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.