Bottom line is the dealer won't budge unless they are handed court papers for litigation. You probably don't want to walk down that road but for what it's worth ask the dealer how they KNOW you're beating on the car. Are the tires bald? Are the pads worn? Honestly, get quotes from independent mechanics and see how much it really is. Call your insurance company and tell them the situation. Although it's a mechanical issue they may be sympathetic to your particular situation. Since the car is already paid for your situation could be much worse. Depending on how many times you've brought the car back for fixes for second popping out, you might be able to make a lemon law claim. Anyway, I hope things work out in your favor.
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09 Speed 3 Blown Trans/clutch 20k miles dealer refuses to fix.
- Thread starter Blitzkrieg
- Start date
Blitzkrieg
Member
- :
- 2001 Blue MP3 Protege #394, 2003.5 Yellow Mica MSP #1201
I am baffled that they even tried to drive the car after it was brought in to the dealership in that condition.
Supposedly it was a shifter llinkage issue again and they repaired it then test drove it... every time i talk to them they either add more the the story or completely change what they say. i went to get some paperwork out of the car again and i played around with the shifter and nothing engages at all, no gears are present and i have no brake pedal, so once again either they are lying and they ****** it up even more.
I'll tell you one thing, based on my ownership of a 2001 Audi S4: dealers will deny warranty work based on perception alone, just because it's a sporty car. When the S4 become known as a very mod-friendly car, dealers were denying turbo failures on bone-stock cars simply by looking at the ECU case and saying it had been opened---hence, modified.
What to do? Some got lucky by bugging Audi corporate. A few got lawyers. The lawyer route takes time, but tends to work as last resort.
Of course dealers (and Mazda) known damn well most people won't lawyer up....and so the cycle continues.
What to do? Some got lucky by bugging Audi corporate. A few got lawyers. The lawyer route takes time, but tends to work as last resort.
Of course dealers (and Mazda) known damn well most people won't lawyer up....and so the cycle continues.
SomnoSpeed3
Member
- :
- 2007 Mazdaspeed3 G/T
You say they keep changing the problem diagnosis. You should get every bit of that in writing. WHen they say a cause, you get it in writing. WHen they change that cause to something else, get that in writing too. Every change, a new write up. I don't care how many times or how much their story changes you need to get it in writing or IT DID NOT HAPPEN. You will NEVER win a case of "he said, she said" but if you have it in writing there will be none of that.
You will not have a case if you don't have proof that they kept changing their story. Any judge will ask for proof, not opinion. If you have nothing to show, you will put yourself at a significant disadvantage. The dealer will lie FOR SURE and if you have no proof, then they didn't do it.
You will not have a case if you don't have proof that they kept changing their story. Any judge will ask for proof, not opinion. If you have nothing to show, you will put yourself at a significant disadvantage. The dealer will lie FOR SURE and if you have no proof, then they didn't do it.
Again, have you asked any mechanics if it is possible that the shifter linkage issue, and the popping out of gear (which the dealership acknowledges is their fault and fixed under warranty) is what caused the excessive wear and tear that the dealership is saying is the indication of your harsh driving? When you spoke to Mazda corporate did you mention that part of the story?
Blitzkrieg
Member
- :
- 2001 Blue MP3 Protege #394, 2003.5 Yellow Mica MSP #1201
Well im still waiting on a bunch of s*** still so im still clueless as to what it going to happen, i finally got the car towed from the dealer to my house and maybe when its nice out in gonna tear everythign apart and take a look for myself exactly what went wrong.
As the car was before dropping it off to the dealer: drivable only stuck in gear and making a weird noise.
as the car is now after the dealer: No clutch, no brakes, no gear engages or disengages and the car wont start cause the starter isnt engaging, also they removed the intake and never put it back on as it was just sitting in the back seat.
I spoke wiht the mazda rep when i was there and all it did was make me never wanna own a mazda product ever again even more so then before i talked to him. I spoke with the mazda rep in person and this what he told me ans yes these are direct quotes...
Mazda Rep: "Do to the fact that you purchased an official mazdaspeed product though it be covered by a mazda warranty, the item itself only carries a 1 year 12k mile warranty and you have exceeded the 1 year and 12k so we are unable to warranty your vehicle"
Me: "So let me get this straight... Because the mazdaspeed intake only has a 1 year 12k warranty and it was installed it completely cancels out the 10y 100k mile warranty i purchased?????"
