Recall #1

[FrostyCarbon]

Well, called my dealer on Sat. and they didn't know what I was talking about.
I called a dealer in the West end, and a girl that just started training knew about the e-mail on Fri. from Mazda. She wanted to set-up a rental that day and get my 5 in.
Called my dealer again.... told them to call the west store, and they told me that they will not start anything unless THEY have something from Mazda. They will get one chance to make it right and me happy, if not I go elsewhere to service and buy, and will forever trash them to everyone.
So until then.... I'll just drive FASTER to put the fire out!
Side note: our '04 Sienna has had its share of 1st year pains(radiator and pwr steering hose recall, rattling sliding doors, tranny hesitation) and its all in how well/quick its dealt with. Now it's perfect. Just a little big for us now.

 

[miatafied]

I have to admit - I'm a little leery of letting my beloved 5 sit on the dealers lot for a month while they work out what the issue is. I've already waxed this baby twice in the 2 months that I've owned it - any nick or scratch on that car from sitting there and they're gonna have an earful.

I called yesterday morning and the service guy did find something on his system, but said that they'd have to set me up on Monday morning when the head of the service department comes in. I'm considering asking if I can store the 5 here until they have the part in and then bring it or have them flatbed it over. I don't think that they'll let me do that though.

We'll see what tomorrow morning brings.

 

[Antonio DiMarco]

Well, called my dealer on Sat. and they didn't know what I was talking about.
I called a dealer in the West end, and a girl that just started training knew about the e-mail on Fri. from Mazda. She wanted to set-up a rental that day and get my 5 in.
Called my dealer again.... told them to call the west store, and they told me that they will not start anything unless THEY have something from Mazda. They will get one chance to make it right and me happy, if not I go elsewhere to service and buy, and will forever trash them to everyone.
So until then.... I'll just drive FASTER to put the fire out!
Side note: our '04 Sienna has had its share of 1st year pains(radiator and pwr steering hose recall, rattling sliding doors, tranny hesitation) and its all in how well/quick its dealt with. Now it's perfect. Just a little big for us now.

Another good point. How this situation is ultimately handled is all up to your individual dealer and how concerned they are with making you happy. Mazda Corporate could be bending over backwards but if the dealer does not relay their efforts then it's all for not.

I've been very impressed with my dealer. The sales manager called me up on Friday and was very down to earth about the situation, no excuses, just the facts. I went in on Saturday and got the same professional behavior form the service department, then the sales manager came to me and personally apologized again for the inconvenience, stressing how Mazda is only doing this to be safe despite the obvious inconvenience. Although some of it maybe political I feel better knowing that Mazda and my dealer UNDERSTANDS how crappy this situation is.

Automobile manufaturer has matured to the point where the majority of automobiles are well-put together. How successful a namebrand becomes ultimately relys on how a customer is serviced.

Any businessman who doesn't know this will fail.

 

[dag25]

Email I got from Mazda.

September 16, 2005

Dear DAVID,

When you took delivery of your 2006 MAZDA5, we made a commitment to you to stand behind the quality and safety of your new vehicle. It has recently come to our attention that the exhaust system of your vehicle could have a safety-related problem that may cause a fire.

Although no one has been injured to date, your safety is our highest priority. We ask you to immediately contact your local Mazda service department so they can make the necessary repairs. We have also asked your selling dealer to contact you directly.

Based on parts availability, it could take as long as one month to repair your MAZDA5. We recognize how inconvenient this is, so we have instructed our Mazda dealers and their service managers to arrange a rental or loaner vehicle for you when you arrive at the dealership. There will be no cost to you.

If for any reason you do not want to drive your MAZDA5 to the dealership, you may contact Mazdas 24-hour roadside assistance service at 800-866-1998 and have the vehicle picked up and delivered to the dealership. Again, the dealership will arrange a rental or loaner vehicle.

We sent you this letter before the official recall notification, which youll receive soon, because we wanted you to have the opportunity to begin the repair process on your MAZDA5 as soon as possible.

The MAZDA5 is the most talked-about new vehicle in our lineup and one that has generated some of the best word-of-mouth sales weve ever seen. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience weve caused and for interrupting the enjoyment and driving pleasure of your new MAZDA5.

Should you have additional questions, please dont hesitate to call our Customer Assistance Center at 1-800-222-5500.

