Today began with a call from the Mazda dealer that the issue wasn't covered by the warranty. After a number of calls to Mazda UK HQ, the matter was pretty much resolved with an admission they knew about the problem, a slight load of old cobblers about camber being thrown out by road conditions blah blah blah whichI quickly scotched and a final indication that the realignment would be paid and the tyres reimbursed pro-rata. Needless to say the dealer blamed Mazda UK and vice versa. I was told that realignment had to be done by a Mazda dealer or under their supervision.

So hopefully a successful resolution to my problem.

As for Mazda, I will never buy another Mazda as long as I live as I'm not keen on being played for a fool. I anticipate chopping in the 5 as soon as practicable.I would rather have less practicality than a company I can't trust with the safety of my children.

Mazda UK have now agreed to pay the full alignment fee of £57.95 and 70% of the cost of the rear tyres based on their average wear matrix. I've accepted but for the piddling difference and as a goodwill gesture, they should have paid for the rear tyres outright because:

(a) the time I spent having the tyres fitted when I wouldn't have had them replaced (and clearly they still had 70% wear even after nearly 22k miles)
(b) the time I spent taking the car to the alignment centre and waiting for them to be aligned
(c) the interest.

Anyway, Mazda will never see my car in part-ex as long as I draw breath so they lose for the sake of a ha'porth of tar. I'll bet they think they've done a splendid job but they haven't because they made the fatal error of treating me like I was an idiot....and I'm not (for clarity there).

Car is a 2005 1.8 TS2 registered Aug 2005 wearing Toyo Tranpath 205/50 x 16s

 

Greetings, I notice your car has the 16" wheels. This puts MMUK's theory of 17" wheels and 'Sports setup' for the wear out of the window!

I have argued since Feb 2006 with my dealer that the car is about as sporty as the badge that says sport. It is after all a large MPV, it is more akin to the SugarPlum Fairy! It is a sports car by name alone. This cannot be blamed for tyre wear!

I also notice that you sport Toyo's, this along with the fact that my second set of tyres were Avons, which wore identically to the Dunlop's!

MMUK are hiding in the dark waiting and hoping that we will all give up and go away.
Many of the '05 Fives will be due for trade in and once the cars are in the second hand market place MMUK will wash their hands of all responsibilty.
I brought the problem of what will happen after the warranty expires, and this Design fault has not been rectified.

My dealer claimed that he would see me right!!!!



We will see.

 

Look, it's a very simple thing - Mazda KNOW there is a problem with the rear camber setting on the 5. There is a TSB dealing with the problem but they have limited the recall to cars within a certain VIN range. My car blows that idea out of the water. A dealer who posts on Pistonheads has admitted Mazda are fully aware of it and he sells them. They have admitted they have reported the problem to the relevant body but they haven't required them to recall the cars. In my view, this is wrong, it is a SERIOUS safety issue.

Tyres have NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on the camber setting. If the wheels are set up to run on the inside tread, they will do so regardless of whether you fit tyres or dustbin lids. It's a simple mechanical adjustment. They may try to BS you about camber being knocked out but whilst this is common on front steered wheels, it is not common on rear wheels which obviously don't steer so have more robust linkages.

Fact: There is a problem
Fact: My TS2 had the problem and the likelihood of it having the problem coincidentally is...NIL.

Go to the Mazda Website. Ring the number on there. Don't take no for an answer. Ask to speak to your area rep. It seems they are mostly women who can argue the toss because they don't know anything about it so argue what they're told. If in doubt ask for the address to serve the summons on them in the small claims court. Don't take no for an answer. Tell them you are going to the Watchdog website to complain and see how that affects their second-hand values. Tell them you no longer feel safe putting children in the car because you think the car is dangerous. Mark my words, it is.

Mine was agreed within about 3 days.