Mazda Rep: "Yes, This is because the mazdaspeed intake creates a substantial amount of extra horsepower and due to the extra wear and tear on the car by this extra power we can not warranty the vehicle past the 1y 12k after the date of instalation"
Me: "Can you please define substantial?? I would hardly consider 4 extra hp a substantial increase in power and if so you shouldnt waaranty vehicles that have been driven in temps below 30 degrees, you get even more extra power out of the car"
Mazda Rep: "the mazdaspeed intake was specially calabrated and designd for the mazdaspeed 3 to increase power by up to 25%. This increase is what mazda and myself would consider substantial and air temperature doesnt effect the power of the vehicle only modifications do"
Me: "Do you have any more???"
Mazda Rep: "....... More??? More what??"
Me: Drugs
Mazda Rep: "Drugs?? Im not quite sure i understand your question"
Me: "Yeah drugs, you have to high or ****** up on something to tell me an intake adds 70 Horsepower and air temps dont effect power at all"
Mazda Rep: "I dont think theres anything more i can help you with. We are unable to fix your vehicle as its out of warranty and malfucntioned due to the extra power created by the aftermarket intake assembly and there is nothing that we can do for you"
Me: "At least if your not gonna fix the car could you please tell me mazdas secret?? I wanna know the specific details on how they designed an intake that adds 70 hp so i can replicate it and become a blllionare making magical intake systems that create more added hp then some turbos and superchargers.."
Mazda Rep: "I think were done here, you can pick up your keys at the service counter"
Its just astonishing that People get jobs in feilds they dont know s*** about.. I think im gonna apply to be a brain surgeon tomorrow, appearently in this day and age it just dont matter if you know about anything your doing.
As the car was before dropping it off to the dealer: drivable only stuck in gear and making a weird noise.
as the car is now after the dealer: No clutch, no brakes, no gear engages or disengages and the car wont start cause the starter isnt engaging, also they removed the intake and never put it back on as it was just sitting in the back seat.
I spoke wiht the mazda rep when i was there and all it did was make me never wanna own a mazda product ever again even more so then before i talked to him. I spoke with the mazda rep in person and this what he told me ans yes these are direct quotes...
Mazda Rep: "Do to the fact that you purchased an official mazdaspeed product though it be covered by a mazda warranty, the item itself only carries a 1 year 12k mile warranty and you have exceeded the 1 year and 12k so we are unable to warranty your vehicle"
Me: "So let me get this straight... Because the mazdaspeed intake only has a 1 year 12k warranty and it was installed it completely cancels out the 10y 100k mile warranty i purchased?????"
Mazda Rep: "Yes, This is because the mazdaspeed intake creates a substantial amount of extra horsepower and due to the extra wear and tear on the car by this extra power we can not warranty the vehicle past the 1y 12k after the date of instalation"
Me: "Can you please define substantial?? I would hardly consider 4 extra hp a substantial increase in power and if so you shouldnt waaranty vehicles that have been driven in temps below 30 degrees, you get even more extra power out of the car"
Mazda Rep: "the mazdaspeed intake was specially calabrated and designd for the mazdaspeed 3 to increase power by up to 25%. This increase is what mazda and myself would consider substantial and air temperature doesnt effect the power of the vehicle only modifications do"
Me: "Do you have any more???"
Mazda Rep: "....... More??? More what??"
Me: Drugs
Mazda Rep: "Drugs?? Im not quite sure i understand your question"
Me: "Yeah drugs, you have to high or ****** up on something to tell me an intake adds 70 Horsepower and air temps dont effect power at all"
Mazda Rep: "I dont think theres anything more i can help you with. We are unable to fix your vehicle as its out of warranty and malfucntioned due to the extra power created by the aftermarket intake assembly and there is nothing that we can do for you"
Me: "At least if your not gonna fix the car could you please tell me mazdas secret?? I wanna know the specific details on how they designed an intake that adds 70 hp so i can replicate it and become a blllionare making magical intake systems that create more added hp then some turbos and superchargers.."
Mazda Rep: "I think were done here, you can pick up your keys at the service counter"
Its just astonishing that People get jobs in feilds they dont know s*** about.. I think im gonna apply to be a brain surgeon tomorrow, appearently in this day and age it just dont matter if you know about anything your doing.
Time to lawyer up I think. The intake itself has it's own warranty, the 1 year warranty is not for the car, it's for the part. If that is the only person you can speak with and are out of options then it's time to get an attorney and he will get all the legal warranty documents and fight your battle.
oaklandopen
Member
I don't understand how ANYONE in that position can bulls*** an answer like that. 25% more hp?!?!
Maybe you should have asked him more questions like how mych hp the car is stock or whatever to see how much more bulls*** you could have gotten from them
Unfortunately you can't really trust the bbb to do anything because they are shady too. I just saw something about how they take money from businesses (usually small) in order to give them a better rating, and they use threats to do so
Maybe check out your local news, get convos recorded and documents signed and see if they think a story is there
Maybe you should have asked him more questions like how mych hp the car is stock or whatever to see how much more bulls*** you could have gotten from them
Unfortunately you can't really trust the bbb to do anything because they are shady too. I just saw something about how they take money from businesses (usually small) in order to give them a better rating, and they use threats to do so
Maybe check out your local news, get convos recorded and documents signed and see if they think a story is there
Its just astonishing that People get jobs in feilds they dont know s*** about.. I think im gonna apply to be a brain surgeon tomorrow, appearently in this day and age it just dont matter if you know about anything your doing.
