First cx5 failure

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Unobtanium

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RDX Aspec Adv.
Well, my cx5 finally had its first actual failure. Yeah the windshield cracked, the rotors are warped, and the diff went out, but it has 55k miles and rotors did well considering how many times the tires were rotated (this kills rotors in my experience), the diff was taken through a small creek, and a rock did hit the windshield.

So what happened? The key fob. I looked like a damn snatch and run theif. The fob got to where it would barely work. Had to hit the button a billion times on it and on the door handle. Finally it would let me in. Then it would constantly flash the no key blinker on the dash.

My car is a 2015 so I didn't even consider the fob battery, but I finally replaced it. To me, this is a failure. Key fob batteries should not die in 1 year. It now works well, but if your cx5 gets wonky in the way mine did...battery time. I'll replace it every year on my birthday now.

As another point, I'm glad this is the sort of thing I have to complain about instead of all the serious issues with my jeep. Much cheaper car to own!
 
I had to replace one of the fob batteries, but not the other. I believe it's poor qc on the battery maker, not Mazda
 
I had to replace both my fob batteries in the first six months of ownership!
 
Never had to replace the batteries on mine when I owned it, but never got to 55K miles either before trading it in on a CX-3. Maybe that was a factor. Had to replace both fob batteries on my Honda Odyssey at just under 40K miles, so it's not just a Mazda thing apparently.
 
I'm curious. Why do you think that tire rotation kills your rotors?

In my experience uneven cooling will kill rotors prematurely. As in after making a high speed stop, or other hard stop, that gets the rotors very hot and then sitting at a stop with the brakes applied. The rotors will cool unevenly because the brake pads keep the area they're in contact with hot while the other areas of the rotor cool off.
 
The oem battery lasts about 1 year or less. The Panasonic purchased at Walmart is going on 2 years +. Its like buying an expensive new HDTV and they come with cheapo batteries. More important is the quality of the remote control. The Mazda key fob is among the best for non-luxury cars. Especially the distance. People in public would tell me "wow your key fob reaches that far?" Now perhaps that also kills the batteries faster.

The only previous oem key fobs I had were a BMW (okay for a luxury car, okay distance), VW Jettas (best build quality, good distance), VW CC (okay build quality, poor distance), Honda Accord 2010 (cheap quality, poor distance), Mazda 2013+ (Good quality, best distance).
 
CX-5um said:
The oem battery lasts about 1 year or less. The Panasonic purchased at Walmart is going on 2 years +. Its like buying an expensive new HDTV and they come with cheapo batteries. More important is the quality of the remote control. The Mazda key fob is among the best for non-luxury cars. Especially the distance. People in public would tell me "wow your key fob reaches that far?" Now perhaps that also kills the batteries faster.

The only previous oem key fobs I had were a BMW (okay for a luxury car, okay distance), VW Jettas (best build quality, good distance), VW CC (okay build quality, poor distance), Honda Accord 2010 (cheap quality, poor distance), Mazda 2013+ (Good quality, best distance).
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My Grand Jeep Cherokee remote start would reach through a wall, down 4 stories, and half-way across the parkinglot at the hospital I used to work at, lol. It was epic! Never had na issue with with the batteries, and it was a '10 model that I owned in 14-15.
 
CX-5um said:
The oem battery lasts about 1 year or less. The Panasonic purchased at Walmart is going on 2 years +.
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I thought the OEM battery for our key fob IS Panasonic CR 2025 battery?! (boom05)

There're so many counterfeit batteries with inferior quality on the market, sometimes even from Amazon sellers!
 
yrwei52 said:
I thought the OEM battery for our key fob IS Panasonic CR 2025 battery?! (boom05)

There're so many counterfeit batteries with inferior quality on the market, sometimes even from Amazon sellers!
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Oops my bad......The replacements I purchased from Walmart were Energizers. I recommend them.
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My fob battery is still strong after a year, but I do have a CompuStar remote starter fob and used it to un/lock most of the time instead of the Mazda fob.

Unlike traditional fobs that only function as remote un/lock, the Mazda (and other keyless-entry) has to probe the fob for authentication (as Unobtainium experienced). I don't know the details, but it seems the fob would normally sleep. When requested by user, the car will send a burst of low frequency signal strong enough to wake the fob up, then the fob and the car will exchange authentication over higher frequency. So, everytime you hit the door button, or tailgate button, or the Star button, the fob has to respond to authentication request from the car (using its battery).

My CompuStar fob certainly has larger range than the Mazda, almost a mile with line-of-sight, or about 300-500ft with 2-3 brick buildings in between, but I have to recharge its AAA in about 6 weeks.

If you run into Unobtainium's situation, just pull the hidden key from the fob to open the door, then use the tip of the fob to press the Star button (the passive RFID chip inside the fob needs to be close enough to the reader at the Star button). You can always practice this emergency procedure by removing the battery from the fob.
 
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Unobtanium said:
My car is a 2015 so I didn't even consider the fob battery, but I finally replaced it. To me, this is a failure. Key fob batteries should not die in 1 year. It now works well, but if your cx5 gets wonky in the way mine did...battery time. I'll replace it every year on my birthday now.
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You bought a rental vehicle from what I read - so the fob could be dead due to usage. I do not think many renters consider too much usage of the fob as an abuse. Specially if they rent it for weekend trips with kids who might get trigger happy.
So 50% or more of the car life it was a rental and the fob was used a lot of times?

speaking of fob, if my battery on the fob dies I just use the Rx-7 to jump start it. jejeje

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Kaps said:
speaking of fob, if my battery on the fob dies I just use the Rx-7 to jump start it. jejeje
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OMG, everybody here complained about having to carry a second key fob for their remote starter, and you actually have a freaking RX-7 instead. I so hope it's a key fob in disguise :)
 
Mike, my old Mazda 6 (2014) fob needed a battery after a year, also got the notice on my dash it was weak.
 
I replace my fob battery once a year regardless, why wait for problems? Only costs a few bucks...
 
My dealer pro-actively replaced my fob batteries on two different CX-5's, when the car was in for it's normal service contract. (2thumbs)
 
Tire rotation doesn't kill rotors. Uneven lug nut torquing warps rotors, as does spraying water on hot rotors when washing the car, etc. First time I tried removing the wheels on my 1st car with the factory tire iron, I tightened them up until it "felt right", and ended up with warped rotors. Then I bought a torque wrench. Never had a warped rotor from removing/installing wheels since then, and that was 20 years ago.

It could even be a cheap torque wrench. What's important is that the lug nuts are tightened EVENLY, and in a star pattern.
 
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