10.0
really awful- Crashes / Fires:
- 0 / 0
- Injuries / Deaths:
- 1 / 0
- Average Mileage:
- 3,957 miles
About These NHTSA Complaints:
The NHTSA is the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints can be spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem. See the Back button — blue bar at the very top of the page — to explore more.
I took my car into the dealership and was told that I had a cracked cylinder head and the car is leaking coolant near the rear of the engine. This could cause the engine to cease should coolant get into the engine. The dealer (North Park Mazda, San Antonio) has confirmed this as the issue. I have received a video of the inspection from the dealership explaining the issue. The vehicle displayed a warning that it was overheating which is what prompted me to bring the vehicle in for service.
- San Antonio, TX, USA
At an intersection the engine stalled and car was extremely hard to restart (took several minutes). I later noticed oil and coolant dripping from the engine and coolant mist/vapor from the exhaust. Later I learned it was possibly related to Mazda's own TSB Bulletin No: 01-013/21 where a manufacturing defect caused coolant to enter the combustion chamber and hydro lock the engine (where I stalled and had hard time restarting). I had to have the car towed home. At home I noticed the passenger underside of the vehicle coated with oily/watery residue of possible oil or oil/coolant mix. Vehicle had 66K miles on and Mazda dealer refused to fix.
- Myrtle Beach, SC, USA
Due to Mazda's known problem in the design of their engine at just over 80,000 miles the head and turbo of my engine have cracked. They have issued a service bulletin to their dealerships, which acknowledges this as a common problem. (Technical Service Bulletins (TSBs) are official communications between Mazda & its dealerships that describe processes for troubleshooting or fixing certain common problems.) Unfortunately, for most Mazda CX-9 owners this bulletin was issued after most have just passed their 60,000-mile warranty, thus allowing them to get away with designing an engine for a fairly expensive car that is only good for 80,000 miles. Mazda further acknowledges this as a problem as newer engines are no longer designed the same way to avoid the problem and any parts put on the engines that are failing are of the new design because the OEM parts will just fail again. Dealing with Mazda customer service is a joke, they are rude, refuse to answer questions and will not call you back with answers when they say they will.
- Elkland , MO, USA
Our head gasket is needing to be replaced and sounds like this is an apparent Mazda problem how wide spread it is. The cost is over $5,000 for this single repair, possibly over $6,000 if head is cracked. I only have a parts list showing $1,700 in parts. Service manager said about 18 hours at $189hr totalling $3,402.
- Wilderville, OR, USA
Driver stopped vehicle in a driveway with minimal slope, shifted the vehicle in park, turned off the vehicle and exited. Driver proceeded to rear passenger door to retrieve 1 year old from car seat. After retrieving child from car seat, driver felt rear passenger door pushing into her leg, back and head. Vehicle proceeds to roll out of the driveway backward while in park. Driver and child escape vehicle's rear passenger side door, which is pushing them along in the vehicle's path toward residential street. Vehicle continues rolling in park backward down residential street, through a 3-way stop intersection, up a curb, through a yard and into a bush on a private property. A witness who helped retrieve the vehicle on behalf of the driver noted the vehicle was still in park when he tried to remove it from the bush. No one was severely injured but driver has sustained bruising on leg and severe emotional distress.
- Oak Creek, WI, USA
The push button on/off switch does not protect against turning the vehicle off if transmission is accidentally left in any position other than 'P'. for example its possible to put the transmission in 'R' and turn the vehicle off. For a busy parent (target demographic of this vehicle), this is very dangerous. If on an incline, the vehicle will start rolling forward or backward (depending on incline/slope and R/D transmission position). There should be a safeguard or a beep/warn system to protect the driver/occupants this happened to me on an inclined driveway when I accidentally left transmission in 'R' and turned vehicle off. I took foot off the break and got out and realized vehicle was rolling backwards.
- Fremont, CA, USA
- Newport Beach, CA, USA