Mazda refuses to fix my car because they cannot "verify" the issue, even though they have a TSB for it (https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2021/MC-10206007-0001.pdf) and in the TSB itself it mentions how the conditions have to be specific for it to happen. The issue is my CX-5 makes a howling noise that happens when traveling at highway speeds with strong cross winds. Because there are specific conditions that must be met for it to occur, there is no way I can just take it to a dealer and have them drive it out on the road and experience the issue. They refuse to accept videos I have of it happening as they say they must personally verify it
Some background, I first experienced this literally the first week I had the car back in June of 2020. I know other posters have experienced this because there are several posts about it on here. I do not drive my car that often since Covid as I work from home so thankfully this issue is sporadic for me, but when I take the car on road trips 3 or 4 times a year this almost always happens as I'm either driving in the mountains or the desert where it can be very windy.
After a year of dealing with this and Mazda finally issued the TSB for it I thought "Great, this should make it easy to get this annoying sound fixed." I scheduled an appointment at a Mazda dealership to get it fixed. I dropped the car off, showed the tech a video of the sound happening on my car and showed them the TSB, and paid for an uber to take me back home. At the end of the day they called me up and told me they couldn't reproduce the issue therefore they weren't fixing anything. The tech claimed it was my roof rails making the noise, even though I told him I had seen other people with the same issue that did not have roof rails on their car making this noise. I kept insisting it was not the roof rails so he said he would contact "corporate" to see if they could override his decision and would call me back to let me know. I of course never heard back from him. That was in 2021. I saw many threads here recommending to contact Mazda Corporate to have issues resolved so I added a reminder to call them and then I ignored it because I was dreading the hassle.
In the meantime my car continued to make the noise occasionally. Sometimes it only does it for a few minutes but sometimes it will do it for 20 minutes, just depending on the conditions. It's extremely loud, louder than the radio and cannot really be ignored.
Fast forward to last week. My car is weeks from the 3 year warranty expiring and so I wanted to get this fixed. So I called Mazda corporate, talked to an agent and explained everything. She called the original dealership who of course just told her the same thing and then she told me they cannot force the dealerships to fix anything (which is contrary to the impression I've gotten from some of the threads on this forum) and that the TSBs are just instructions on how to fix an issue, not any kind of recall. So she made an appointment for me at a different dealership (coincidentally the one I bought the car at) I asked if they would have the parts available for the fix and she said yes. I did not really trust her though.
The appointment was for this Monday. I drove the 40 miles to the dealership and when I dropped off the car told the tech about the issue, showed him several videos of it happening and then showed him the TSB. I then explained how they weren't going to be able to verify this themselves because of the specific conditions required to experience it, etc etc. They took my car and I went across the street to a coffee shop to wait. Almost 5 hours later they called me to tell me..... they couldn't reproduce the issue so they weren't going to fix it. I protested and the tech said he talked to the service manager who wouldn't let them do the fix unless they personally verify it. I immediately called Mazda corporate back, got someone on the phone, gave them my case number, and they called the dealership, and yet again just told me the same thing the dealership said. So I asked if the issue could be elevated and they said someone would get back to me in 48 hours. I went and picked up my car, sat in rush hour for almost 2 hours and arrived back home 8 hours after I left, the entire day wasted and nothing accomplished.
48 hours was today and I just got a call from a supervisor who all he said was he contacted the dealership and they can't verify it and that is ABSOLUTELY required to do the fix since it's not a safety issue. Again, I tried to explain how in the TSB itself it mentions that the conditions have to be just right to experience it and how that was kind of a catch 22 and he just kept repeating that they have to personally verify it. When I asked why videos of the issue don't apply he just kept repeating it has to be verified by the techs. When I asked to have the issue elevated he said his decision is the final say. I asked who his boss was and he said they don't take phone calls. At this point I was super frustrated after dealing with this noise for 3 years and wasting literally days on an issue _that can be fixed with what appears to be $10 worth of weatherstripping_. I told him I could not believe Mazda was willing to anger and potentially lose a customer over an issue like this. He sarcastically responded "Over a slight noise that happens sporadically" and I was like "No over the terrible customer service I have received." I then asked him for his last name and he refused to give it to me. He kept saying "I understand your frustration but there is nothing I can do the decision has been made"
I get that people probably bring their cars in for all sorts of crazy stuff and it is probably difficult to fix a car when you can't observe for yourself what is going on, but when it is on a TSB and therefore a known issue and the customer has video of it happening that seems like it should be enough. And for an issue like this that requires a specific environment for it to happen exceptions should be made. This is all caused because someone put "verify the customer's concern" as the first line of a TSB.
My partner's 2007 Prius is about to die and I was going to replace it with a Mazda 3 but this whole experience has made me realize Mazda just doesn't care at all about their customers so I'm just going to get another Prius. Other than the howling noise I have loved my CX-5 but I will not be buying another Mazda. And it's mind blowing they don't care about losing a customer who has had their time wasted and dealt with frustration over what should have been an easy fix. If they drag their feet this much over such a small issue I can't imagine what it's like over something that is expensive. I'm glad my car is about to be out of warranty because now there will be zero temptation to try and take it to an actual Mazda dealer ever again.
