09 Speed 3 Blown Trans/clutch 20k miles dealer refuses to fix.

Blitzkrieg

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2001 Blue MP3 Protege #394, 2003.5 Yellow Mica MSP #1201
Let me start this off by saying i purchased a brand new 2009 speed 3 gt in may of 09. It was purchased at Mazda of Milford in Milford ct as was the last 4 Mazdas i have owned excluding my MSP, I have never had a problem with this dealer or any warranty service needed for that matter until now.

The only mods i have done to my speed 3 are the dealer installed Mazdaspeed intake and Fiber Images carbon fiber hood, other then that my car is completely stock. So let the story begin..

Back in February of this year my car would randomly pop out of second gear, not all the time but mostly when making left hand turns. i brought it to the dealer to have it looked at and i was told they couldn't find anything wrong and they couldn't simulate what was happening. In April i brought the car back for the same issue only this time it would pop out of second gear if you hit the gas about half way or more, i was told it was a bad linkage cable and it was repaired and the car has been fine since..

well on Halloween i was on my way to the store when it started to pop out of second gear again and i noticed that it was very hard to get it to engage reverse. i continued to drive the car and was waiting to bring it to the dealer the following day. well the following day i was on my way to the dealer to drop it off for them to look at it when all of a sudden i heard a loud bang followed by a grinding sound sort of like when you grind a gear. I pulled over right then and there and was able to disengage it from sixth gear and pull over and see what happened or if the car was even drivable. i noticed that the only gears that worked was 3rd and 6th all other gears seemed to be non existent.

at this time i exactly 1/4 mile down the street form the dealer and i just drove the car the rest of the way there in 3rd gear. I made it to the dealer (Mazda of Milford) and told them what happened and left the car for them to look at it, this was on Monday 11/1/10. I get a phone call from the service manager mike on Tuesday that they are not sure what is wrong with the car but the transmission seems to have failed and states that they need to pull the transmission and see what happened. i authorized the repairs and wait to hear back.

I receive a phone call on Thursday 11/4/10 for Mike in service of Mazda of Milford and he states that someone in service took the car for a test drive and then returned with the car not drivable at all and that the slave cylinder has 0 pressure and now the clutch and flywheel are bad and need to be replaced and that no gears are working in the car, and he quotes me 8700$ to repair it.... Now wait a minute... Not only is the car only a year old but i purchased the extended warranty on the car even though the car is still well within the factory warranty period. Mike then goes on to state that because the car had now suffered a clutch failure and that i have the Mazdaspeed intake in the car (which was installed at the dealer) that my warranty is void and they will not fix it. I state that the car was malfunctioning when it was brought in but was drivable and now you are trying to return my car to me in underivable condition and your refusing to repair it. this goes back and forth for pretty much the whole day.

I contacted Mazda corporate which was no help at all and i contacted several other local Mazda dealers to find out that Mazda of Milford has put in the system my warranty is void. Today i went to the dealer to try and see if there was someone else i can talk to about this to get this problem solved. i spoke to Jason the service manager and stated that due to the fact the car suffered a clutch failure this was the reason the transmission blew and now the transmission is no longer covered under warranty and that due to the extra horse power from to the intake the the clutch was unable to handle the power and therefor voided my warranty.... OK do i smell bulls*** or what???

i have never owned an automatic car, i learned to drive a car on a stick and i also never had clutch go on me ever, including my daily driven MP3 Protege with 160k on factory clutch and my beater rx7 with 156k on the factory clutch etc.. you get my point.

So now i have a brand new car that does not work or drive (though it was running and drivable when i brought it there) that has a voided warranty and on top of it they said if i dont have the car repaired or picked up by Sunday 11/7/10 i am going to be charged a 75$ a day storage fee.

At this point i have contacted the state attorney generals office the better business bureau and the ct state dmv office to try and get some form of justice here. I have no idea what i am going to do nor do i have the money to even fix it, and i think even if i did have the money i wouldn't fix it. i need to hear what all you Mazda people have to say about this horrific ordeal.




UPDATE........

OK, well its been a while since i posted anything or even signed in, this is mainly due to the fact my mother and sister were killed in a car accident the day before thanksgiving.

Moving along... I ended up contacting a few lawyers who pretty much all told me unless i wanted to sue them and claim other damages it would be more cost effective to just pay to have the car fixed.

Im the midst of this i lost my mom and sister so the car ended up being the least of my concerns. at this point i just didn't care anymore and let the car sit and didn't keep up with anything and stopped all contact with the dealer and the lawyers.

In mid january i decided to start up the quest of fixing the car again. I started contacting local junk yards and such and came across a smashed (in the rear) 08 speed, I was able to work out a deal with the place and they told me if i pulled the trans myself 300$ and its mine, if they pulled it 800$. So a buddy and myself ended up pulling it the following day on probably the coldest day of the year lol. I also ordered the ACT Race clutch kit with lightweight flywheel

After all was said and done we ended up getting hit with some massive snow storms wich pushed back the installation till pretty much march.

