2016 CX-9 Battery draw issue

I have a 2016 mazda CX-9 touring, I purchase suv in April 2022, 2weeks later I started to have trouble , after turning the vehicle off it goes dead over night. I've taken it to the Mazda dealer, the battery has been replaced the cables have been tighten also the lifegate module has been replaced twice with 2 months also he said it was the sensor and then it came its a shortage in the motor of lifegate! After replacing the liftgate on left and right side, the Mazda service guy came in the next morning and the liftgate was up, and the suv was completely dead! At this point seems like everyone is a loss and I'm stuck without a vehicle I just purchased 7 months and they had had it 4 months now can't rectify the issue. Do you have any recommendations on how to solve the issue, something is drawing the battery down and the parts for these supposedly issues is very costly. Thank you so much in advance if you have any solutions please!!
 
Very sad in multiple ways. First off, they're part-hangers who have no clue how to diagnose an electrical issue. But even worse than that, they keep charging you, and you're paying for their incompetence. A shop with any degree of pride and integrity would keep going at it with N/C to you, after fumbling the ball the first time. You could try to get some $$$ back from them in small claims court, but probably only the lawyers would win in a case like that.

AFA getting the problem resolved, I suggest trying to find an auto-electric specialty shop in your area and ask if they're willing to take a look at your vehicle's issue. Those folks will diagnose an electrical problem systematically, instead of randomly flinging a huge collection of parts at the problem.
 
You mentioned that you started to have problems two weeks after purchase? Where did you buy it....dealer or private party? Did you get any kind of warranty....6....12 months? If not, any implied statement from the seller that there was nothing wrong with the vehicle? If you started having problems just two weeks after purchase, I'm guessing this was going on when the car was sold to you and if they did not disclose it or implied there was nothing wrong with the vehicle you could have a legal case.
 
You mentioned that you started to have problems two weeks after purchase? Where did you buy it....dealer or private party? Did you get any kind of warranty....6....12 months? If not, any implied statement from the seller that there was nothing wrong with the vehicle? If you started having problems just two weeks after purchase, I'm guessing this was going on when the car was sold to you and if they did not disclose it or implied there was nothing wrong with the vehicle you could have a legal case
 
Yes two weeks they kept telling me that It was this its that, and I bought from a dealership which they currently have it right now attempting repair. But as of Tuesday repair didn't work, diagnosis came from Mazda dealership in Mississippi. Its an extended warranty not manufacture anymore because its a 2016 I purchased it this year. I called a lemon law lawyer explained that its beyond the year they deal with..if it would of been an 2015 they could take the case... I attempted to find other lawyers I have been unsuccessful. The extended warranty is with AUL and its an ESTATE warranty every claim they send denied saying its not covered except the lift gate module they paid for! The vehicle had 57,000 miles on it, and the warranty isn't up until after 48 months or 105003 miles.
 
I'd forget about lemon laws and extended third party warranties. Bottomline, it appears an authorized Mazda dealer sold you a car with a problem. I'd insist they fix it at no charge, period. If no success. next step should be contacting Mazda corporate for resolution. If no success, tell them you want to return the car and get a replacement of equal value. If that doesn't work, contact your state Bureau of Consumer Protection.
 
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Lemon Law is only for the first year after original purchase of a new car, and the details vary by state. Mississippi may have no consumer protection agency nor auto repair regulation.

Extended warranties are usually full of holes. Read all the fine print. Ask them what to do if the repair they authorized did not correct the problem. Ask them to get their money back for the lift gate module replacement, because it was not the correct cause of your problem. You don't want them to pay twice for the same problem; you want them to pay once to actually fix the problem.

Use a battery maintainer overnight. This is a small battery charger that will keep the battery charged while something is drawing it down. Make a big sign for the top of the car, a big lemon, and park the car with the sign in a legal parking spot in from the the dealership that can't find the problem. They'll find the problem very soon after that.
 
Lemon Law is only for the first year after original purchase of a new car, and the details vary by state. Mississippi may have no consumer protection agency nor auto repair regulation.

Extended warranties are usually full of holes. Read all the fine print. Ask them what to do if the repair they authorized did not correct the problem. Ask them to get their money back for the lift gate module replacement, because it was not the correct cause of your problem. You don't want them to pay twice for the same problem; you want them to pay once to actually fix the problem.

Use a battery maintainer overnight. This is a small battery charger that will keep the battery charged while something is drawing it down. Make a big sign for the top of the car, a big lemon, and park the car with the sign in a legal parking spot in from the the dealership that can't find the problem. They'll find the problem very soon after that.
Lmao. Love that idea. Just take all your personal stuff out in case it gets broken into...

Although, If it was an expensive engine/tranny problem the lemon car in parking lot might work great after all you've got nothing to lose...but and just a what if..
For a smaller problem such as this, what are chances the dealer , who have master keys and can get into anything, would sabotage the vehicle with bigger more expensive fails ??
 
