At the risk of being labeled a Troll, mal-content, or liar, I am going to
describe my experience with one Mazda dealer, no names, who replaced
the clutch on my son's mazda 3S, 5 speed manual. In the process they
damaged the left side drive axle, caused a tranny leak, shorted out the
started wire, ruptured the dust boot on the lower control arm ball joint,
broke the electrical connector to the knuckle, neglected to stake the
hub nut, and (can't pin this on them) the passenger side motor mount
failed 2 or 3 weeks later. To boot, the service rep. gets annoyed when
I pointed this out and treats me like I'm the bad guy. Well it cost me
$279.00 for the motor mount and I bought a new drive axle and lower
control arm, from another dealer, for approx $500 and installed same
myself. Judging by the heavy hammer marks on the control arm, that
must be how they separated the ball joint from the knuckle. I have
pictures and going to keep the control arm as a souvenir. Might be
stretching the point here in All's well that ends well. Don't intend to
pursue this, it's a good car and happy to have it in one piece again.
To be fair, they might be a good dealer ship, but the mechanic's work,
that day, was definitely not his best effort.