Originally Posted by HMP

Just wanted to put this out there - it feels like there are a lot of people in the same boat as me, and also wanted to warn anyone thinking about buying a Mazda, and particularly a CX-5 to stay well away. The customer care I have received is absolutely shocking, and the fact that the head gasket went on a 5 year old car is inexcusable from a supposed quality car company.

I bought a 2018 Mazda CX-5 Petrol in 2020, looked after it well, and had a full service every year at a Mazda garage. It averaged about 10,000 miles per year, and then in November, when the car was about 5.5 years old, with 55k miles on the clock, the head gasket suddenly completely failed, with no warning including no warning light. A local garage looked at the engine and called the damage ‘catastrophic’, and said they’d never seen anything like it on a relatively new car, especially a Mazda. I bought the car for £18,000, and after 3 years of ownership, it now needs a new engine, quoted at £9,000 by David Hayton dealership in Kendal, Cumbria.

Mazda have refused to accept any culpability, despite there being countless reports online of faulty engines and faulty head gaskets being fitted in 2018 Mazda CX-5s. I’ve mostly seen this issue in relation to the diesel car, but it happened to my petrol car as well, so it’s clearly a widespread problem. There was even a class action suit filed in America because of this problem.

I would encourage anyone that’s thinking of buying a Mazda CX-5 to think again, and quite honestly, I would highly encourage anyone thinking of buying any Mazda, to look for another car company. This has been an unbelievably stressful experience, and I have felt nothing but contempt, dismissal, and a complete lack of care from Mazda UK and from David Hayton in Kendal, Cumbria. Mazda have consistently told me how they take every care to create products that match the ‘highest possible standard’, but the quality that they’re clearly happy to accept is that a 5-year-old car with under 60k miles can have catastrophic engine failure resulting in the need to replace the whole engine. If this is their attitude towards engine quality, I’d be questioning their attitude towards car safety, and there’s no way I’d trust Mazda with my safety on the road again. There will be thousands of people in the same boat as me, potentially some with better dealerships than mine who were able to fight their corner more than mine bothered to do, but certainly, lots of people will have lost thousands of pounds due to this problem. I’d encourage you not to make the same mistake as me and stay well away from Mazda.

Originally Posted by Beejer52

11/26/24 Same issue happen to us. We are older couple so low mileage drivers, just over 25000 miles. Walked out to a flood of oil on floor. No warning lights, etc prior. Same diagnosis. However you are incorrect about the US having a Class Action Suit, we don’t. Although Mazda admits knowledge of the weakness, they say they have corrected it moving forward. There is no suit, or even a recall, however I believer there should be. Of course our warranty is expired. Not sure what we’ll do at this point. This was our second owned Mazda. The have completely destroyed my trust knowing they are aware of an issue and have decided to do nothing for their customers.

Originally Posted by Alexmed2002

It wouldn't hurt to contact your local dealers and see if they'll help you in good faith.

Originally Posted by Callisto

Honestly this does not help. In fact, it may promote the bad feeling people get about dealership as a whole in the sales industry. The Warranty is directly with the auto manufacture and the dealership is the independent business that executes the WAARRTY approved from the auto manufacture. Without that the dealership is hard pressed to get reimbursed.
The only exception are having to do with very inexpnsive services for some loyal cutomers that the dealership will aburb. But not a completer engine or transmission.

I want to point out that even in small claims or civil court the suit is not with the dealership but the auto manufacture.

Warranties have a set timing of expiration and clearly on anything but automobiles it is rarely challenges or expressed as unfair on most any other retail products offered.

Here is another thing.... most of the issues we get and i am sure other service shops will support this if from owners that FAILED to keep up on service of basic things if not preventative maintenance on their vehicles. But in the real world like many or all vehcle forums most members claim they do ? Some of us know better the truth.
Case in point to support my comment over 60% the threads on this forum alone are about service questions. And if you follow the visitors that don't have an account so not logging in 90% are looking at those service threads.

Originally Posted by Alexmed2002

Yah I just said it because in the past I've done it with some of my past vehicles, and the dealers were really clutch and helped cover the whole issue. An example is when I had a 2013 Subaru Legacy that had the head gaskets leak oil at 85k miles (right outside of the factory warranty expiring). The issue got raised to Subaru of America, and they covered the whole entire engine being re-sealed with new gaskets (over $2500 if I had to pay).

Originally Posted by Callisto

I don't want to pop your bubble but based on the very limited information my guess is it was a compromise the between Subaru Corp and the dealership splitting the difference and the cost coming from the dealership allotted warranty bank fund to take care of you. Unless you had all the completed papers from the dealership and Suburu you would likely never know?
At one time this service shop use to get that kind of work because the labor rate was less then a dealership under that kind of deal. So the dealership came out better by using an outside independent service shop.