Hey everyone,
I just had some warranty work done to my car and wanted to throw it into the forum for those who may need a reference. I had a popping noise in the front when turning the steering wheel going uphill/downhill as well as in the Park position. It didn't happen every time but the dealer heard it pretty quickly after my car sat there overnight. There is a service alert from Mazda (SA-044/23) that addresses this issue.

Now onto the more unusual issue fixed: my front passenger seat belt buckle. I started to notice last week when I came back from a road trip that when I would press the red button down, it felt hesitant to return up. I don't know if something got stuck inside or if the spring/metal parts inside were starting to seize, but it was slow to come back up and would sometimes require me to have to push the seat belt into it a few times for it to click and hold. The whole buckle got replaced so that was fixed. I was surprised it happened, but glad I didn't have to pay for it. The dealer gave me a loaner (2023 CX-30 Preferred) for the last week since my car needed to be their overnight, and boy did I miss my CX-5!

 

 

Ugh I thought things were fine until I checked my front driver side rim earlier. The dealer absolutely scratched the hell out of it, meanwhile the other 3 wheels are fine. I don't park near curbs and I park my car on a driveway at my house. I had to fight tooth and nail with the service department to get them to be responsible with their damage. They even showed me pictures of the car before it was serviced and my wheels look fantastic without the damage, and I pointed it out to their guilt. They argued and tried to say I damaged the car myself even though I just picked it up last night and took the picture this morning, and then went further by trying to make me pay $150 to get it repaired. The service manager even went over to the technician who did the warranty work and tried to make it seem like he denied not causing the damage. Ultimately I had to slightly threaten getting in touch with the Mazda U.S. headquarters and potentially filing a claim with the Better Business Bureau (BBB). They finally laid off and said they'll call me Monday to figure out a good time to drop off my car for the repair free of charge. They didn't even give me the paperwork of the work done yesterday and I had to tell them to give it to me... Talk about ridiculous.


The damage from the dealership.