This story pisses me off every time I tell it.
In late 1994, we got my now-ex-wife a ‘95 Mazda Protege. Dark blue, with purple tones in certain light. It replaced her GLC, which she loved. Mazda had a good reputation, and she wanted another, and it was peppy for an economy car, fun to drive. It was great. For about 10 months.
After a year of working at Honda I had 5 days of vacation built up, and we headed for Wisconsin to go to the airshow in Oshkosh. We had friends and family up there, a place to stay, and I love planes, and Oshkosh.
We left Columbus, Ohio on a Friday morning, planning to stop in Indy to see my wife’s grandma for lunch. A couple of hours into the three-hour leg, the stick popped out of 5th on the highway. Strange. Put it back in, it stayed for a while, then popped out again. Happened a couple more times before we got to grandma’s house. I called the local dealer, and they were not at all interested and said they were booked into the next week. Okay. Called the dealer in Columbus where we bought it, and they didn’t think it was a big deal, said go on with the trip and bring it in when we got home in a week. Okay, cool.
Off we went. The closer we got to Chicago, the more it started popping out of 5th. Nothing else, no noise or vibrations. Then it started popping out of 4th, and grinding in the other gears. By now we were behind schedule and hit Chicago at rush hour. That starts around 3 in that city, earlier some days, and frankly, I’ve never driven through Chicago without getting stuck in traffic a few times, no matter what time I go through, no matter the route. It’s better with the far outer belt, but this was before that existed. By the time I got to a payphone (this was before cell phones) most dealers were closed for the day, and the rest said they were either closed on Saturday or booked till Monday. With three hours more on the road to get to Oshkosh, and no local repair options (plus we would have to get a motel in Chicago and wait two days or more), we pressed on.
Made it into Oshkosh with first and second gear remaining, and third iffy. Went to the local dealer first thing in the morning. They said it would take a week or two to find and install a rebuilt transmission, and they wouldn’t give us a loaner. I argued, and eventually they agreed to cover a rental. With the airshow in town all the rental places were fully booked, but we finally found one: a Ford Aspire, probably the worst car I’ve ever driven. Very flimsy construction, wooden steering, iffy braking, wheezing sounds from the engine that would barely get it up to 65 mph, and boy, you didn’t want to be in that thing moving that fast anyway. But it was all we had, and it got us around town for the airshow, and home to Ohio, since I only had one week of vacation and the dealer made no progress in getting a transmission before we had to leave.
The Protege was a decent car when it didn’t have issues. The Aspire was a crummy car when running perfectly.
My brother picked up the Protege at the dealer a couple of weeks later when it was finally done, and met us halfway, somewhere in Indiana, to trade cars and return the rental. My wife took her repaired car and drove it for a few weeks. Till the transmission started making noises and popping out of gear.
It kept getting worse. We went back and forth with the dealer about it. They weren’t able to fix it, and were not interested in putting another tranny in (neither were we.) It had some other minor issues, like a high-pitched noise from the radio. Kind of like feedback, or a belt squealing. It almost drowned out the music. Took it in for that, and I walked into the service area first to explain the problem. Said the noise the radio made was something like the sound of a squealing belt. My wife pulled in with the radio on. Tech said, “Oh, yeah, definitely a belt.” I said, “Honey, please turn off the radio.” It stopped. The dealer service shop was flummoxed. They replaced the radio.
After almost a year of no progress on the transmission, we gave up and hired a lawyer. I had never had one before and was skeptical, but the only solution seemed to be to sue under the “lemon law,” which this car clearly met the definition of. That took more time, and money, but eventually we settled for an amount that let us pay off the car and pay the lawyer, with a couple thousand left over as a down payment on another car.
We got a Civic hatchback. It was great. I’ll never buy a Mazda again, and sometimes still sneer a little when I see one. Oh, I know most of them are good cars, but I bear grudges. For a few years afterward any unexplained noise on the road made my butt pucker. PTSD?
What a frustrating experience! My guess is that the radio issue was a problem with the radio noise suppressor that was supposed to keep the car’s electrical system from causing radio interference. Maybe a frustrating issue to track down, but probably not an expensive fix.
I think replacing the transaxle would probably have been the better part of valor (even if there was a fixable issue, like a bent shift rail, getting at it would have meant removing the transaxle anyway), and the dealer’s unwillingness to do that while the car was still under warranty strikes me as bad faith. However, a lot of modern dealers are reluctant to do much with manual transmissions because it’s easy for them to claim it was just abused, or that there are warranty exclusions for it.
