Transmission Dead wth

B

BigBuckNasty1

Member
:
Mazda CX-5 GT 2015
So, car has been very reliable and I would have said that we love it a week ago.

It's a 2012 gt bought new on Jan 1 2012. Started having a Wierd feeling on Thursday, scheduled an appointment and then Yesterday the transmission had complete failure at 67000 miles when I got to to the dealer. Dealer is saying out of warrantee and they want 4400 and two months to wait for a replacement transmission. Waiting to see if Mazda will make this right, waiting now Until Monday because they are closed at corporate office. Honestly at this point they have a long way to go to make me trust them again. Well maybe not just do the right thing and fix the car I don't think that's that much. Can't imagine if this happened on a trip. When off warantee I don't expect complete catastrophic failure. Sure some things here and there.
 
Dang, at 67k miles! I hope Mazda corp will sort it out. What happened on Thursday? And did the car get towed to the dealer the next day or did it drive fine until it got there? Just curious, what kind of service has been performed on the AT and when in terms of ATF changes, repairs, etc?
 
This post is a whole lot of ambiguity with a dab of speculation.


Just be weary of a profit driven service shop (dealerships and large chains) and why you may want to consider your local *respectable* mom and pop mechanic (they have to live off reputation and word of mouth and don’t have marketing that beings in business). Both can easily replace/swap a transmission, neither likely have the specialties to do a teardown/rebuild, and the mom and pop will be much cheaper for a replace/swap - assuming there is indeed a !catastrophic! failure.

Hope you don’t end up going down this path…
https://www.mazdas247.com/forum/show...id-B-questions
 
Call Mazda first, see what they say. Often manufacturers will help out as they are more interested in customer satisfaction then independent dealers.
But if no on both ends, go to local store and get them to swap a used on in, and after just change fluid regularly, no matter what Mazda manual says.
 
No progress today. Not much to say- no real warning. Just complete tranny death in 2 day period and no help from the local dealer or corporate.
 
Dealers often just look at their bottom line.
What does the corporate say, did you call?
 
Very important!!!

If Mazda won't help you go elsewhere... Dealers don't "fix" things, they replace them. Take it to your local transmission shop, it may well be fixable for much, much less money than what a dealership will charge to fully replace it with a brand new one.

Also, even if it's not fixable... a tranny shop will be able to source a good used one from wrecker... they'll figure out if it's cheaper to go used or repair... start making calls!


Then yes as someone else mentioned... even though the Mazda manual says the fluid never needs to be replaced, I think they mean in order for the tranny to last until the warranty is done. If you want it to last longer, change the fluid every year going forward. The first time I had mine changed I was ******* pissed that Mazda didn't include a service schedule for the fluid. It's like it was a misprint or something, because it was old, dark and worn out as s***. It needs changing every year. And I'll bet that almost every one of the Mazda5 tranny failures is because of this.
 
Last edited:
So.... after my wife got ahold of someone at corporate and a lot of yelling we got called back. Mazda will throw in a transmission that works and we pay labor. New transmission won't be available until maybe mid jan 2017 so we get a loaner. Seems to be working out.

Dealer said that Mazda didn't want to do it because we didn't get it serviced through Mazda every time. Ugh. All regular mainatainece for the schedule was done. Never saw anything about the transmission other than checking levels!

Thanks for the tip about replacing the tranny fluid. Will keep in mind on the cx5
 
BigBuckNasty1 said:
So.... after my wife got ahold of someone at corporate and a lot of yelling we got called back. Mazda will throw in a transmission that works and we pay labor. New transmission won't be available until maybe mid jan 2017 so we get a loaner. Seems to be working out.

Dealer said that Mazda didn't want to do it because we didn't get it serviced through Mazda every time. Ugh. All regular mainatainece for the schedule was done. Never saw anything about the transmission other than checking levels!

Thanks for the tip about replacing the tranny fluid. Will keep in mind on the cx5
Click to expand...

Glad you're making progress.

