Electrical problems

[raymosb]

Hey guys,

This is my first post so you'll excuse me if it's not in the right category... I wanted to see if anyone has had any electrical problems with their Mazda 3's? I have a 2006 sedan with 62K and it's been great up til about a month ago or so. After driving it for about a 1/2 hour or so (my commute is 26 miles one way) I noticed on the freeway that the electrical system 'twitched'. It basically shut down for about 1/2 a second and when I looked on my radio I saw the 'hello' message, which pretty much left me freaking out.

So the other day I was getting off the freeway and the whole system shut down. It came back on after a second or two, but the cars behind me on the off-ramp weren't happy.

So here's the kicker, I bought an extended warranty to 100k miles, just in case something like this would happen. So I took the car into the dealer last week, but now they're saying that they can't duplicate the problem. This is probably because the electrical twitches after about a 1/2 hr of driving, and they drive it for 10 minutes. So anyways, it looks like I'm going to have to take the car back with no fix, which makes me nervous because I don't want the electrical to fail again and something happen to me or someone else.

So anyways, that's pretty much what's happening. If anyone out there has had a similar experience (or knows anyone that has), PLEASE let me know so I can let the dealer know and we can get this thing fixed!

Thanks in advance,

Ray

 

[Addison]

I know it's a bit of a pain, but I would get a friend to video tape it while you're driving. Take it in to your service adviser and raise hell if they don't do anything.

 

[raymosb]

My boss is telling me to call Mazda and tell them about the problem and that it's a safety/driveability issue and see what they say. He's thinking that they won't want to get into a mess like Toyota just did with their recalls and stuff. Will give them a call and see what happens.

 

[Voltaic]

Hi Raymosb,

Did you ever get to the bottom of you problem?

I've had a similar problem happen to my '01 Protege yesterday, except that it occurred after only a few minutes.

I drove maybe 2KM before my radio died, came back on and died again. I've had this sort of symptom before, I went through 2 alternator already. But this time, my whole car died on me. Thankfully, I had enough momentum to safely pull over.

I tried to start the car after a few seconds and no go... just the 'tick tick tick'. Popped open the hood to check if there was anything obvious and tried starting it again. This time it fired up... I managed to drive it back home.

I'm kind of hoping it's the alternator again because it is still on warranty.

Regards,

Volt