My 2005 Mazda3 developed a perplexing clutch engagement thump when it was still pretty new, with around 15,000 miles. The car had a 3 year/50,000-mile warranty, so I took it to the dealer, and they told me that there was a special warranty loophole that only required them to cover the manual clutch for one year or 12,000 miles, so I ended up replacing the clutch out of pocket (at 15,000 miles, which I did not appreciate!). The replacement job revealed that one of the original clutch springs was shot, and was almost certainly defective, which I still think SHOULD have been a warranty replacement and yet was not. (The replacement clutch has now gone over 50,000 miles of mostly city driving and has only recently been showing signs of weakness.)
Yeah, the radio was simple, and a minor part of the story of this car. But one of so many other issues, including the major transmission one.
I was very very disappointed in the way Mazda, dealers and corporate, handled this, the whole way through. We bought a new car for the warranty, the security. And they were not at all interested in fulfilling their promises. My experiences with Honda, and hearing how my friends and acquaintances have been treated by them with warranty issues (and even after the warranty ends) have been very different. Honda would jump right on it, be proactive about other issues, have a nice loaner on hand, etc.
Warranty faults on Mazdas arent as rare as I thought, but usually they just install another powertrain the faulty one is returned to Japan, it isnt worth messing about with them at dealer level.
Somehow Mazda, Mitsubishi and Nissan never reached the same level of reliabilty as Toyota and Honda in my opinion.
Except from the 323 I cant really think of a model from these 3 that holds a reputation for being rock solid like a Corolla or Civic.
The dealer had to locate a rebuilt one, I think in Missouri, and it took weeks to get. I was disappointed in the dealer and in Mazda corporate.
Oh man do I relate! You’ll have to read my Chevy lemon law piece. My Chevy truck wouldn’t pull it’s own weight around. After my 14 months, 20 different rental cars and 53 repair attempts i finally went to the state attorney General.
They told GM not funny and I ended up getting my money back. Stupidly, I went back to GM but after this last 18 Sierra gave up it’s transmission at 40k it’s was game over.
I grew up in columbus and many years ago I remember the first mazda dealer was on the south side of the two seventy outer belt. I can’t remember what dealership.It was, but they eventually added b m w to the monster mixed.
Well, I’m glad that nightmare is over for you. Unless you’ve been through it, it’s something else.
I can remember when general motors called me to make arrangements to turn in my truck i asked the woman why they made it so difficult. She said in her time there, she had seen people trying to return cars because they didn’t like the color, because their wife didn’t care for the vehicle or because they simply couldn’t afford it. I had to ask her if anyone else had tried fifty three times to fix it , to which she replied no.
That’s horrible.
I had a Cruze and liked it, and they were good about minor warranty issues (I bought a used rental, still with a few years on warranty.) Hit a deer and totaled it, sadly. I might consider a Chevy someday, though I lean Honda now. Maybe Nissan or Toyota. But a couple experiences with Ford, and I’ll never buy them again, or Mazda.
There are a bunch of dealers at 270 and Georgesville, SW side of town. I’m not familiar with that area. We got this one at Patrick (I think) Mazda off Perimeter/Avery, NW side of town.
53 is a lot. It’s been years and I’m sure the number was mentioned in the lawsuit, but I’d guess we had 20 or so visits.
I recently found a 2013 60k miles fully-factory serviced Mazda 3 manual for my great niece. It’s a delight to drive. However, it had every problem identified on the ‘net for one of these (dashboard warp, clear paint on roof fail, an engine mount fail, some others). My brother has had a 2015 Cx5 diesel since new, a similarly great thing, but at 105K miles, it’s got lots of expensive bits nickel and diming it. Turns out upon looking around that there’s a reason beyond groupthink as to why used Mazdas are lots cheaper than Toyotas. I’m disappointed, tbh, because they really do make nice machines, especially now – but just not quite up to the best long-term.
Mind you, your experience with a newbie would piss me off the brand for good! Just outrageous. In this country (Australia), we don’t have lemon laws, and it takes folk really big fights to get money back on crap cars, so I suppose you at least can be thankful that you live where they do.
There were lots of hoops to jump through, and I’d never had a lawyer before, so it wasn’t a fun experience, but it certainly was educational. And successful enough, I guess: got us out of that car and into a new one.
