempts of the wrenches letting go.

I didn't want to do it but I decided that the only way I was going to get this done was with more "impactful" force.

I grabbed a set of smaller channel locks and locked them down on the pin side as hard as I could. I then used an impact (with impact socket) on the bolt side.

It was a tight fit for the impact wrench but I was able to get a good bite with the socket after some maneuvering.

I grabbed onto the channel locks as tight as I could and then hit the impact. After a few hits of the trigger, the bolts broke free of the pins. And the channel locks held the pin side in place as I hoped they would. And fortunately, no damage to the rubber boots.

When I fully removed the bolts from the pins, there was a significant amount of blue locktite about a half inch up the threads of the bolts.

So, my suggestion is to have an impact and a pair of small to medium channel locks for this job if you decide to do it yourself. Not sure if using locktite was the standard across the board at the factory but I have to assume it was.

I also didn't reapply blue locktite either. I just torqued the bolts to spec. I will be rechecking them after a short time to see if they are still torqued down properly.

I also had an extra set of pins, bolts, and boots on hand in case I had damaged anything too far. I leaned my lesson from when I did a brake job on my 2014 CX-5 and the caliper bolt head was compromised and snapped off when I was hand tightening the caliper bolt. So maybe have a set on hand just in case something worse happens.

Oh, and one other suggestion, if you're replacing the rotors, make sure you have a 8M x 1.25 bolt on hand. The rotor will most likely be seized to the hub. However the rotor will have an extra hole for you to screw in the 8M bolt. As you tighten down on the bolt, it will eventually release the rotor from the hub. I used my impact on the bolt and the rotor popped right off the hub with ease. If you don't have an impact, tighten the bolt with a socket wrench as much as you can then smack around the rotor face with a hammer. Tighten the bolt a little more, and then smack a few times again. The combo of tightening the bolt and hitting the rotor with the hammer should be enough to eventually release the rotor from the hub. On my older 2005 Mazda 3, I could whack the rotor from the inside but on my 2018, the backing plate (dust shield) prevents you from having enough rotor face to get a good hit with a hammer.

All in all, the job took me a few hours from start to finish. And always remember that if you have an EPB (electronic parking brake), you must put the vehicle into maintenance mode or you risk having to replace the entire caliper and most likely the EPB motors as well.

Good luck! Outside of the slide pin issue and maintenance mode, it was a fairly standard brake job.