Hi - I'm new to the forums - and new to Mazda. Just purchased a Mazda3 2014 GT 2.0L Manual transmission - previous cars were several different Honda Civics, also MT.

There are many things I love about the Mazda3, but the infotainment system - which seemed great when I was test-driving and reading the various reviews online, has turned out to be pretty crummy in my opinion.

Questions:

1. Is there a really good place to ask & discuss issues with the tech-package / GT infotainment system? (doesn't have to be this forum - could be external site, so long as folks there have info).
2. Are others irritated by the failings and shortcomings of this system, as I am?
3. Are there alternatives (aftermarket) that would make this system not-suck?
4. Any other constructive feedback?

My thoughts on the Mazda 2014 infotainment system:

1. The control ***** are much better than touch-screen (thumbs up).
2. The Bluetooth is weak, and fails to communicate with my Android device entirely too often (thumbs down).
3. The voice interfaces are literally too stupid - if you ask it to "navigate home", it doesn't manage to select "home" as the destination. Same with "dial home" or "call home." In all interfaces, you have to spell it out "call 1-413-XYZ-PDQA", and then "yes" and "call".
4. The boot-up time of the infotainment system is HORRIBLE. Waiting 30 seconds for the radio to respond to commands is ludicrous.
5. The inability of the system to remember stuff - like your address book from you phone from 5 mins ago (it downloads your contacts list every single time you enter the vehicle) is retarded, slow, error-prone, and inefficient.
6. Turning off the display requires digging through a couple of menus (there is no direct "off" button, or - unlike a phone - a "hold button to turn off" feature). LAME.
7. Even after turning off the display the display spontaneously constantly turns itself back on temporarily to tell you earth-shatteringly useful noise, like - what street intersection you're currently passing. WTF?!
8. The sound system has no ability to show the image of the current album or artist or any other graphical visual.
9. The sound system has no ability to track the passage of time within a song or track or album, so you cannot tell where you are in a track.
10. The sound system has no ability to display a frequency chart (sound-spectrum) unlike everything I've owned from my antique stereo circa 1990
up to including my last car.
11. There is no way to fold down the display if you don't want it to take up room on the dashboard.
12. If the system fails to communicate with a Bluetooth device intermittently, it doesn't notice, and doesn't resend the data, doesn't correct its display to account for what is actually happening (shows paused when playing, or vice verse).
13. Has no quick & easy "pause" button. Does have "mute", but that button should do both (duh).
14. Warns me every single time that using it could kill me.
15. (Sadly - that is very true - it's slow to respond, buggy, inconsistent, poorly designed, and could well kill me, and is nigh-impossible to shut the **** up and make go away so as to not be a distraction).
16. Is integrated with the car and unlike any aftermarket unit - so cannot be replaced by something less retarded and dumb-as-****-designed.
17. Doesn't remember where it was when you left the vehicle, so you can't resume playing MP3s from a USB memory stick - making the memory stick option essentially completely useless.
18. Despite paying for the "top-most package" available at the 2.0L trim, does not have any connectivity - and doesn't have Pandora, Aha, or XM satellite systems enabled (despite all appearing in the menu).
19. Fails to update from the downloadable update for navigation data that is available from their website.
20. Mazda dealer cannot figure out (and apparently isn't trained) on how to update the navigation or music database.
21. Cannot be updated by me, the customer, but must be taken to a Mazda dealership to update the navigation software (not the nav-data or the music-data, which in theory should be updatable, but are just broken) - but rather the software (os) itself - and one cannot schedule an update just because the system sucks - you have to have a concrete reason for asking for it to be "fixed". (And obviously Mazda or whomever wrote the software system for their infotainment system are absolutely terrible at writing software).
22. WiFi is an option - but is broken (doesn't work at all).
23. Even though Aha, Pandora, XM etc. are not available, they cannot be made to disappear, so have to be navigated across to get to actual available options, distracting the operator from paying attention to the road that much longer, for no purpose whatsoever.

 

In February I purchased a new Mazda 3S Grand touring.