Just had a Mazda 3 as a rental and it was good enough for a couple of days. Some design quirks I did not like and wouldn’t accept in a car I owned, but I didn’t want to march back into the rental office and complain.
Wow! My sympathies to all of you. I owned several Mazdas during the early 2000s including an ’02 Protege5 which was letter-perfect. (I’ve since noticed, though, every one develops debilitating rust in the wheel wells and rocker panels.) Likewise a 2004 Mazda3, 2007 Miata and 2010 Mazda5. I left the brand when the design language left me cold but they were all fun to drive and dead dependable.
It was a good car till it wasn’t. Fun to drive for a compact sedan. We got it because of good past experience with Mazdas. I’d say their designs were good, but there were a few manufacturing issues maybe (and serious service issues.)
Your (amusing) Ford Aspire description: ‘Very flimsy construction, wooden steering, iffy braking, wheezing sounds from the engine that would barely get it up to 65 mph, and boy, you didn’t want to be in that thing moving that fast anyway’.
To its defense, this all fully corresponds with its looks.
The one we rented was white as in the photo above but with chintzy (and very ’90s style) purple and blue sticker stripes meant to, maybe, make it look better? Make it seem faster?
Certainly, we all know that stripes improve both acceleration and top speed.
Sad to hear this, no excuse IMO .
I remember in the early 1970’s other Mechanics told me ‘Mazda makes decent cars but their interior plastics shrivel up and fail in three years’
-Nate
I helped my buddy force Jeep to take back a ’95 Cherokee that they couldn’t fix the temperature gauge on. They gave him a ’96. After a battle and six months of not having use of the ’95.
My 1994 Chrysler LHS had 4 recalls on it. It was sitting at the dealership on the grass awaiting repairs along with six other long rows of cars awaiting repairs. Their pavement was already full of cars. Chrysler filed bankruptcy in 2009 and disappeared it and there was nothing I could do about it. If you hear a company is considering bankruptcy, get all your stuff off its property. A company lost a 1,000 pieces of photo processing equipment that was in K-Mart’s stores when it filed bankruptcy. That killed off the photo company.
Wow!
I know I wasn’t there, but isn’t that theft? Recall or not, if you still have the title, it’s still yours. I know it’s hard to sue a bankrupt entity, but theft is a different story. Or so it would seem as I wasn’t there.
I hope to have better luck. My mother just bought a certified 2021 CX5 GT It’s a nice little wagon with all the options. I’m just hoping it lasts as she has just retired.
I’m sure most of them are fine. I just can’t stomach them after this experience. If the dealer and corporate had handled it better, I might still be a customer.
So annoying! I’ve had two Mazdas, one older and one newer than yours, go on to higher miles without problems. But my wife had car-killing trouble with a Toyota’s engine (an early 2S), so there you go. Seems anyone can make a dud car. The question is what they do about it. I quite understand your unwillingness to trust the brand again.
If a company won’t back their product, they’re not worthy of consideration.
It doesn’t help that Mazda (at least in the States) has gone through lengthy periods where the dealer body was thin on the ground. When my car was under warranty, the local dealership where I bought it vanished, and the main alternatives were 20 miles away (20 nasty urban traffic miles). The other dealerships didn’t offer loaners or shuttle service, so going to them was a big hassle without great results.
Yikes. I know the one we bought it from is still here, 30 years later.
Certainly, any company will have a few bad cars, just individual cars or even models. But yeah, it’s how they handle the problem that makes a difference.
Certainly, any company will have a few bad cars, just individual cars or even models. But yeah, it’s how they handle the problem that makes a difference.
My wife had an identical Mazda, also ’95 but bought at five years old with 60K miles. It only ever saw a dealer for the cam belt, I serviced it myself. Needed balljoints, brake pads, exhaust, eventually a new radiator , and some brake line components that corroded. My youngest learnt to drive in it – we passed it on to her when my wife wanted something better. We scrapped it at 197K and twenty years because the drivers’ seatbelt didn’t look like it would pass another annual test, the cam belt was overdue, and I didn’t think the clutch and brake rotors would last forever. Best car I ever spannered – my daughter still misses it.
The Hondas that my wife replaced it with were good, but not as reliable – the most recent one proved quite expensive to maintain, so she’s back in a Mazda again.
They make good cars, but once in awhile there’s a bad one. It was how they handled this that made me say never again.