Hi guys, I have a Mazda 3 sport. I was driving pretty fast along a stright road when the slippery road sign came up on the dash display and the car lost power and it stayed on for maybe ten seconds but then went away. I thought I may have a flat tire but all seams ok. I have driven it another 100 miles and seams ok. dont konw if any one could shead some light on the matter?
any help much appreciated.

 

What year is your car? Was the light flashing? It sounds like the stability control was going off. When the stability control goes into action, it cuts the engine, so even if you still have your foot on the gas the car will not go any faster. It also applies the brakes to specific wheels to keep the car in control. While the stability control is correcting the car the indicator light flashes on the dash to let you know it's going off. The indicator lamp in the 3 looks like a curvey road sign.

 

The car is four years old, and the light was flashing, and the power cut out just cant understand why this was happing on a stright road. maybe a one off electrical fault. Just worryed because i have to drive the car on a eight hour trip next week and dont want to break down.

 

Like Lev stated it seems that the stability light just came on and kinda put it in "hey slow the fk down" mode, as for it comming on while your drive you must of have some wheel spin or the sensor is picking up a signal that one of your wheels is or even might just have a dirty or crappy sensor, if the cel isnt on im going to assume it was just one of those OBD 2 bs moments, still be careful driving bro

 

Pretty fast? Like what? Were you accelerating/ decelerating at the time? What kind of road? Wet/ Dry? Do you push the car into ESC mode occasionally/ often?
What conditions are your tires in? Are they matched on the drive wheels? Some tires now have "directional treads" and can't be switched left side/ right side when doing tire rotation (look for arrows on the sidewalls indicating direction of rotation).

 

I was doing about 65 70 mph and i was accelerating. It was a dry hot road so may have been sticky tarmac? I never put the the car into ESC mode. the tires are 5 months old and still are in good conditon they are the same tires. the tires dont have "directional treads" on. Just noticed that the clock on the display unit is loseing time like 30 min in the two weeks. so maybe this could be a sign that alternator is not working as well.

 

4 year old Mazda 3? (2005) You sure it had ESC? is there a on/off switch on the dash? The ESC which probably operates similar in most cars, does incorporate a "governor' - controlling the top speed of the car (Infiniti G35X). If you do have the switch, try turning it on and off while driving & cornering. See if you get the response from the system.

 

Sounds like a transient wheel speed sensor failure. It is very difficult to diagnose an intermittent failure such as this (assuming that is, indeed, the cause of the problem).

I wonder if these events are recorded and a code reader can detect which wheel(s) tripped the stability control?