I have had a couple of issues with it, most are to do with the Nav and Infotainment system. The car telling me that Nav was not installed in the car etc - Been back at the dealership twice for this. The local dealership had it for 3 days at one point and rebooted everything, installed new software and even had the Mazda north american guys check it out.

The dealership guys are really nice and want to take care of the matter.

A couple of weeks ago I dropped by with the sound system - the speakers cutting out intermittently and they told me to monitor it and here is my email to them today - hoping they will be able to take care of it:

I dropped by a the service desk a couple of weeks ago and spoke with you about the sound system in my 2014 Mazda 3. While playing any CD the right or left channel would intermittently cut out. I said I would drive it for a bit longer and see if the matter corrected itself.

Last time my Mazda was in there for a service issue, an update was done on the Nav system.

Since I dropped by and spoke with you the following has happened:

1) The left or right speaker was fine for a few days and is now back to cutting in and out intermittently.

2) While driving along the Nav screen quit and a message came up saying that this car is not equipped with Navigation. Stopping and restarting the car bought the Nav screen back. I have attached a photo for your reference.

3) The audio system, which most of the time is set to a CD keeps reverting back to the radio and I have to go in and reset it play a CD. It does not matter what CD I am playing. This has just started happening since I spoke with you.

4) On the weekend I was showing homes and the Nav system audio stopped working. You could hear it very faintly in the drivers side speaker but it was not so as you could hear it loud enough to understand it.

5) The voice activation system works sometimes and not other times.


In the September 2014 issue of MotorTrend magazine - Page 125 (I am sure you have an issue somewhere there - also photo attached of the review) they have a long term 2014 Mazda 3 S Grand Touring and lost all audio, nav and functioning USB ports despite attempting to reboot the system.


6) Also from this review in Motor Trend I see they are averaging 31mpg over 5,000 miles. I am still currently at 23mpg and I am sure you and I agree that these guys drive their cars far harder than the average person.


Obviously this issue with the Nav and sound system is becoming more and more of a problem and would like to get this taken care of. The car currently has just over 2,000 miles on it.

On the MPG I have been told to wait until 3,000 miles for the car to be broken in before they will look at it again but I just wanted for you to make a note of this. I am keeping each fill up receipt with the mpg achieved.

Thank you, I look forward to hearing from you.

 

I have some small insights - maybe they apply to you - maybe not.

1. I was able to update the map data - had to find the "Mazda Toolbox" - download it, install, and insert the flash disk from the car to the computer, then let it do its thing.
   • The Mazda Toolbox also let me backup my current flash disk.
2. I was able to figure out how to update the audio database. Same place I found the Mazda Toolbox, I found the audio database, and downloaded it.
   • I had to format a USB disk to FAT32
   • Put only the downloaded audio database file (which had extension .up) as the only file on that disk.
   • Sadly, the current version is 0.200.0 or something similar, which my ITS already had.
3. On a recent long distance trip, my NAV instructional voice somehow got reset to a super-quiet volume (bug I assume).
   • This could masquerade as "left or right channel dropping out". I say that, because when the NAV voice tries to cut in when music is playing, it basically turns down the volume on the music, and shunts it to my right side speaker, and uses the left (driver side) to try to speak to me. But because the voice was so quiet, it was basically as if my audio just randomly cut out (I couldn't actually hear the NAV voice).
   • Once I guessed that this was the issue, I was able to find the NAV volume control under settings and increase her voice to 45 or so - and I went back to being able to hear her instructions (and the music was more reasonable - becoming quiet & distant while she spoke to me).
4. I had thought that the NAV system didn't have "Newhaven, IN" in its NAV database, making it impossible to navigate to my mom's. However, it did have it, but it very stupidly restricts your input in such a way that if you manually are inputting the location (character by character), then after typing in N-E-W, then 'H' is not possible to type, so appeared broken.
   • In fact, it is "new haven", with a space, and the very stupid interface requires that space to be typed, but you can't tell that this is an option, but if you do input the space, then H becomes available.
   • All of this was only necessary (manual input) because the voice system is so bad that it couldn't parse "New Haven Indiana" in the first place

I've got the MT 2.0L engine, and I'm getting 37.8 MPG average. I'm a pretty savvy / fuel-efficient driver, and most of my driving is country or freeway, so very little city stop & go driving.

