Having awful trouble with Mazda - advice needed

[Tronads]

Hello. I have just discovered these forums in a desperate google search session to find advice on a consumer problem I have.

Apologies for the length of this story, I know it goes on a bit.....

I have a Mazda 2 Diesel Automatic that will be 5 years old in December. It is below average milage, has always been dealer serviced and well treated.

Unfortunately, its been troublesome since new.

At around 2000 miles, some of my dashboard instruments went dead, and my automatic gearbox went haywire. It would rev up the engine for no reason, perform irregular gear changes, such as double changing, or changing down for no reason. It would slip the clutch, and sometimes a combination where it would change down and rev up, lurching me forward - I had to be ready on those brakes !. The local Mazda dealer were not very good. This was the first gearbox of that type they had seen, and didnt have a clue. The basicaly threw new parts at it, hoping for the best, and would give me the car back aparantly fixed, only for it to obviously not as soon as I left the forecourt. I appeared in Which magazine at the time about it. Eventualy they sorted it, but I expressed concern at the time about how the erratic gear changing and clutch slipping might effect future durability, but they assured me it wouldnt. Since then there have been a few unrelated niggles that have been sorted under warranty.

2 weeks ago however, my battery charging light came on at low revs. Not brilliant for an alternator to fail at only 47k miles, but I guess it can happen, so the car was booked into the local Mazda dealer for the repair. The original dealer has since shutdown. In between booking the car in and getting it there, the car let me down and I had to charge the battery. I disconnected it from the car for 8 hours while I did it, and on reconnection, I was up and running again, although still with no alternator charging it.

The car went into the dealer last wednesday for what was estimated as £120 for the Alternator, and 30 minutes labour, so roughly £200 overall. I drove it to the dealership, they then gave me a lift home in my car and drove it back to do the work.

I didnt receive any call during the day, so just got a lift to the dealer at 5PM, only to be told that there was some trouble with setting up the traction control, and would I like to wait. My first thought was "I dont have traction control !", but I said I would go home and come back on my bike for about 25 past. When I got there however, the service manager came out to see me and was very apologetic. Aparantly the Alternator was fitted, and did resolve the charging light problem....so far so good....BUT, since that point, they have been unable to get the car to go into gear. They spent 4.5hrs that afternoon running the diagnostic tests and trying to reprogram the gearbox, but it was not accepting the programming codes and giving unknown errors. They had been on the phone to mazda head technical office for advice, but at that time they were scratching their heads as to what was wrong with it. They said they think it was related to removing the power from the car for the 20 minutes they put the alternator on. I pointed out it was off for 8 hours for me with no adverse effects just 2 days before. I had no choice but to leave it overnight.

The next day, I heard nothing (I'm not one to pressure people), so waited till 3PM to ring them. They informed me that they have deduced that the PCM (aka the Engine Management Computer) has gone, and they had ordered a new one. On monday this arrived, and I came home to a message saying they needed my second key (to pair it up with the new PCM). I took this straight away, and they said they were "hoping to do the job tomorrow". Its now Wednesday lunchtime and I have heard nothing.

In the meantime, I contacted a Toyota garage with a view to getting a Yaris, and provided details of my current car. They replied with a trade in offer £1k less than all the book prices, and stated it was low due to "concerns over the gearbox", which came as a surprise to me, given I had done lots of google searches on the ASM gearbox and found nothing of note. Today I found that when the identical in all but name gearbox is fitted to the Ford Fiesta/Focus/Fusion, it is called a Duratech gearbox, and doing a google search on that reveals a different story. It seems the reliability on this box is dreadful, and very expensive to repair when it does go wrong.

So, I need to know what my rights are when (and if) this car is ever repaired. Does the fact this additional fault has arisen whilst in their possession, and as a direct consequence of the work they were doing on the alternator (remember they told me the removal of the battery they think had caused the gearbox to forget its settings) give me any legal clout ?. Also, given it now appears that this gearbox is known to be problematic, does the sales of goods act give me any backing under "durability". Ford (not Mazda) stated in their sales literature about the gearbox when it came out that it provided "maintenence free reliability for 185,000 miles" !

Not only has life been exremely difficult without a car, the whole situation is giving me sleepless nights with worry and frustration. I have such a feeling of dread over it, its untrue !

[Tronads]

As an addendum, I have just spoken with Mazda. The PCM made no difference, and they are now ordering a gearbox control computer, which aparantly costs more than £1k for the part alone !

The good thing is though....because it happened in their possession, they are paying for the repair. They have stated that I will only be paying for the Alternator repair.

This is a massive weight off my mind !

[Conniff]

You don't have much choice at the moment but to await the outcome of the new ecu.
Have you asked them for a courtesy car while they have your?

Just one other thing, have you had any problems with the speedo?

[Tronads]

No, the speedo has been fine.
In warranty, ive had gearbox and dashboard dial problems (not speedo) which lasted for about a month, then I was trouble free until I got a knocking on the suspension which needed something replacing. Ive a rear window that wont wind properly (that I forgot to mention at the final in-warranty service). Ive also now got an issue with the cd player in that since the power has been removed, its asking for a code, which isnt set by default at manufacture, so has been set by the old dealer, who no longer exists, and has neglected to write the number down anywhere on my log books etc. Of course now I have further gearbox problems, and had the failed alternator.

Although its had these problems, the car has never actualy broken down to the point of leaving me stranded, so I guess it hasnt been that bad. Im very annoyed that the gearbox has become a known issue thats going to effect my trade in value it would seem, even though its going to end up being pretty much all new parts on it !
I don't think I have been put off getting another Mazda though, just never again an Auto gearbox, which is a shame, as the ASM gearbox, when working correctly, is an absolute pleasure to drive.

I will say that if the garage stay true to their word and dont charge me for all this work, I will be writing to Mazda saying how impressed i've been with them. Particularly the service manager i've been dealing with, who at no point has tried to get out of taking responsibility for the matter, like a back street garage most definitely would have. They had the choice of looking after and keeping a loyal customer who might buy cars off them for years to come, or turning me into someone who would never set foot in there again and bad mouth them to all their friends an colleagues....they seem to have chosen the right option thankfuly, so all credit to them.

[berrti]

You seem to have been quite lucky with your dealer. My local deal has (with the help of Mazda UK) made sure that I will not be buying a car from them again. I generally replace my car every 3 years and am now looking for a new one - so for the sake of a £300.00 reair they have lost a £20k sale.

[LancerQRL]

dealers usually set the radio code as last four of the chassis number, although not in every case, it's a strange system where mazda have no way of knowing radio codes for there own vehicles and allow dealers to choose it

[TheChancellor]

I think you have been more than patient with the car - I would have been causing waves a long time ago.

Whilst praising your local Dealer to Mazda I would tell them that you hold them responsible for what is obviously a design defect.

List the full catalogue of troubles that you have had (with what was presumably a new car?).

Tell them that it's part exchange value is zilch & ask them what they will offer you on a new (manual) Mazda if you still like their cars.

They can't give cars away at the minute & if you kick up enough stink by threatening legal action or going to the Press you might get a good deal which will compensate for 5 years of trouble.

Be Firm !!

[Tronads]

Amazingly, I received my car back today, all seems well, and I was charged £186 for the new Alternator (£60 of that was labour).

Im quite relieved, and I am, as said, very pleased with how the garage handled it.

I will never know if they did anything to cause it or not...I have to assume not I suppose, given I could never prove anything, but there are those that said I could just as easily assume they did, given they covered the additional repair without question. Matters not.

Now to get down to thinking seriously about a new car.