One weekend when it was nice we started the project and got everything all set. The slave cylinder ended up being bad on my car and the one from trans from the yard. I ordered a new slave online and a couple days later when it arrived finished the job. This is when we ran into some issues.

The factory slave form mazda uses a plastic push rod and a plastic compression ring to stop fluid blow-by so with the added force of the new clutch the plastic push rod snapped when bleeding the system, So after some research i found that a 06 Nissan maxima slave bolts right up and uses a metal casing and metal pushrod, the only mod you need to do is cut the factory hydraulic line to the slave and make a custom end to it to bolt to the nissan slave.

Now that everything was all set and bled it was time to take it out for a spin.

AWESOMNESS!!! everything seems to be perfect..... well... it was till second gear started popping out whenever you gave it more then half throttle. I pulled the car back in the driveway perplexed at the bad experience i am having with this car when my friend says to me "Did your car always smoke that much??" Being some what oblivious to everything deep in though i finally realized that my car was omitting billows of smoke through the exhaust pipe. At this point i though it was just s*** burning off from it sitting for a few months.

I decided to just drive the car as it was seeing that i dont beat on it anyways. after a few days the smoking never stopped and i came to the conclusion that my turbo seals were now bad. Not caring i continued to drive the car.

At this point i wanted to just get rid of the car so i brought it to carmax and got a super lowball quote of $10,450, i of course turned it down.

I ended up calling mazda dealers all over the state telling them i have a pretty much brand new speed 3 that i want to get rid of till one told me to bring the car in. I brought the car in for an appraisal and without them even test driving it or starting it they made me an offer of 15k i was able to haggle them up to 15,750$ and the deal was done, I sold the car to the dealer. Everything was finalized and i got my check April 12th.

As of now i dont think i will buy a new mazda ever again, this experience totally just killed it for me in every way. Dont get me wrong I love mazdas but this was the deal breaker.

Thank you to everyone who supported me on the OP, I wish this had a different or should i say more beneficial outcome and the dealer was put in their place but w.e, its water under the bridge now and mazda lost a customer for life.
 
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Its in the works right now i need to wait for monday to here back form a few places on legal action.
 
good luck man. mazda dealers will goto great lengths to bend someone over. hope it all works out.
 
***UPDATE***

I just received a call from the District/Regional service manager who told me that the warranty was not voided to do the intake and they are not refusing to repair due to the intake but because they believe the car failed due to driver error (hence they think i beat the s*** out of it) because the clutch failed in such a shirt time.

I stated i drove the car there the clutch was fine why do you expect me to believe and accept what you are saying when everyone on earth knows what your saying is bulls***. and he went on to say it didnt matter but there is no way for a clutch to fail like that unless it was caused by driver error and even if the clutch failed due to mechanical error its a wear and tear item and wouldnt be covered under warranty anyways. at this point I just hung up on him cause i have nothing nice to say at all.

i would like to point out yet again the clutch was 100% functional when i dropped it off. Im not retarded i know how to drive and this car was bought souly because i like mazdas and i really liked this car and i wanted something to replace my daily driver MP3 Protege. it looks every bit as new as it did the day i bought it and it was never beat on or misused or neglected in anyway.

if i want to beat on something i have 600whp rx7 sitting in my garage or better yet if i wanna go really fast ill take out my Bimota DB7

Mazda can go **** themselves!! i cant wait to here back from people (specially the attorney general office) so i can get the ball rolling on this.
 
Isn't there some Mod law that says you can mod the car and they'll have to pay for repairs as long as the mod itself isn't related to the problem?
 
yes there is but the mazdaspeed cai is a factory warrantied part and was installed by the dealer before i ever even picked the car up for delivery so there should not be an issue in anyway what so ever here concerning "mods"
 
I'd say if you get no warranty replacement, swallow your pride and take the credit hit and let them repo the damn thing. THere is no way in hell you should pay $8k. If you do, I might just drive to Conn. and slap you three times! Kidding. I'm being serious about the repo though. You gotta let that thing go, I'd take my chances getting sued later rather than just coughing up $8k. I don't have enough dough to ever pay that repair bill.
Sounds dooshbagish to say let 'em repo it but I think you are completely justified in doing so. I would.
 
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Absolute worst case
car-part.com find a salvage tranny and possibly clutch and flywheel from a low mileage vehicle and don't have the work done by the dealer!!!

Someone located a super low mileage awd ms6 tranny for $500 +250 for shipping acrossed to the opposite coast
 
I don't think they are taking the intake mod angle anymore. THey are saying that it was his driving that blew the clutch.
 