Good luck. And I really, really hope that Mazda will continue to improve their software. It's better than I initially thought - but it's still annoying as hell to use.

 

I have a 2014 Mazda 3 Grand Touring with the Tech package. I have had it for 3 months. I have actually read the manual!

The Tech package is so bad that I have talked two people out of it. And, I will continue to do so.

This system was designed by Engineers and Lawyers. The Engineers said: "Look, we can make it do all of this stuff." The Lawyers said: "But don't make any of it operate while the vehicle is moving." So, it does too many things that it shouldn't, and then you can't use it while driving.

There are MANY existing solutions for music, navigation, communications, telephone, speech recognition, and dashboards that work really well and most people know how to use them. But the Mazda engineers had to make their own version and none of it works well. Let's try the list:

1. The iPod has set the standard for music player interface.
Even when connected to a USB stick or my phone on a wire, the user interface is stupid, doesn't pick up where it left off, can't do a random all without me going many steps back to get in in the right group, and god forbid you have any none-standard characters in the file name. It goes stupid.

Use what works.

2. Navigation is dominated by google maps regardless of what Tom Tom and Garmin say. Mirror my phone's display on the screen and stop being cute. It is SO PAINFUL to use what Mazda did, that I HATE that I paid extra for this display.

This deserves one more kick...... The Tom Tom based system was just updated, but it has know clue about roads around my house that have been there fore a few years. Guess what, Google maps does!!!! The navigation is worse than horrible.

Sorry, thought I was done..... When I use Google Maps on my phone and it is connected to the car via bluetooth for making calls, the audio for Google navigation is not heard unless I 1. turn off bluetooth on the phone or 2. select the phone as the audio device and stop it from playing music.

3. Communication, meaning bluetooth and wifi, have functionality that should be implemented as the standards define it to be used.

Bluetooth music between my phone and the car kinda works, but bluetooth was never designed for that much bandwidth AND controlling the software on the phone. The music comes out like CRAP and it doesn't work well. Pair the phone via wifi or a wire and then mirror the phone on the display. I know the music player on my phone and it WORKS. Because the bluetooth is so bad, I have to pull out my phone and use it to control the music. Don't tell the lawyers!

Bluetooth should be used only for making phone calls, but we will get to that.

Wifi is so poorly implemented that they should just take it out.

Look at how AppleTV and ChromeTV allow a smartphone to be mirrored on a TV via Wifi. Do this with the phone in the car on the display. Put it in landscape mode, mirror the X Y coordinates and MAKE the touchpanel work ALL THE TIME when I am driving. If the Lawyers only let me use the touchscreen under 15 mph, then I am forced to pull out my phone and use it. This is less safe than a screen in the line of sight of my driving view. This lawsuit is just around the corner. I am sure a Mazda App could be made to allow the joystick to work.

If the car is on Wifi with my home's network on the internet, WHY am I required to go to the dealer for a software update? These guys are wrench jockeys, not IT guys. You have the Mazda Tool box, my computer is on the internet, the car is on my network, just push an update notice to me. Make sure you show how many people have downloaded it and how they have ranked it. The early adopter brave folks will find fatal problems LONG before the wrench jockey's do. BTW, Wordpress does this really well. The Mazda toolbox needs to be an app for those folks that are only mobile based.

Same update process for the Nav system. Your competitor is Google Maps, which is ALWAYS updated!

4. Telephone - Really, importing contacts every time, storing favorites in the car's system, and using the bluetooth for anything more than telephone is wrong. See wifi, bluetooth and navigation above. Just mirror my phone on the car's display and give me control!

5. Speech recognition - Not sure who the genius was that decided to do their own version of this was, but they were wrong. It DOESN"T WORK! Apple and Google spend buttloads more money than Mazda does and they both still work poorly. Back to the wifi-phone connection. Just use the phone's system and let the experts do the hard part.

