Well the 5 was in the local dealership for a few days for a few odds and ends last week - including the dreaded rear suspension clunk - after new bushings, filing down the welding burr on the coil spring, AND a new rear right shock/strut, all is almost entirely better - it is actually a car I enjoy driving again and no longer sounds like a taxi suspension with 200,000 miles on it ---
EXCEPT...when I got home to check out/admire the 5 (wife had picked it up while I was at work) only to find both headlight lenses shattered. They are both partially shattered- not all the way through the lens because when I washed the 5 it did not seem like any water got it. I'm sure it is screwing up the light diffusion from the projector and it looks like crap.
It definitely happened while at the shop and for lack of actual knowledge, I would say it is vandalism, but I'm amazed that there would be no other damage to the car - not even the hood around the lights. The other possibility that I STRONGLY suspect is frontal impact - either from/into another vehicle or into a packing stop (there are some deep gouges and yellow paint on the underside of the front bumper/dam, but other than hairline stress cracks in the paint by the lower inside corner of the foglight "boxes" there is no other damage and I would be amazed that all the impact force/energy would be tranferred into the lenses without something else showing damage or misallignment.
My wife took it back to the dealership today and the manager and service guru were helpful, but the only thing they could come up with is that they might have cracked due to heat put off by the bulbs (which I have changed to Sylvania Silverstar Ultras - NOT HID and by no means a hot bulb - especially since it is on the other side of the projector lens. The car has less than 25,000 miles on it and most of that is day travel (i.e. no headlights on)... A good idea, but unless the Stanley lens is absolute junk - highly improbably...Stanley has made how many billion headlight lenses successfully??
Now they want us to bring the car back next week to show the Mazda rep/district manager - fine if this helps us reach resolution, but we are getting tired of making trips to the dealership.
Does anyone have any thought or ideas or experience on this - impact ? or heat ? or?
Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any feedback.
EXCEPT...when I got home to check out/admire the 5 (wife had picked it up while I was at work) only to find both headlight lenses shattered. They are both partially shattered- not all the way through the lens because when I washed the 5 it did not seem like any water got it. I'm sure it is screwing up the light diffusion from the projector and it looks like crap.
It definitely happened while at the shop and for lack of actual knowledge, I would say it is vandalism, but I'm amazed that there would be no other damage to the car - not even the hood around the lights. The other possibility that I STRONGLY suspect is frontal impact - either from/into another vehicle or into a packing stop (there are some deep gouges and yellow paint on the underside of the front bumper/dam, but other than hairline stress cracks in the paint by the lower inside corner of the foglight "boxes" there is no other damage and I would be amazed that all the impact force/energy would be tranferred into the lenses without something else showing damage or misallignment.
My wife took it back to the dealership today and the manager and service guru were helpful, but the only thing they could come up with is that they might have cracked due to heat put off by the bulbs (which I have changed to Sylvania Silverstar Ultras - NOT HID and by no means a hot bulb - especially since it is on the other side of the projector lens. The car has less than 25,000 miles on it and most of that is day travel (i.e. no headlights on)... A good idea, but unless the Stanley lens is absolute junk - highly improbably...Stanley has made how many billion headlight lenses successfully??
Now they want us to bring the car back next week to show the Mazda rep/district manager - fine if this helps us reach resolution, but we are getting tired of making trips to the dealership.
Does anyone have any thought or ideas or experience on this - impact ? or heat ? or?
Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any feedback.