I have a 2004 Mazda 3, manual, I've had it for about a year and a half. I have not had any problems with it until very recently. On Wednesday night, I was driving on the way home and while driving, all the inside lights shut off and then turned back on. The car did not shut off, we did not have to restart it and the radio/clock saved the time/stations. The car was fine on Thursday and Friday morning. About 1 p.m. on Friday, I turned off the car and went into a client's house. Nothing happened when I turned off the car, but when I got back to the car after about 15 minutes and started it, the radio did not come on and the clock did not come on. The trip mileage reset itself. None of the interior lights came on. Then after about 5 minutes, the clock and the radio turned back on, but had totally reset themselves. Then after about 2-3 minutes, the radio and clock turned off again. It appears there is no power going to the radio and clock. Neither have come back on. Since that all happened, I have tried to use my key fob to lock the doors and that no longer works, nor can I lock the doors by pushing the button from the inside of the car. I have to manually lock all the doors. I also cannot unlock the doors with the key fob, but can unlock the doors with the button on the door. When I try to lock the doors from inside the car with the lock button on the door, it makes a clicking noise, but does not actually lock them. In addition, there are no inside lights at all, such as my map lights. The lights that are supposed to come on when the headlights are on are not turning on. The air conditioner resets itself everytime the car is turned off and then back on. The air is still on, but you have to push the A/C button everytime. Finally, each time the car is turned on, the gas gauge goes crazy for about 10 seconds and then stabilizes, which it had previously stabilized itself right away, and the trip mileage resets itself every time you turn the car on. I think that is everything that has happened today. We have checked all the fuses and none are blown. We have also checked the battery terminals and they are fine. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions anyone has.

Thanks,
Meghan

 

Wooo! Sorry to hear of those kinds of trouble. But electrical troubles are usually are very rare or non-existent in Japanesecars.Electricals are usually rock-solid for years and years
You did not buy the car new, so you don't know what the previous owner may have dug into looking for changes or mods, such as a new stereo head unit, or line output for a subwoofer, iPodor a cellphone. That might be what's causing your problem right there.
I'm guessing that taking it back to the dealer is out of the question, so you may have to open up thecenter console stack and dig around to see if any connections (for ANYTHING)are loose. Since what you are describingare accessory items, that's where I'd go. It seems the rest of the car (mechanicals)is working fine.

To put things in perspective for you: I once rewired an MGB from the ground up... got it all done except the center console. I wanted to test everything before installing that because it was a pain to remove again and should I need additional access to the under-dash it would be in the way. Well, about half the car worked, the other half was completely dead.
I struggled for a week, day and night, looking over the schematics andtrying to figure out where I went wrong.
One day on a whim I connected the center console and voila! That was the whole problem. Half of the car's electrical system was routed through the 4-way flasher switch. Connect that and everything else worked too.

 

Meghan,

I see it's been a while since your post. I have a very similar problem but because the problem is intermittent and I'm not near a dealership when it happens (or they can't see me because they're already booked up) they cannot diagnose it and fix it. Their policy is that they have to duplicate the problem to fix it. Now I'm out of warranty and the problem is now chronic.

What was your solution? Did Mazda fix it?

 

That was her only post on here and it was 2 years ago....I don't think you'll be getting a response from her.

 

I'm having the exact same problem that Meghan was having, but now it's not intermittant. Could this be a connection problem with the PJB? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Anybody get any input from any of these post. I have exactly the same problem as everyone. Someone must know.

 

Dealer trip.

Sounds like a short somewhere and unless you know this vehicles electrical system very well and you have alot of time on your hands, it's better left up to the professionals, and I use that term loosly.

 

Went to Mazda Dealer as recommended here. It indeed was the Passenger Junction Box (PJB) Here is the wording from the bill.
Tech narrowed problem to passenger junction box-tech wiggled wiring at PJB & power cut in and out to radio display. Tech removed PJB and checked wiring terminals. All fused are good. Repaired Pins & Terminals in connectors of PJB.
Problem solved for $110 (1.1 hrs labor/no parts)

 

This happened to my daughters 09 on several occasions. Well it's my wife,s now.
There was a fuse or relay under the hood that wasn't seated properly and would cause the problem intermittently.
All it took was to seat the fuse. The tech pushed on all the under hood fuses and found the lose one.
Problem hasn't happened since.

 

This solution to intermittent or permanent headlight failure can be found on the post by SEVARGMT on 9-29-2010.

It seems to lie in corrosion of the wiring system connectors in the PJB, a specific wire connection junction box located under the passenger side glove compartment box.

It seems possible to repair the corroded pin connector but it is probably best to have the dealer replace the entire PJB to avoid repeats of this problem, as it is a dangerous situation when headlights go out at night, like mine did.

Brilliant problem solving by SEVARGMT and DJS2571. They also developed a convincing theory of what causes this problem: the air conditioning line located above this box creates condensation, which then drips down on the wire connectors and causes them to corrode, causing an electrical fault. They suggest a plastic drip sheet to avoid future corrosion.

Wouldn't it be great if Mazda assigned an engineer to read the forums for problems with their cars and prepare posts with solutions? It is plainly obvious that a problem is very common when you look at the number of "views" listed for certain topics, such the headlights (many thousands of owners have headlight failure problems). Mazda should have issued a bulletin or a recall since the corroding PJB is clearly a safety problem. This looks like a design/engineering flaw. Every electrician and plumber knows to never put moisture sources above electrical boxes. Shame on them.