6. Dashboards..... I thought the Apps thing would help me be able to see the data I wanted on the screen. Trip time, distance, temp, time, or whatever else, but no, I get some really basic stuff. I want a dashboard that shows up to 8 things on the screen. Look at how Garmin does the Garmin 500 bike computer.

I am also looking for a better heads up display that I can control what is shows.

While we are at it.... the displays think they are really smart with their auto brightness adjustment. It is not. Around sunrise and sunset, I cannot see the displays because it has decided that it is dark now and therefore lowers the brightness.

So, bottom line. Do what you do really well, build cars that are fun to drive. Let the software guys do the software.

Just for fun, this car desperately needs a turbo. I do mean desperately.

 

Yeah, I don't get why the stupid thing forgets your contacts & so on every single time. It takes a year and a day to log in each time you start the car. Inane. The rest of your list, agreed. I kind of like the console controls as a better way to keep my eyes on the road, but it misses "keystrokes" and generally the system is poor in terms of responsiveness.

And why the hell can't the display be turned off. Not sorta - but really. Off, damn you!

I love the idea of mirroring my phone - but given how slow their system is I doubt it could keep up.

 

Has Mazda corrected any of this in the 2015 model?

I might be replacing my 2007 Honda Fit in spring 2015 and I'm strongly considering a Mazda 3 hatchback i Touring 6 speed manual. Normally I would get the tech package for the Bose sound system, but apparently the infotainment system is a real nightmare.

How good is the base package in the i Touring, and does it have any problems? I'd like bluetooth and the ability to use the vehicle's sound system to make music selections on my device, but can do without nav and other bells & whistles.

 

The updates to the 2015 OS have not been in the press and from what I can tell, they have probably done bug fix kind of stuff, not OS upgrades.

I have friends in the auto business and they say the companies like Mazda are hanging on to this tech package as a revenue stream with their umbrella of "unique features". I was in a BMW 6 and the guy made the exact same complaints about his infotainment system. He asked me to do the navigation with my phone and he used his iphone on a wire into the car's audio system.

 

I have a 2020 CX-9 and I believe all of the short comings you describe are still there. I am frustrated that the manual does not do a good job of describing the features. I am trying to have the display NOT SHOW the next intersection coming up. Instead I want to be able to see the strength of the cellular signal. I asked a salesman about it and they tried to help but no success. I asked under what circumstances I could dictate and send a text message and got no help. I really like the car but the infotainment system is wanting.

 

As bad as the tech in the 2014 Mazda3 and 2020 CX-9 is, I would trade the next generation tech in the 2019 Mazda3 for the version you have.

For the first few months, the podcast I was listening to would be muted every day as I cross the State line so the system could tell me the speed limits in the next state. It takes 30 seconds. Hitting rewind on the podcast (which works in the older 3) moves to the previous podcast.

In the old 3 I would listen to books on a USB drive. It worked great. Rewind and fast forward does not work on the new 3 so I have given up on books.

Driving on a long highway and looking for a gas station the GPS shows me the stations near me but not near the next exit. You can not scroll down to more than the top 3 stations. You have to stop the car to find a gas station at the next exit. Want to find a restaurant, if you have not searched for one before you have to stop.

Want to listen to the next XM station, go back to the station list and scroll from zero all the way up.

What’s the saying: you don’t know what you have until it is gone.

 

My 2015 Highlander did not have the Entertainment display. The navigation system was terrible. I was 5 miles from home and of course knew the route. I stopped to check on it's ability to find my way. It computed 2 routes and selected the one that was longer in distance and longer in time????!!! I had a fairly long interchange with Toyota about that. They said "That's the way it is". I told them I was in IT for 40 years. The hard part is computing the routes. Once the routes are established it's just an IF statement to select the best one. My point is, one would think that the car companies would look at features in other brands and improve upon them. The Toyota would just sync the contacts list for updates, not load them from scratch each time the car was started. Go figure.