I have been looking around for a bit, and wanted to post up a gripe I am currently having with Mazda and the CX-5.

We currently have about 23k on the Odometer, we love driving the car all around Southern California, and the other day wife was driving up to work, and the car stalled out on a busy road (hwy 395) in Victorville on a Friday morning. We have the car towed into the nearest dealer, Victorville Mazda (had it been my choice, it would have come closer to home in Ontario Mazda, but a dealer is a dealer) In talking to my wife about it stalling out, she was driving, then the car went into a Neutral feeling gear (Automatic Transmission)and then stalled as if it was a manual transmission car. It lunged forward, and would not move from the middle of the road from that point forward.

I received the call at around 11am on Friday from that the Transmission hada catastrophic failure, was not drivable and needed to stay in the shop for 5 days. I inquired as to the failure, and got the push over response of "well if you want to know, we can pull the transmission apart and charge you $1000 just to figure it out, otherwise we are just going to send it back to Mazda to have them look at it." My next inquiry was that of a Rental Car. The Mazda Policy is that they do not give rental cars, but they were going to try to make something happen. The service writer then goes to tell me that because it is Friday, nobody is available to contact regarding a rental car, I can get one if I choose, and they may/may not reimburse my expenses.

I have heard of a few other transmission related issues on these cars, and I really do not see the point of at least offering a rental car, if you are going to be out of a car for over a week and a half due to a warrantied issue, especially if it in the long run is never going to come out of your pocket.

So, as it stands, on Monday. No rental car, the “Re-Manufactured” transmission is hopefully going to be at the shop on Thursday, installed on Friday, and ready for this up-coming weekend. After this incident, of leaving my wife stuck on a busy road in a relatively new vehicle, we are asking ourselves if we should keep this vehicle, or should we lose some money, and get a differen tone based on our dealer/vehicle experiences.

We also have had the Bluetooth module replaced, and the window motor for the driver side rear window due to scraping noise when lowering/raising the window.

Official rant over! Thank you for listening!

Jordan

 

No it's not over (rant).
My 2006 tranny went after same mileage. Don't just get a rebuilt tranny as you will have same problems again. Do yourself a favor and get an aftermarket external tranny cooler installed as soon as possible!

READ: Transmission Fluid Flush Tips | Trucks Plus

some hilights: As a rule of thumb, every 20 degree increase in operating temperature above 175 degrees F. cuts the life of the fluid in half!

At 195 degrees F., for instance, fluid life is reduced to 50,000 miles. At 220 degrees, which is commonly encountered in many transmissions, the fluid is only good for about 25,000 miles. At 240 degrees F., the fluid won't go much over 10,000 miles. Add another 20 degrees, and life expectancy drops to 5,000 miles. Go to 295 or 300 degrees F., and 1,000 to 1,500 miles is about all you'll get before the transmission burns up.

If you think this is propaganda put forth by the suppliers of ATF to sell more fluid, think again. According to the Automatic Transmission Rebuilders Association, 90% of ALL transmission failures are caused by overheating. And most of these can be blamed on worn out fluid that should have been replaced.

On most vehicles, the automatic transmission fluid is cooled by a small heat exchanger inside the bottom or end tank of the radiator. Hot ATF from the transmission circulates through a short loop of pipe and is thus "cooled." Cooling is a relative term here, however, because the radiator itself may be running at anywhere from 180 to 220 degrees F.!

Tests have shown that the typical original equipment oil cooler is marginal at best. ATF that enters the radiator cooler at 300 degrees F. leaves at 240 to 270 degrees F., which is only a 10 to 20% drop in temperature, and is nowhere good enough for extended fluid life.

An auxiliary transmission fluid cooler is easy to install and can substantially lower fluid operating temperatures. The plate/fin type cooler is somewhat more efficient than the tube and fin design, but either can lower fluid temperatures anywhere from 80 to 140 degrees when installed in series with the stock unit. Typical cooling efficiencies run in the 35 to 50% range.

 

Thank you for the heads up. I think I might just let it fly without adding an additional fluid cooler, and lemon the car if it does this same thing again! or just get rid of the car and get something better!