Ok I got a new Mazda 3 2012 sky active with a 6M last saterday. Its been great up until today. I first noticed it occiasianly wouldnt let me shift from firth to six gear. This happened like three times. On the third time I was at 60MPh and my rpm was around 3k.

Also when i shift into and out of second gear its making this weird squishing sound. Its not the sound of gear scraping but it sound more of a fluid and its only on second gear.

I havent done anything that would damage the car. I have had it for 4 and half days. I cant believe i am already having problems. The car had 160 miles on it when i bought it from the dealer. Its got about 500 know. I have a long commute. Can anyone think of what could be wrong? I looked on line and i cant find anything similar to the second gear issue

 

I forgot to mention the sound is coming from the shifter not the clutch

 

I haven't heard that sound, but my wife and I have had a lot of problems with our 2012 Mazda 3 manual 6-speed transmission. We test drove the i-touring (skyactiv) model and thought that the shifting was shorter than we were used to, but very smooth. We ended up buying this model.

After about a week of using the car we noticed that it occasionally didn't want to go into 3rd gear. It would completely block us from going into the gear. We also noticed that the shifting was very rough, especially into 3rd.

We took it into the dealers and they said we might be driving it wrong or the gears might need to "wear in". We both have been driving manuals since 16 so we aren't driving it wrong. We waited a couple days, but when the car wouldn't shift in the middle of an intersection for my wife and she was almost rear ended we took it back to the service station.

This was the first car of this model any of them had driven, so they didn't know what it was exactly supposed to feel like. At first they said everything was normal, but after the service manager took the car home at our insistence he told us the next day that corporate was flying in an engineer from Japan to check out the transmission. The car has less than 500 miles on it and they are replacing the transmission and the shifting cables. Obviously something wasn't right.

Two weeks later the dealership agreed to replace the car since it must have shipped with a defect. We decided to test drive the car again to get a feel for what a new one should feel like, but we experienced the exact same problems that we had when we brought our car into the service station! The test model had 11 miles on it when we drove it the very first time and was smooth. 70 miles later the same test model felt very rough and just didn't want to shift into 3rd or 4th.

We no longer have confidence in this model at all. At this point we are trying to contact Mazda corporate to see about a refund. If our experience is any indication there is a serious problem with the manual transmission on the skyactiv models.

 

Any updates to this? I test drove the both the base Mazda 3 with the 5 speed MT and the Skyactiv with the 6 speed MT. I found the 5 speed somewhat stiff but I thought it just wasn't broken in. The 6 speed was excellent. The Skyactiv was at the top of my list of potential cars but after reading your problems I'm not sure anymore.

 

Update:

We figured out looking at the contract that there was a very slim chance of us getting a refund for the car since the parts are covered on the warranty.

They ended up fixing the original car and giving it back to us. They also gave us a pre-paid Service Plan for 5-years/75k.

The car seems to be running and shifting "normally". The original problem where we were completely blocked from shifting into gear while moving has not happened again. Sometimes shifting still feels rough, but overall the car is working fine.

Soon after starting when it is very cold it doesn't want to shift and the stick sometimes gets stuck in gear (1st and 2nd), but after it warms up this never happens. We've also had it not want to go into 1st while stopped on an incline/decline. If we take our foot off the brake and let it drift an inch or two and try again it goes into gear.



On an unrelated note, we had a 4 inch nail puncture the rear tire this weekend and had to get that fixed. Maybe we are just very unlucky.

 

I have experienced stiffness when shifting any number of manual transmission equipped cars of European, American, and Asian manufacturers, and in every case so far, a switch to Redline Synthetic gear lube has corrected the issue. Assuming your issues get no worse, and assuming they disappear altogether once the weather warms up, you might want to consider swapping out your gear lube.

 

Thanks for the tip!
Do you know if changing out the gear lube would effect the warranty at all since its not the original "part"?

 

Assuming you stay with the recommended viscosity , then no, it will not affect your warranty. FWIW, my 2009 Mazda3 calls for 75W-90 gear lube which meets either the GL-4 or GL-5 API specification.

Here's what I use in my car: Red Line Synthetic Oil - Gear Oil for Manual Transmissions - MT-90 75W90 GL-4 Gear Oil

 

We just bought a used 2010 S Hatch with 6M. Only 8K miles on it and I noticed the synchro for 4th gear is not working properly. Get a soft grind every 3-4 shift. I even tried coasting about 40 mph, and shifting back and forth just leaving the clutch to the floor. Every time entering 4th gave me a grind. Got an appt. Tues. at the local dealer to have them check it out.

Wouldn't have purchased the car, but with 14 months bumper:bumper and then the power train coverage, I figured we'll get this worked out under warranty. Mazda's a good manufacturer, and their shifters are usually notoriously smooth, so this may just be an anomaly.

 

hmm...

Looks like Mazda has some quality control issues on hand. Hopefully they figure out the solutions soon. New engines and transmissions, with lots of buzz around Skyactiv, Mazda better get their engineers working hard.