I don't want to go off on a political tangent but.....take a look at Congress for Jan 2011 for a prime example of what you speak.
As for your situation, I feel for you man. From the beginning when I received my car, I asked the service rep at the dealership about installing a Mazdaspeed intake. They said they wouldn't install one and that Mazda has at their dealership denied, and would deny warranty claims if one was installed and something happened with the car. Said the extra power would be cited as the reason for denying the claim and he said Ford does the same thing - they sell Fords and Mazdas in the same building. That being said, my car is stock as far as anyone knows and no service person will ever see it with any aftermarket parts on it, not even private shops in town I might use for oil changes. If something happens during the warranty period, the car is stock and was always stock and I have been diligent about keeping receipts for oil and filters too.
For everybody talking about getting a lawyer, you'll quickly learn the fees for a good lawyer exceed the cost of fixing the problem out of pocket. The dealer knows it, Mazda knows it, and this is only a solution when you have enough money to enforce it on principle because you ******* want to.
If I were you, and you have the skills, take it apart, figure out what's wrong and fix it yourself. I'd pull parts from a yard and find a tranny with low miles as a start.
Good luck.
I don't want to go off on a political tangent but.....take a look at Congress for Jan 2011 for a prime example of what you speak.
As for your situation, I feel for you man. From the beginning when I received my car, I asked the service rep at the dealership about installing a Mazdaspeed intake. They said they wouldn't install one and that Mazda has at their dealership denied, and would deny warranty claims if one was installed and something happened with the car. Said the extra power would be cited as the reason for denying the claim and he said Ford does the same thing - they sell Fords and Mazdas in the same building. That being said, my car is stock as far as anyone knows and no service person will ever see it with any aftermarket parts on it, not even private shops in town I might use for oil changes. If something happens during the warranty period, the car is stock and was always stock and I have been diligent about keeping receipts for oil and filters too.
For everybody talking about getting a lawyer, you'll quickly learn the fees for a good lawyer exceed the cost of fixing the problem out of pocket. The dealer knows it, Mazda knows it, and this is only a solution when you have enough money to enforce it on principle because you ******* want to.
If I were you, and you have the skills, take it apart, figure out what's wrong and fix it yourself. I'd pull parts from a yard and find a tranny with low miles as a start.
Good luck.
SomnoSpeed3
Member
- :
- 2007 Mazdaspeed3 G/T
Did you ask him to show you in writing what he was saying? If it is policy, it will have to be written somewhere. A lawyer would ask that as his first question and so should you. If you have not, why the hell not??
lakedude90
Member
Im just suprised you havent talked to the owner of the dealership and chewed his ass out for crapy service and having complete retards for employes. good luck on getting it resolved
I wouldn't tear it down yourself, get a mechanic to look at it. Then you can shop some lawyers around to get an estimate of what it would cost to get Mazda's attention. It sounds to me that Mazda is not honoring their end of the warranty, but a lawyer can tell you quickly whether you're shafted or not.
Blitzkrieg
Member
- :
- 2001 Blue MP3 Protege #394, 2003.5 Yellow Mica MSP #1201
OK, well its been a while since i posted anything or even signed in, this is mainly due to the fact my mother and sister were killed in a car accident the day before thanksgiving.
Moving along... I ended up contacting a few lawyers who pretty much all told me unless i wanted to sue them and claim other damages it would be more cost effective to just pay to have the car fixed.
Im the midst of this i lost my mom and sister so the car ended up being the least of my concerns. at this point i just didn't care anymore and let the car sit and didn't keep up with anything and stopped all contact with the dealer and the lawyers.
In mid january i decided to start up the quest of fixing the car again. I started contacting local junk yards and such and came across a smashed (in the rear) 08 speed, I was able to work out a deal with the place and they told me if i pulled the trans myself 300$ and its mine, if they pulled it 800$. So a buddy and myself ended up pulling it the following day on probably the coldest day of the year lol. I also ordered the ACT Race clutch kit with lightweight flywheel
After all was said and done we ended up getting hit with some massive snow storms wich pushed back the installation till pretty much march.
One weekend when it was nice we started the project and got everything all set. The slave cylinder ended up being bad on my car and the one from trans from the yard. I ordered a new slave online and a couple days later when it arrived finished the job. This is when we ran into some issues.