Sincerely,


Robert T. Davis
Senior Vice President
Quality, Research and Development


1 month to fix? Mazda should give us a new 5 LOL.

 

[Shadow102]

I have to admit - I'm a little leery of letting my beloved 5 sit on the dealers lot for a month while they work out what the issue is. I've already waxed this baby twice in the 2 months that I've owned it - any nick or scratch on that car from sitting there and they're gonna have an earful.

I called yesterday morning and the service guy did find something on his system, but said that they'd have to set me up on Monday morning when the head of the service department comes in. I'm considering asking if I can store the 5 here until they have the part in and then bring it or have them flatbed it over. I don't think that they'll let me do that though.

We'll see what tomorrow morning brings.

Umm check the manufacture date of your 5 it is prolly too late now but you are NOT supposed to wax paint until it has set for at least 3 months because it will damage it. You are however allowed to polish it and not hurt the paint

 

[Antonio DiMarco]

I have to admit - I'm a little leery of letting my beloved 5 sit on the dealers lot for a month while they work out what the issue is. I've already waxed this baby twice in the 2 months that I've owned it - any nick or scratch on that car from sitting there and they're gonna have an earful.

I called yesterday morning and the service guy did find something on his system, but said that they'd have to set me up on Monday morning when the head of the service department comes in. I'm considering asking if I can store the 5 here until they have the part in and then bring it or have them flatbed it over. I don't think that they'll let me do that though.

We'll see what tomorrow morning brings.

Me too. I'm not that happy about leaving it in the lot. But I also figure that if it stayed free of dings and nicks before I purchased it, then it should be just as safe in the same lot. My service department has a special are for cars being serviced anyway.

 

[unhappyM5owner]

It's prolonged because this is a potential safety issue. If the recall was for something non-dangerous, then Mazda could say "we'll let you know when all the parts, etc. have arrived, and you can get in and out quickly." but since there's a potential for fire, Mazda is getting owner's out of their cars as quickly as possible.

As for comparable vehicle, the Mazda3 loaned to me isn't a bad vehicle. I can get by for a bit without the ability to seat six, but if that was an issue, I'm sure I could have got a MPV as a loaner instead. And I agree that neither the Mazda3 nor the MPV is really a comparable vehicle, but a lot of the reason I chose the Mazda5 in the first place is there wasn't really a comparable vehicle in my mind. If you have an unique model, and that model gets recalled, by definition you're not going to get something that duplicates it exactly.



What? I don't know about you, but my insurance has always covered any other vehicle I happened to be driving. When I rent a vehicle on holiday, I never have to get insurance through the rental company. I'm already covered. If for some reason this isn't true for you, I suggest talking to your dealer, as they really should cover this expense for you if it's an issue.

Anyway, am I happy my vehicle got recalled? Of course not. I love my Mazda5 and even though the Mazda3 is a nice car, it's not the car I bought. However, I'm very happy that Mazda is dealing with the issue and my car didn't catch on fire with my kids inside it. Am I upset that this is an issue at all? Of course. But my first priority is dealing with day to day stuff. Get things fixed. The people at the local dealership aren't directly responsible for the issue. Certainly the people on this forum didn't cause the problem.

I think in addition to giving out loaners, and covering any additional expense with insurance or whatever, Mazda should do something for us early adopters who have to deal with this recall. I'm not sure what I'd expect, and honestly, I'd probably be happy with making my next scheduled maintenance service free or something. It's more the concept of apologizing and making up for the inconvenience in spirit rather than an exact dollar amount in my mind. However, I'm also not going to stress myself to pieces worrying about the injustice of the situation.

K

At this point I believe you are correct I called Allstate and the car is covered but Hertz-Rent-A-Car makes such an issue about it, it makes you nerve racked. K, I believe this forum allows me vent without using profanity or any other stupid things, I just have alot going on in my life and family....well I'm pretty dissapointed this has surfaced with the M5. I have had similar experiences with my 04 Nissan Titan they had brake issues on their first year production Ive been to the dealer 6 times for the shimmy while braking, the rotors or brakes were apparently not big enough. Nissan did issue a TSB but I always could drive my Titan. I believe I could have sought the Lemon Law but I really like my truck, brake issue aside. Possibly issues seems to be maybe in a rush to bring a new vehicle like the M5 or a Titan to market, manufacturers cannot forsee every problem. But the rear of the M5 is very compact and effiecient, a selling point, you would think someone in engineering in Japan would have possible seen this potential problem, if it turns out the exhaust was placed without proper shielding close to the gas tank. Anyways I do appreciate everyones opinion and I hope this goes quickly. :flip:

 

[wongpres]

Not much new info, but here's the official statement from MazdaUSA (dated Sep 16):

The exhaust system of the MAZDA5 could have a safety-related problem that may cause a fire. Although only three instances have been reported, and there have been no injuries, Mazda will be initiating an aggressive campaign to repair all of the approximately 2,700 affected vehicles. Customers will receive a formal recall notification at a later date.