I would not let this go, do not repo it. There are many obvious reasons that it WAS NOT your clutch that caused the transmission melt down. A. If that was the case, you would have been having HUGE drivability issues long before your tranmission blew. B. Theres no way you would have been able to get it to the dealer in it's current state if it was the clutch. Keep making a huge fuss at the dealer, call every day and annoy the s*** out of them. Call your local news, call the local high school and ask if they'd like to run an article in the school newspaper, do whatever you have to do to bring negative attention to this dealership, unless of course they offer to fix it under warranty. Good luck
 
I'd say if you get no warranty replacement, swallow your pride and take the credit hit and let them repo the damn thing. THere is no way in hell you should pay $8k. If you do, I might just drive to Conn. and slap you three times! Kidding. I'm being serious about the repo though. You gotta let that thing go, I'd take my chances getting sued later rather than just coughing up $8k. I don't have enough dough to ever pay that repair bill.
Sounds dooshbagish to say let 'em repo it but I think you are completely justified in doing so. I would.

The cars paid for so letting it be re-pod is not necessary. At the same token there is no way in hell i will ever pay for this to be fixed because i have done nothing wrong and the car should 100% be covered under the warranty. I even said to them if your making such a deal about the clutch just fix the trans and ill pay for the clutch but they refused stating driver error caused the malfunctions nothing is covered.

Worse case ill just tear down the whole car and part it out, i dont even want it after this.
 
FWIW, the Mazdaspeed CAI is what they refer to as a "Green" Performance accessory... and by definition that is; Mazdaspeed "Green" Performance Accessories must be specifically approved by Mazda for their particular application. These parts are warranted for the first 12 months/12,000 miles form the date of purchase, excluding labor.

So there is no way a "factory accessory" approved by Mazda for your vehicle, that carries its own factory warranty can void any other warranties.

Call the district rep. They work for MNAO and are above anyone at the dealer..

Keep pressing it at the dealership. Talk to the general manager, go to the owner. Keep pushing on people.

PM me if you have any questions or need any help.

:)

The issue isnt over the intake anymore they completely pulled another angle and are blaming the refused warranty repair work on abuse/driver error.

I contacted the district rep. the service manager must have blew him or something cause he said the same thing the dealer told me, nothing will be covered because the car broke down due to driver error and i will quote this "When you dive a car as hard as you have these malfunctions will happen and it is not the dealer or mazdas responsibility to cover your poor driving habbits" wow what an asshole!!

I gave up trying to deal with mazda or the dealer in general. I have a case opened with the BBB and a representative contacted me earlier today and ran me through everything. Im also awaiting a call back from the attorney generals office to see what their insight is on the situation.

Thank you, if anything should come up i will contact you.
 
I would not let this go, do not repo it. There are many obvious reasons that it WAS NOT your clutch that caused the transmission melt down. A. If that was the case, you would have been having HUGE drivability issues long before your tranmission blew. B. Theres no way you would have been able to get it to the dealer in it's current state if it was the clutch. Keep making a huge fuss at the dealer, call every day and annoy the s*** out of them. Call your local news, call the local high school and ask if they'd like to run an article in the school newspaper, do whatever you have to do to bring negative attention to this dealership, unless of course they offer to fix it under warranty. Good luck

Im not gonna let it go and the car is paid for so no repo. I know it wasnt the clutch to all honesty i never really drove this car hard ever, i mean i got on it but its not like i was racing all day ripping burnouts and doing revers donuts with it. it was my daily driver that had enough power to get out of its way when need be and i can guarantee the clutch would have outlasted the motor.

I had weird trans before this ever happened second gear popping out, bad shifter linkage nothign crazy though but it should be enough for them to see there was issues before this.

Im not sure if they are telling me in a roundabout way that because i continued to drive it there everything got more ****** up and that why there not covering it or they they legitimately think i beat the s*** out of it, idk. but either way im fighting this

Im done dealing with the dealer i need someone higher up and more influential in this situation to make more of an impact, i actually contacted my local news to day also and was told i would get a cal back, im not sure if they interested or not, but il await their call.
 
that would be funny if the news thing happened like this recent bmw thing, and everyone in the forum community hopped on board and complained about the smoking turbos, pcv problems, unwarranteed items,and then mazda fixes everyone
 
Is it possible that damage was done to the transmission because of the shifter linkage issue and the constant poppoing out of gear? I'm not very knowledgable about transmissions, but I wouldn't think that popping out of gear during acceleration would be a good thing in terms of the condition of the transmission.

Maybe work that angle? The transmission blew because of the faulty linkage issue that it had earlier and the popping out of gear damaging the trans. I'd at least ask some other mechanics if that is a possibility, and if it is, I'd blame that. I would also ask other mechanics about whether it is possible for the clutch and all to be ruined by the gears going if the car was driveable after the problem ocurred. If the mechanics say that is all BS then it tells you they screwed up the clutch at the dealer so they could blame that for the tranny issue.
 
Do they even have the documentation to prove that blew tranny was cause by driving error??? I was having a problem with Mazda, they **** me good onetime and after that I told all my ppl's that do not fukin with Mazda. This is my first Mazda and it will be the last Mazda !!!
 
I am baffled that they even tried to drive the car after it was brought in to the dealership in that condition.
 
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