The factory slave form mazda uses a plastic push rod and a plastic compression ring to stop fluid blow-by so with the added force of the new clutch the plastic push rod snapped when bleeding the system, So after some research i found that a 06 Nissan maxima slave bolts right up and uses a metal casing and metal pushrod, the only mod you need to do is cut the factory hydraulic line to the slave and make a custom end to it to bolt to the nissan slave.
Now that everything was all set and bled it was time to take it out for a spin.
AWESOMNESS!!! everything seems to be perfect..... well... it was till second gear started popping out whenever you gave it more then half throttle. I pulled the car back in the driveway perplexed at the bad experience i am having with this car when my friend says to me "Did your car always smoke that much??" Being some what oblivious to everything deep in though i finally realized that my car was omitting billows of smoke through the exhaust pipe. At this point i though it was just s*** burning off from it sitting for a few months.
I decided to just drive the car as it was seeing that i dont beat on it anyways. after a few days the smoking never stopped and i came to the conclusion that my turbo seals were now bad. Not caring i continued to drive the car.
At this point i wanted to just get rid of the car so i brought it to carmax and got a super lowball quote of $10,450, i of course turned it down.
I ended up calling mazda dealers all over the state telling them i have a pretty much brand new speed 3 that i want to get rid of till one told me to bring the car in. I brought the car in for an appraisal and without them even test driving it or starting it they made me an offer of 15k i was able to haggle them up to 15,750$ and the deal was done, I sold the car to the dealer. Everything was finalized and i got my check April 12th.
As of now i dont think i will buy a new mazda ever again, this experience totally just killed it for me in every way. Dont get me wrong I love mazdas but this was the deal breaker.
Thank you to everyone who supported me on the OP, I wish this had a different or should i say more beneficial outcome and the dealer was put in their place but w.e, its water under the bridge now and mazda lost a customer for life.
Moving along... I ended up contacting a few lawyers who pretty much all told me unless i wanted to sue them and claim other damages it would be more cost effective to just pay to have the car fixed.
Im the midst of this i lost my mom and sister so the car ended up being the least of my concerns. at this point i just didn't care anymore and let the car sit and didn't keep up with anything and stopped all contact with the dealer and the lawyers.
In mid january i decided to start up the quest of fixing the car again. I started contacting local junk yards and such and came across a smashed (in the rear) 08 speed, I was able to work out a deal with the place and they told me if i pulled the trans myself 300$ and its mine, if they pulled it 800$. So a buddy and myself ended up pulling it the following day on probably the coldest day of the year lol. I also ordered the ACT Race clutch kit with lightweight flywheel
After all was said and done we ended up getting hit with some massive snow storms wich pushed back the installation till pretty much march.
One weekend when it was nice we started the project and got everything all set. The slave cylinder ended up being bad on my car and the one from trans from the yard. I ordered a new slave online and a couple days later when it arrived finished the job. This is when we ran into some issues.
The factory slave form mazda uses a plastic push rod and a plastic compression ring to stop fluid blow-by so with the added force of the new clutch the plastic push rod snapped when bleeding the system, So after some research i found that a 06 Nissan maxima slave bolts right up and uses a metal casing and metal pushrod, the only mod you need to do is cut the factory hydraulic line to the slave and make a custom end to it to bolt to the nissan slave.
Now that everything was all set and bled it was time to take it out for a spin.
AWESOMNESS!!! everything seems to be perfect..... well... it was till second gear started popping out whenever you gave it more then half throttle. I pulled the car back in the driveway perplexed at the bad experience i am having with this car when my friend says to me "Did your car always smoke that much??" Being some what oblivious to everything deep in though i finally realized that my car was omitting billows of smoke through the exhaust pipe. At this point i though it was just s*** burning off from it sitting for a few months.
I decided to just drive the car as it was seeing that i dont beat on it anyways. after a few days the smoking never stopped and i came to the conclusion that my turbo seals were now bad. Not caring i continued to drive the car.
At this point i wanted to just get rid of the car so i brought it to carmax and got a super lowball quote of $10,450, i of course turned it down.
I ended up calling mazda dealers all over the state telling them i have a pretty much brand new speed 3 that i want to get rid of till one told me to bring the car in. I brought the car in for an appraisal and without them even test driving it or starting it they made me an offer of 15k i was able to haggle them up to 15,750$ and the deal was done, I sold the car to the dealer. Everything was finalized and i got my check April 12th.
As of now i dont think i will buy a new mazda ever again, this experience totally just killed it for me in every way. Dont get me wrong I love mazdas but this was the deal breaker.
Thank you to everyone who supported me on the OP, I wish this had a different or should i say more beneficial outcome and the dealer was put in their place but w.e, its water under the bridge now and mazda lost a customer for life.