The maintenance schedule in my manual (2014 MY) says nothing about ATF change intervals. (There may be a mention to check level once or twice a year and go to dealer if anything looks/smells/feels wrong.) The good news is that this forum is full of people that determined that it's not worth considering OEM ATF to be lifetime so plenty of suggestions regarding what fluid to pick, how often to change it, etc. There are also posts about installing an additional ATF cooler. If you change ATF once a year (or every 15k miles) then, in my opinion, any fluid that meets the spec will do. That includes Mazda Type M5, Motorcraft/Ford FNR5 ATF, Castrol Transmax Import, Valvoline MaxLife synthetic, etc.
 
Glad you got it sorted. Crazy to hear of a trans going on 67K miles.

I changed my ATF at 60. Who knows if it dies like yours.
 
I agree 100% with wishmaster and mz5black...manufacturers saying atf as "good for life" is a total joke. I bought my '06 with 67k miles, at around 80k miles got around to doing a drain/fill and it was BLACK. So I did the 3X drain/fill at 2 week intervals with maxlife ATF (better than Mazda ATF M-V in my opinion). Shifts are much smoother and now I just do a 1X drain/fill once a year (15k miles for me). Stays red now through it's life and now I have zero worries about the longetivity of this tranny. If old ATF has been in a long time, even just a simple 1X drain and fill may not be enough (like at 60k mentioned by 90210) cause that only exchanges half the fluid. 3X really should be done at that point and takes care of ~87% of the fluid by the time you've finished the 3rd.

It's really sad though and is not just a mazda issue. Most manufacturers are doing this these days and if you start searching other forums it's a widespread problem. Unlike what the manufacturers want, I want to get more than 70k to 100k life out of my vehicles. Anyone that owns a vehicle with a sealed automatic tranny should really do themselves a favor and research what better than OEM fluid they can run, and how to get the old stuff out and new stuff in. We should consider ourselves fortunate that our 5's have a drain plug and a dipstick. On my wife's '04 town and country, there is no drain plug, so I suction out 3.25 qts from the dipstick tube, and pump the same amount back in. Huge time/cost/tranny-life saver taking these steps.
 
This isn't a new phenomenon. My 2006 LS430 almost 10 years ago, was "sealed trans" only
 
Can you describe the weird feeling?

Which la dealer are you using?

I used Galpin in 2005, for a full catastrophic failure of my Mazda speed Miata trannny and they did a great job

BigBuckNasty1 said:
So, car has been very reliable and I would have said that we love it a week ago.

It's a 2012 gt bought new on Jan 1 2012. Started having a Wierd feeling on Thursday, scheduled an appointment and then Yesterday the transmission had complete failure at 67000 miles when I got to to the dealer. Dealer is saying out of warrantee and they want 4400 and two months to wait for a replacement transmission. Waiting to see if Mazda will make this right, waiting now Until Monday because they are closed at corporate office. Honestly at this point they have a long way to go to make me trust them again. Well maybe not just do the right thing and fix the car I don't think that's that much. Can't imagine if this happened on a trip. When off warantee I don't expect complete catastrophic failure. Sure some things here and there.
Click to expand...
 
Her initial description to me was "acting Wierd". To me it felt like it wasn't engaging. When it would come out of gear it wouldn't necessarily go back. Changing from park to drive a few time put it back sometimes.
 
BigBuckNasty1 said:
Her initial description to me was "acting Wierd". To me it felt like it wasn't engaging. When it would come out of gear it wouldn't necessarily go back. Changing from park to drive a few time put it back sometimes.
Click to expand...
appreciate the response
so i know what to look out for if needed

wishing you the best of luck with it
 
i changed my 12 mazda 5 just couple weeks ago at dealer for 100 bucks. 80k km and it made a noticeable difference on how much smoother it shifted.

Sent from my SHV-E250L using Tapatalk
 
im glad mazda is paying for new tranny. sucks you had such a major problem

Sent from my SHV-E250L using Tapatalk
 
thats their standard price at the dealership near where i live. their oil changes are only 55 whereas most places charge 70 to 90

Sent from my SHV-E250L using Tapatalk
 
Please log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
TCM failed, replacement still throwing codes (2010 Mazda5)
Replies
1
Views
646
edmaz
E
O
Mazda5 Transmission issues
Replies
4
Views
3K
OrganicRobo
O
T
2012 Mazda5 Touring with Shifting Problems
Replies
4
Views
915
Silentnoise713
S

Latest posts

Back