My MIL has been complaining that my Mazda5 (2009) is too noisy or too bumpy, I guess it is both. I don't really notice tbh. She says it's going to fall apart while I'm driving down the road. It just passed a safety inspection (North Carolina) last week. She wants me to get it fixed and said she would pay for it. I have no idea what that should cost or whether it's necessary. My plan has been to drive it until it actually breaks in some serious way. I keep up on the recommended maintenance -- got the 150k mile maintenance recently.

So two questions. Do any of you know:

1. Is this an actual safety issue? If it was bothering her for comfort I would take that as a concern, but she's not in my car very often.
2. Any sort of ballpark on what this repair might cost? I don't even know how to go to a mechanic and be like, "My MIL says my car is bumpy and loud, please fix it."

 

Hard to advise w/o more description of the noise but: Rear shock absorber mount is a common source of noise from the rear. Any shop can check that out. At 150k, noise could also be from the shock absorbers, but if the rear doesnt bounce several times after a speed bump, the shocks are probably OK.
As far as bumpy, also hard to advise w/o description of the roads.

 

Thanks so much for responding! Interesting that you mention the rear mount.

A couple years ago during an inspection, the mechanic said there was a missing engine bolt and it should be replaced. After that was replaced, whenever I put the car in reverse there was a heavy vibration. I asked the mechanic and he said "sometimes that happens when we replace that bolt, but it's not unsafe." I remember he said something about the rear mount, but also that it would cost $700 to fix. I was like holy cow, I can live with the vibration. Over time it seemed like it wasn't as bad anymore when going in reverse. Maybe it's just bad all the time now but I got used to it haha. But now from what you're describing, it sounds like that may be the root of the problem?