Well, after getting back from my trip, I got a chance to chat with my local service rep. Although her email indicated interest, when I inquired further on next steps - she said my noise was already diagnosed and was determined to be 'normal'. Stated that she couldn't proceed to Mazda when the sound was in all other similar vehicles. I tried to explain that sometimes a design issue doesn't show itself until the real world - and thus 'normal' while present everywhere may not be what was intended by the designers. I asked nicely if she'd at least be my advocate with Mazda and to confirm that they had indeed heard the noise. Back to the 'we can't approach Mazda and say we heard something abnormal when it was normal' I told her that I simply wanted them to confirm that they heard the noise - not whether it was normal or not. She just wouldn't go there. I shared that this wasn't going the way I'd hoped - and could you please provide the Mazda customer service number. Of course, she mumbled that they had lots of numbers and it's in the manual....and then proceeded to give me the wrong number. I had to call back to get the correct one.
But, I finally got the number and called Mazda customer service. That's where it stands now. This won't be easy (the post that I learned this from had 5 managers, regional and corporate Mazda involved before getting it resolved). But, they posted enough information that I knew what dealer they were working with - and shared that with Mazda customer service. Hopefully they can contact that dealer and avoid a lot of redundant effort. Once we get a few of these resolved, this should be widespread enough at Mazda corporate so that a TSB or similar notification is made to all dealers - and hopefully not all of you will need to go through this runaround in the future.
Stay tuned!
