Here I am again, faced with replacing another vet valve (and maybe timing chain). I have had my car since the last one was replaced. I have taken it to the dealership to have it serviced a majority of the time. With exception of this last time (I moved from AK to PA), all of my oil changes have been timely. But, here I am looking at having this all done again! Why is it that they can't fix the problem with something that won't cause further problems!? Don't get me wrong, I love my car and I take very good care of it. However, this is a big bill and it's not the driver's fault... It's the manufacturer and the company for replacing inferior parts with inferior parts...!

Let me start off by saying that I have owned this car for 6 months. Not long enough to experience problems? Hardly. I naively bought this car without doing the research on it. I was in love when I saw it on the lot and took it for a test drive, so beautiful! Leather seats, sunroof, BOSE, it's all very sharp. I was not familiar with turbos, my previous car was a 2005 Mazda 6, and it never had any problems until we totaled it in May 2012. So I buy this car for 13,9 thinking what a lucky person I am. This was June 2012. September 2012, my fiance and I are heading to my parents house when we hear a squeak/pop under the passenger side engine area...weird. Also makes a high pitch and sounds like it is out of gear. When engine is cranked you hear metal on metal scraping. Took it to my mechanic, turbo was blown. Put new turbo in it for $1,000 ish thinking everything else should be fine right? Later in September!!! We are heading back from New Orleans when the air goes out, for some reason it was cooler outside than inside. Whatever, maybe it needs more freon, no warning lights, so we kept driving the 9 hrs it took to get home. Mid Alabama we hear this weird noise under the hood and stop at a rest area. When the car slowed down you could hear this slapping noise under the hood, s belt is smoking. A/c compressor is failing when we are 3 HRS AWAY FROM HOME at 9 P.M.! Fiance tries to tell me to calm down we will get as far as we can before we lose power steering and the belt snaps! (BE CALM?!) We make it to TN and right when we are 3 miles from home the belt snaps and we are stranded in a grocery store parking lot. My mechanic picks it up and replaces the AC compressor and the dryer, along with the new belt mechanism for another $1000. Thats when I did more research. This site showed me that these were not unusual problems with this car. There was only one more problem that could happen and surely we're out of the problem zone right? ...DECEMBER I started to notice a diesel chug noise from the engine thinking that was odd. Talked to my mechanic and told me if the timing chain was going, I would hear a rattle on a cold start up. Never heard the rattle. Two weeks later my CEL comes on CHRISTMAS EVE! Bad EGR/ Gas cap code. Took it to the mechanic, they couldnt retrieve the freeze frame data at the time so they told me to come back when it came back on. It still hasnt come back on, but last week I took it to them anyway. The engine sounded like it was ticking and it wasnt driving right. Still waiting on the news about this fix...

In short, this car was the worst decision my wallet has ever met. Im trying to go to college and work 2 jobs and get married while this car eats more and more money that I will never see back. Resale/trade value is only HALF of what I paid for it, and not including the $2k I have done in repairs for it. As soon as it comes out of the shop, I'm trading it. DONT BUY THIS CAR. EVER. Don't get me wrong, I loved it...when it worked.

“When it comes to their advanced designs, meticulous craftsmanship, and quality factory parts, all Mazdas are created equal.” –Mazda

In March of 2011, my now wife and I were in the market for a new vehicle. With the thought of a family not too far off in the distance, we decided that it was time to sell her 2002 Ford F-150 that she had owned since college and look for a pre-owned crossover SUV. After doing some general searching, she found that she liked the Mazda CX-7s. We did some exhaustive searching online and found a reasonably priced CX-7 being sold by a private seller in San Antonio. We received a pre-approval for financing through my employer, so that weekend, they made contact, worked out a place to meet, and on March 18, 2011, we became the owners of a 2007 Mazda CX-7 Sport. And that is where the honeymoon ended.

After six months, we began to have mechanical issues with the vehicle. A diesel-sounding chug coming from the engine seemed off for an unleaded four-cylinder SUV. The vehicle had less than 60,000 miles when we purchased it and by the time we began to notice the issues, the drivetrain warranty had expired. I began to do some in-depth research into this year/make/model and the results I unearthed were astounding. The 2007 CX-7 has been plagued with poor craftsmanship direct from the factory. The horror stories about this vehicle are anywhere and everywhere. I even saw one to where the consumer experienced full engine failure before 30,000 miles. The common issue seemed to be a part called a VVT actuator. No recalls or service advisories had been issued for engine parts at this time. However, in January 2012, an entire half-decade after the vehicle rolled off the assembly line, we received a ‘Variable Valve Timing Noise and Timing Chain Noise Warranty Extension’ notice by mail from Mazda.

A month or so after we received the notice, the vehicle began leaking oil. We took our vehicle into a Roger Beasley Mazda Center and had it examined. The oil cooler on the vehicle was beginning to fail. We explained the notice that we received in the mail and they were already well aware of these issues. We were told the engine had engine sludge and with it being a second-owner vehicle, we did not have the documentation to prove that regular oil changes had been performed. Instead, all repairs and replacements would come from our own pockets. The result ended up being a need to replace the VVT actuator, the timing chain, the oil cooler, and replacing all of the gaskets. The technician showed us a side-by-side of the current timing chain and the new replacement – the used chain had literally stretched to be about half-an-inch longer than the replacement. We drove off the lot and hoped that the problems had been solved.

Within two months of the repairs, the engine began making a high-pitched whining noise. My wife contacted the dealership that day while at work and they said to bring it in. On the way to the dealership, which is less than ten miles away, the vehicle died on the freeway. This ended up being the result of a blown turbocharger. Again, we had to take money from our nest egg to replace yet another part on this vehicle.

Mazda Corporate has been overwhelming uncooperative with patrons regarding this matter and has repeatedly declined to take ownership of their poor engineering of this particular model and instead continuously places the blame on the purchasers of their vehicles, claiming poor maintenance has resulted in the failure of its parts. We are now hoping we can sell the vehicle to avoid the fate of so many other CX-7 owners. That of owning a giant paper weight with a $300 per month payment. This experience will lead us to never purchase a Mazda ever again and to encourage those around us to do the same.