We have a 2014 Mazda 3 and a 6. At the cost of two batteries we found that if you shift into Park and then turn the engine off, the infotainment goes off. If you turn the engine off and THEN shift into Park, infotainment stays on and drains the battery. Nifty isn't it. Is this a feature or a design fault? I'd say its a design fault.
 
It is a feature. That is the only way to turn the car off without turning the radio off (if you are waiting to pick up someone for example). In a normal car you would just turn the key back one notch. In the push button car you turn it off while in drive.

I agree it is not a great way to implement it however. I prefer the american cars where the radio stays on after turning the ignition off, and only turn off when the driver door is opened.
 
It is a feature. That is the only way to turn the car off without turning the radio off (if you are waiting to pick up someone for example). In a normal car you would just turn the key back one notch. In the push button car you turn it off while in drive.

I agree it is not a great way to implement it however. I prefer the american cars where the radio stays on after turning the ignition off, and only turn off when the driver door is opened.
I disagree, Youri. Being an import doesn't excuse Mazda from not performing the same way as drivers have been conditioned with American cars. I personally have owned many manual transmission cars where I was not penalized a battery for shifting into gear and letting out the clutch after turning off the engine; it's natural for me now - unless I remember, and I still forget occasionally. Mazdas should have an optional configuration mode where this "feature" is always turned off for deliveries in NA. The standard way to turn on the radio without starting the car, mentioned in the owner's manual, is to press the ON button WITHOUT depressing the brake. Unfortunately, any person to whom I loan to the car doesn't normally know about this neat, unusual "feature" when they turn it off. Mazda did not do us any favors to find out the hard way, or even if they mention it as a side-note in the manual.

The reason I mentioned it in this topic is that it may explain the number of otherwise "unexplained" current draws that takes down the battery overnight. I'm also irritated that my forgetting about it exposed a real design defect in the 2014 BHP1-66-9C0 CMUs where the power-down reset did not turn off the CMU processor before the voltage got too low for it to work correctly, and it corrupted its memory. We recently came back after being away for an extended period to find a totally dead battery and an infotainment system that would always power down after about a minute of operation. Since I didn't want to pay a dealer $1000 to change out a defective CMU when it was built but now out of warranty, I replaced the un-upgradable 2014 CMU with a used but known-good 2018 unit. Fortunately it's easy.

No, Youri, I would argue that it's a design defect.
 
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I don’t disagree that it is impractical and accident prone, and I also ended up with a dead battery because of it. What I am saying is that they built it as a feature. Not a bug or a system malfunction and I do use it as a feature on occasion.
 
When a repair order is written for the job always be sure the problem is listed on the order. Don't sign the repair order without the problem listed. Don't allow the repair order to just state the service writer's guess at a fix. If they don't fix the problem listed on the order, don't pay. Paying by check gives one a short time to stop payment of a check for a non-repair. Jperson should not pay for parts that do not fix the problem. If one pays and the problem returns in a very short time, go back, ask for a meeting with the manager of the service department, and politely demand a refund for the parts and labor you did not need. If necessary look up the auto repair fraud office at your state government, often the state Attorney General consumer protection office and have this in hand at the meeting with the service manager (don't waste time with one of the service writers).
 
A gradually run-down battery can cause the CMU to fail in a way that explains why the 2014 Mazdas had so many different issues with the CMU that dealers could not identify the cause, except that the CMU had apparently failed. These all or most may have been the BHP1 model CMUs, made in China.
When the voltage gradually decreases with a processor chip running, the voltage can reach a low value where the processor quits running correctly and generates errors in the memory. What memory it damages depends on what is was executing at that particular instant of time. Processors are always designed with a power-down circuit that can detect that the voltage is low and gracefully stop before the voltage reaches that garbling point. However, if that power down circuit is not designed or built correctly, then memory can be changed, and the program will later be different from what was originally loaded in it. This kind of failure can show up as many different symptoms, making it difficult for anyone later to determine that the real source of the problem is not just bad memory. The only possibility is to blame it on an obviously defective CMU and change it out.
The "feature" of leaving the radio turned on and running down the battery is particularly insidious in that it leave no trail of clues. When the battery is dead, the car is in Park but nothing works. There is no clue that it was put in Park AFTER the engine was turned off. Replacing or charging the battery doesn't fix the damaged memory, and it appears that the CMU is defective.
My Mazda 3 had a BHP1 model CMU instead of the BANF model that should be installed in cars with Bose systems. If the BHP1 model has the power down defect, it more than likely affects all the BHP1 CMUs from 2014 until Mazda diagnosed the problem.
A cheap fix would be to upgrade or reinstall the software version and see if that fixed the problem before replacing the CMU module itself. If anyone finds that this fix works, please notify the Mazda community.
 
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