Mazda today began requesting all MAZDA5 owners contact their local Mazda dealers to initiate the repair process as soon as possible. Mazda will provide all customers with replacement transportation at no cost.

 

[fam]

Although they are offering a new mpv for a short term replacement, we drive the 5 so only a couple miles and never let it idle, that we are probably going to hold off until they get the parts in stock or they have the police come get it But when I first got the 5 i let it idle for an hour at a time because i was sleeping in it on my lunch break in near 100 degree temperature. Mazda is playing it safe and I am proud of that, but I probably wont being it in for atleast a week. Plus if it burns down im sure I can weasle out a touring with nav out of it, maybe even tell them i wont sue if they get me the 7th seat and all those little cool euro trinkets

 

[miatafied]

Umm check the manufacture date of your 5 it is prolly too late now but you are NOT supposed to wax paint until it has set for at least 3 months because it will damage it. You are however allowed to polish it and not hurt the paint

Done - April 05 - I'm well into the OK range. Like I said I'm a little psycho about it.

 

[doody]

Dealer said will have car back to me in 1 day

I just found out about the recall from this board on Saturday.

My dealer didn't call me this past weekend so I decided to call a local Mazda Service dealer nearby.

I asked about the recall and what the loaner cars are available.

The Service Mgr told me that they were not giving out loaner cars. I asked 'why not?' and he said to drop it off tomorrow and he would have the car back to me teh next day.

The service manager said it has to do with insulation with the fuel tank and the exhaust pipe but will have to read the memo again and get back to me around noon today.

Has anyone heard about this fix? Most of everyone on this board heard that the fix will not be for 30 days and will get a loaner.

 

[the_saint]

I don't think the dealerships found out until Friday afternoon, so that is probably why there is a general sense of chaos surrounding this recall right now. Thanks to the internet, the consumer knows more than the service dept. lol

A loaner is part of the warranty with the Mazda5. (Hell, look on the window sticker, it says so on there) You get a loaner, no questions asked. I'd go up the ladder at the dealer and get some answers, if that doesn't work, call Mazda. Have you taken your 5 in yet? You might want to try another dealer...warranty works for any Mazda dealership, find a better one.

I do not know how long the car will be in for, my service guy said that "the parts are on order, it might be a week." I'm not holding my breath, and I'm not happy.

My loaner/rental was/is filthy. I thought these rental places cleaned cars between customers. My friggin ride still has bugs stuck all over the windshield and bumper, has pop splattered on the inside windows, the windshield looks like it has 5 years of smoker's film on it and the car smells funky!
I think I'll talk to my salesman and express my dis-satisfaction (headshake

 

[miatafied]

I called the local dealer - not the one that I bought my car from - and they said that they had sold 4 mazda 5's and that mazda corporate allotted them only 4 vans to give out as loaners. Since I didn't originally buy there - he had to find out from sales what arrangements were to be given - still waiting to hear back.

 

[smaria]

I called the local dealer - not the one that I bought my car from - and they said that they had sold 4 mazda 5's and that mazda corporate allotted them only 4 vans to give out as loaners. Since I didn't originally buy there - he had to find out from sales what arrangements were to be given - still waiting to hear back.

I brought my Mazda5 into my local dealer this morning (not the dealer that I bought the car from, but the closest dealer to me, so the most convenient). They said it was ok to take the car to them, and they didn't give me a hard time because I didn't buy it there.

I got a Mazda6i as a loaner. It's an ok car, but I'm not at all impressed...it's only got 2,400 miles on it but from it's cleanliness it looks like it's got much more than that on it. I can't wait to get my Mazda5 back.

