Rough ride, engine noise and less than 5k miles - What's going on?

ca_mazda

Member
Just shy of 5,000 miles my CX-5 Touring is acting up.
I recently went on vacation and left my car for about 5 days. When I returned; I started the engine, warmed it up for a couple minutes and hit the road. I was on the freeway and had to speed up to pass a car, probably going close to 70 mph I suddenly felt my gas peddle vibrate and the car felt like it had dropped a gear unexpectedly. It continued to drive fine after this happened.

However since then every time I turn on my car after having the engine off for a couple hours, the engine will have a rough violent start up. And driving I can almost feel and hear the engine either revving too hard when I release the gas pedal.
I checked my engine, while leaving it running just now and was hearing some rattle near the lower back of the engine/transmission. I turned off the engine and then heard a buzzing sound that went off after about a minute.

WTF is going on? I thought these cars were supposed to be smooth owning for the first couple years.

Disappointed with this crap, other than this the car has been great.
 
The noise you hear for a minute is the electric steering motor cooling down, all new cars do this.

The "rough" starts are part of the skyactiv technology that warms up the car faster to get it to peak efficiency by revving the car higher in park when u start the car.

Passing a car at 70mph would most definitely require a downshift of several gears to get the required hp to pass.

I think you are worrying to much, but at 5k miles get your first oil change done at the dealer. They will look over the car also.

Edit, forgot to answer one of your questions. The car will rev too hard and long when releasing the gas pedal if you are beating on the car. It has a learning computer and changes the dynamics of the car based on your driving habbits. It is doing this because it sees you racing the car and assumes you care more about performance than fuel economy so it holds the revs high in that lower gear incase you are about to stop the gas again. Drive the car gingerly for a while and you will see it return to "normal".
 
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Could be a shifting baseline for you. I do not mean this wrong, but after a few days away, any negatives may be more apparent. The brain gives priority processing to negative thoughts, so one tends to see the negative as more outstanding when you go back to something you have been away from. We all have a lot invested in our vehicles, so do not want to be disappointed by them.

The buzzing sound after the engine is off is covered in another thread, most likely culprits so far are the electric steering assist and the throttle body servo on that thread, but it seems all the CX-5s do this. The transmission has a "learning" algorithim from what I understand, perhaps five days away reset this and your driving response will improve over time. From what I have been reading on the "rough-violent" start ups, the first one would have been the one that had the most chance to have been rough, but the Skyactiv G has a lot of variable valve timing trickery going on at start up by design, thus a louder than normal start up. Did you drive a rental during your vacation? If so, what did that drive/start/respond like compared to the CX5? Give it a week, and start the vehicle with the radio on, drive like you want to, and give the transmission a week to catch up with your driving style again.
 
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