Yesterday my 2006 Mazda3s 5-Speed was doing something weird. When I was parallel parking, as the car was put into neutral and my foot was completely off the clutch, the car's electrical system kept restarting when I turned the wheel. As if I left the wheel in its current position, the car would be ok. Then when I turn the wheel a little bit, everything would shut off and turn back on quickly. This means power steering would be gone and my lights would turn off. In order to get the car moving again, I needed to completely turn off the car and then turn it back on. I will have to get this checked out at the dealer because when I was driving to work today, the car kind of did it while I was moving on the road. I was braking before a stop light and then the car would flash the ABS light and radio would turn off for a split second while the power steering would go as well...

Any ideas on what could be happening? Is this a known issue with Mazda3s?

 

power steering and random electrical problems with it are known but not that common esp in a 2006, you mostly hear about this in the 07 and up, i suspect the power steering as you do as i believe draws the most power in our setup. most common failure is the electric motor for the pump, id either take it to a dealer which they should perform some basic electrical tests to see how much its drawing and probably replace it with a newer one, thats my guess :/

 

Thanks for the suggestion, I will have it looked by the dealer today and hopefully they can find something obvious. One thing that I noticed was that yesterday, after parking the car, I came back to go run errands and the keyless entry was not working. Then I noticed that the driver side door was not locked and when I tried to unlock the car with the keyless entry fob, the car would not respond. When I got in, the power locks were not working inside the car so it seemed as if I had absolutely no power in the car. However, I was able to start up the car and then everything worked...when I finished my errands, all the systems were working just fine. Today when I drove to work, the car was fine and I didn't have any problems. If the problem was with the power steering drawing too much power, wouldn't that affect the electrical system while driving and not when the car is off? Do you think I may have a bad battery or bad battery connection? Also while looking around under the hood, I noticed that there was some fluid pooled up near the power steering fluid reservoir. According to this Consumer Guide Automotive article, the 04-07 yrs are affected by a potential power steering leak. http://consumerguideauto.howstuffwor...-mazda-3-2.htm Considering that the fluid was a dark yellowish color, and the only other fluid in the area is wiper fluid (blue) I think I may have a power steering leak...Would such a leak damage the motor causing the electrical problems I am seeing?