I'm glad that Mazda's taking care of this safety issue immediately and pro-actively. But the phone call to me last Friday could've been handled better. It went something like this: "Mazda's recalling your car, I don't know what the problem is or how long the fix will take, but you need to bring it back here to the dealership". It took me a while to realize it wasn't a joke, and then I wished they could tell me why it was recalled. Can't dealerships be informed about the cause of the recall at the same time that they're informed to contact customers and ask for the cars back? Oh well...

 

[5thAve]

Things we love about it: seats six, lordy lordy it has a 5-speed!
Things we don't: you get tagged by a full size car or van and you're toast; never owned a foreign car before.

European NCAP ratings just came out -- Mazda5 has 5-star front passenger protection rating, 4(out of 5) for child/infant rating and 3 (out of 4) for pedestrian protection. Here is a LINK. Maybe we should start a new thread on crashworthyness?

 

[miatafied]

Heck, I haven't even gotten a call from my dealer yet!

 

[the_saint]

Things we love about it: seats six, lordy lordy it has a 5-speed!
Things we don't: you get tagged by a full size car or van and you're toast; never owned a foreign car before.

You are aware that the 5 has more airbags than your mother-in-law's bridge club, right?

 

[Johaan]

Hi, first time Mazda owner here. Found your site on Yahoo. I'm more than a little miffed about this.

I broke my rule about first model year cars on this because my wife fell in love with the little Red5. We bought ours in the first week of August, so I'm sure I was one of the first ones sold in Atlanta. I have yet to see another on the road ... I have often wondered why.

We did a major road trip with Red5 in the heat of summer, and have already racked up 2,400 miles on it ... and Mazda is now saying it could have caught fire? My wife and 18 mo old were in it daily ... so this news really does not make me happy. The news of it being a month or so till repair makes me even more unhappy.

In fact, >30 days till repair is so unacceptable, I'm wondering how many people have considered if they are going to Lemon Law their Mazda5? If I am paying X per month on my car, then I want the car I am paying for... not a rental (and they put us in an Outback... I'm underwhelmed by it). As far as I am concerned, if they have it for that long, they should pay our monthly payments as well.

I give credit to Mazda for getting the word out so quickly, and appriciate that much..... and I really don't want to have to invoke the lemon law or think about it too much, I'm sure it's a legal headache. But in GA the rights of a new car owner are pretty clear. http://www.lemonlaw.org/lemonlaws/georgia.html

4. The vehicle is out of service by reason of repair to one or more nonconformities for at least 15 days during the lemon law rights period, and for a total of 30 days within any period of 24 months or 24,000 miles (whichever occurs first) after the first repair attempt that occurs during the lemon law rights period. If less than 15 days remain under the lemon law rights period when the vehicle is first brought in for diagnosis or repair, the lemon law rights period for that particular problem shall be extended for a period of 90 days.

Now don't misunderstand, from a pure car/emotional ties standpoint, I think the 5 would be the prefect match for my family. My wife loves it. But from a business standpoint, I don't want the car I payed for rotting on a lot while they get this fixed.

I think they went to production too early with this one.

--Johaan

 

[the_saint]

I can understand people being upset with this recall, hell, I'm a little upset. But on the other hand, I look at it this way. Mazda is yanking all these cars off the road for something that (so far) seems like an extremely precautionary measure....Hmm, we made these cars, and there is a very limited chance that the car may catch fire. Let's reel them all back in and fix this, just to make sure.
Whereas they could have been like Ford and let people get KILLED while the big brass sat in their $10,000 leather office chairs and pointed the finger. KNOWING whether or not the tires were faulty, the cab ITSELF was not strong enough to support the weight of the vehicle should it end up on its roof.

My $0.02

 

[Antonio DiMarco]

I can understand people being upset with this recall, hell, I'm a little upset. But on the other hand, I look at it this way. Mazda is yanking all these cars off the road for something that (so far) seems like an extremely precautionary measure....Hmm, we made these cars, and there is a very limited chance that the car may catch fire. Let's reel them all back in and fix this, just to make sure.
Whereas they could have been like Ford and let people get KILLED while the big brass sat in their $10,000 leather office chairs and pointed the finger. KNOWING whether or not the tires were faulty, the cab ITSELF was not strong enough to support the weight of the vehicle should it end up on its roof.

My $0.02

the_saint makes an excellent point. I think we're all upset. But don't fault Mazda for doing the right thing. Like I said in my previous post. If you're having an issue with your dealer CALL MAZDA directly.