For reference, multiple videos of the howling issue happening that are on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWYr69B-TYc
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JxmZBJUTxi0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DEe2ciPRyA
Also a reddit thread where I guess other people got the same issue with other dealerships . It seems like this is just par for the course for Mazda all over the US and Canada:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CX5/comments/vzdui0/wind_noise/
Some background, I first experienced this literally the first week I had the car back in June of 2020. I know other posters have experienced this because there are several posts about it on here. I do not drive my car that often since Covid as I work from home so thankfully this issue is sporadic for me, but when I take the car on road trips 3 or 4 times a year this almost always happens as I'm either driving in the mountains or the desert where it can be very windy.
After a year of dealing with this and Mazda finally issued the TSB for it I thought "Great, this should make it easy to get this annoying sound fixed." I scheduled an appointment at a Mazda dealership to get it fixed. I dropped the car off, showed the tech a video of the sound happening on my car and showed them the TSB, and paid for an uber to take me back home. At the end of the day they called me up and told me they couldn't reproduce the issue therefore they weren't fixing anything. The tech claimed it was my roof rails making the noise, even though I told him I had seen other people with the same issue that did not have roof rails on their car making this noise. I kept insisting it was not the roof rails so he said he would contact "corporate" to see if they could override his decision and would call me back to let me know. I of course never heard back from him. That was in 2021. I saw many threads here recommending to contact Mazda Corporate to have issues resolved so I added a reminder to call them and then I ignored it because I was dreading the hassle.
In the meantime my car continued to make the noise occasionally. Sometimes it only does it for a few minutes but sometimes it will do it for 20 minutes, just depending on the conditions. It's extremely loud, louder than the radio and cannot really be ignored.
Fast forward to last week. My car is weeks from the 3 year warranty expiring and so I wanted to get this fixed. So I called Mazda corporate, talked to an agent and explained everything. She called the original dealership who of course just told her the same thing and then she told me they cannot force the dealerships to fix anything (which is contrary to the impression I've gotten from some of the threads on this forum) and that the TSBs are just instructions on how to fix an issue, not any kind of recall. So she made an appointment for me at a different dealership (coincidentally the one I bought the car at) I asked if they would have the parts available for the fix and she said yes. I did not really trust her though.
The appointment was for this Monday. I drove the 40 miles to the dealership and when I dropped off the car told the tech about the issue, showed him several videos of it happening and then showed him the TSB. I then explained how they weren't going to be able to verify this themselves because of the specific conditions required to experience it, etc etc. They took my car and I went across the street to a coffee shop to wait. Almost 5 hours later they called me to tell me..... they couldn't reproduce the issue so they weren't going to fix it. I protested and the tech said he talked to the service manager who wouldn't let them do the fix unless they personally verify it. I immediately called Mazda corporate back, got someone on the phone, gave them my case number, and they called the dealership, and yet again just told me the same thing the dealership said. So I asked if the issue could be elevated and they said someone would get back to me in 48 hours. I went and picked up my car, sat in rush hour for almost 2 hours and arrived back home 8 hours after I left, the entire day wasted and nothing accomplished.
48 hours was today and I just got a call from a supervisor who all he said was he contacted the dealership and they can't verify it and that is ABSOLUTELY required to do the fix since it's not a safety issue. Again, I tried to explain how in the TSB itself it mentions that the conditions have to be just right to experience it and how that was kind of a catch 22 and he just kept repeating that they have to personally verify it. When I asked why videos of the issue don't apply he just kept repeating it has to be verified by the techs. When I asked to have the issue elevated he said his decision is the final say. I asked who his boss was and he said they don't take phone calls. At this point I was super frustrated after dealing with this noise for 3 years and wasting literally days on an issue _that can be fixed with what appears to be $10 worth of weatherstripping_. I told him I could not believe Mazda was willing to anger and potentially lose a customer over an issue like this. He sarcastically responded "Over a slight noise that happens sporadically" and I was like "No over the terrible customer service I have received." I then asked him for his last name and he refused to give it to me. He kept saying "I understand your frustration but there is nothing I can do the decision has been made"
I get that people probably bring their cars in for all sorts of crazy stuff and it is probably difficult to fix a car when you can't observe for yourself what is going on, but when it is on a TSB and therefore a known issue and the customer has video of it happening that seems like it should be enough. And for an issue like this that requires a specific environment for it to happen exceptions should be made. This is all caused because someone put "verify the customer's concern" as the first line of a TSB.
My partner's 2007 Prius is about to die and I was going to replace it with a Mazda 3 but this whole experience has made me realize Mazda just doesn't care at all about their customers so I'm just going to get another Prius. Other than the howling noise I have loved my CX-5 but I will not be buying another Mazda. And it's mind blowing they don't care about losing a customer who has had their time wasted and dealt with frustration over what should have been an easy fix. If they drag their feet this much over such a small issue I can't imagine what it's like over something that is expensive. I'm glad my car is about to be out of warranty because now there will be zero temptation to try and take it to an actual Mazda dealer ever again.
For reference, multiple videos of the howling issue happening that are on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWYr69B-TYc
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JxmZBJUTxi0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DEe2ciPRyA
Also a reddit thread where I guess other people got the same issue with other dealerships . It seems like this is just par for the course for Mazda all over the US and Canada:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CX5/comments/vzdui0/wind_noise/
You have my sympathy as well (had to deal with similar situations with other dealers not Mazda) but there are bigger issues in life and unfortunately we dont always what we think we can get.
