Are you all sure that this is not intended? I have seen the later model 3 and they do have what appears to be a clear circle in the middle of the lens.
Has anyone looked at them when they are lit to see if white light (wrong) shows through, or is it just a stylist thing?

Alex, I bought my sides from eBay. I'll see if I can find a current auction/BIN for you.

*edit* That was easy.... And they are cheaper than what I paid for mine too.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/04-05...item2560c8c1cb

 

Sweet, thank you!

 

Going to the dealer tomorrow. When I mentioned the problem, they acted pretty clueless though.

 

Not the same thing. definitely melting from the inside.

 

Sitting in the waiting room... two hours later... I'm told that the district manager manager is willing to pay for my replacement lenses, but that I am responsible for the bulbs. I was told that, although we haven't seen this before on 3's, there have been instances of the bulb melting the rear lenses when the car has been subjected to long waits with the brake applied. Think border crossing or long, long lines. Well, here in the DFW metroplex, sitting in traffic is a daily occurrence.

The lenses were ordered, likely to come from Japan.

to be continued...

 

Went to the dealer today and they were completely unhelpful. Said they had never seen this before, blah blah blah. When they saw that I was out of warranty they didn't care about anything else, and were unwilling to budge. They were even going to charge me over $100 just for an estimate & diagnostic. Needless to say, I won't be letting this go or giving them a dime... just didn't have the time to argue with the jerk at the dealership. I'll be contacting my salesman, the district manager, and so, on until THEY are willing to fix this. I'm not even at 40,000 miles yet, but regardless, no one should have to pay for an obvious manufacturing problem. This should have been a recalled product, period.

 

Kusdos - don't give up. It shouldn't matter how long you sit with your foot on the brake, there should never be an overheating issue.

After they are fixed, realize it will happen again, so you may want to do the LED tail light swap discussed earlier in this post.

 

I agree. But should you lose the fight in the end and be required to buy new ones, consider the completel LED tails often found on eBay. For about $150/set, and a much better light spread you can't go wrong.
If you must have factory style tails, there are other, cheaper sources besides the dealer for them.
When I get off this stupid Netbook I am stuck with now and back to my desktop I can show you some links. Or simply Google Mazda3 tail lights.

 

Virg - your car looks good. What are rear side bumper lights? They go into the corners? I thought those were just reflectors in there.

 

From the factory, they are just red reflectors. Since finding out that Texas does not require a red side reflector, only two red ones in the rear, these were perfect for what I wanted.
I bought them from a seller on eBay (voila! Or the closest I could find: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/65D-M...Q5fAccessories)... not that uncommon really.

I liked the fact that they are white reflectors when off and red lights (LED) when on.