 

Hi all, I posted this back in April, but I think it may be worth repeating for any newcomers, and it may nudge Watchdog into actually looking into our case if they get several similar hits. I think the best approach would be to emphasise the safety aspects of our tyre wear. Anyway, here's another BBC repeat!!:

I have approached a colleague who works regularly on the BBC Watchdog TV programme, who has spoken to the programmeEditor. The Editor's advice is that for a topic to be picked up by a researcher, enough complaints of a similar nature need to be received either by e-mail, phone or via the programme's website. I think if we can all contact them by some method, it is possible that we may get them to take up our cause. Having recently seen two Mazda 5 Sports in car-parks with front tyres which were, frankly, lethal, it is my opinion that as well as those of us who are aware of the problem and are fighting to get Mazda to take notice, there could be many more drivers blissfully unaware of the danger they are in or the points they are likely to get on their licence.

If we can convince BBC Watchdog to promote this issue, it has to be to all our advantages.

The on-line form to complete is here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/contact_transport.shtml

The phone number is: 020 8535 1000 (but as a BBC employee, in my experience that will be voice-mail!)

And regular e-mail address is watchdog@bbc.co.uk.

Let's all take 5 minutes to bombard them with complaints.

Dave.

 

Been there done that. I first contacted MMUK in Feb 2006.
Contacted Watchdog last year. Heard nothing since. I am not sure it is glam enough for a TV show????

MMUK and my dealer have funded 3 sets of tyres now.
They claim that the last set was paired with a revised camber set up.
However, they still blame the Sport's 17" and the 'Sport' setup of the car!!!! Oh they still blame Dunlop.

I have been in touch with Dunlop Goodyear, who pour scorn at such a statement and pour water on MMUK's claim that Dunlop have revised the tyre make up.

Until there has either been an accident that can be apportioned to the fault, or someone manages to succeed in taking court action.
Nothing will be done, it will be down to the quality of the dealership you use.
Heaven help people who bought from large corporate dealerships. They have no chance!

 

The only thing I can add so far as the front tyres on the Sport are concerned is that setting aggressive front negative camber is a trick used on sports cars. The Corvette C5 Z06 for example will always wear the inside of the front tyres first as in corners, as the car leans,the car will push more onto the full width of the tread. I'm beginning to wonder if Mazda set these cars up as the sporty option to win a few group tests (which worked) and now realise it was too aggressive.

 

That was my initial thought when I first saw the horrendous wear of the inside sipes, however an independent laser alignment check showed less than 30' of negative camber. At the time I was running at Mazda set pressures and a little experimentation showed that a few extra pounds slowed the relentless progress towards the webbing layer. I have now contacted the dealer again reference replacement tyres as the car was going in for a blown rear, nearside shock. The upshot is that at 11000 ish miles there is an average tread depth of 4mm (though the term average is of course a smoke screen to disguise the total loss of the inside edges). The starting tread on SP2050 tyres is 8.3mm, so I look forward to seeing what the Mazda contribution will be. I have opted for Hankook Ventus tyres, having run Hankooks on all of my other cars (including a Hyundai Trajet 1800 kg kerbweight, which I now very much regret trading in for this tyre eater) and found them to be a faultless replacement for Michelin Pilots and XT2s in the past, and at half the cost!
Will let you know what I am given towards new tyres, the Hankooks are £90 each, fitted at my usual tyre fitters. I am not expecting great things from Mazda UK, but my local dealer has been very good in all respects so far.
As a small cosolation to the tyre wear of the front inside edges, have other people noticed that when the edges dissappear, the driving quality improves as the awful tramlining and skittishness are reduced!


Regards,
Dave.

 

I've fitted Conti Sports. Since the rear camber was done, the car feels less "planted". In any event, after 22000 miles, Mazdahave offeredme 70% of the cost of the rear Contis which seems fair - plus the full cost of the alignment.

 

hi all mazda 5 owners,

Ihave found this site by mistake and can't believe how big this problem seems to be, i purchased my used (5 month old)mazda 5 sport nav at the end of June with 3000 miles on the clock, it now has 9500 miles on the clock and i have noticed over the last month thatthe tyres(mainly the front) are wearing on the outside edge, i spoke tothe service manager at thedealership and was told that they were aware of the problem and have a fix which they will look into when the car goes in for another problem that they can't find a fix for at the moment and wondered if anybody has the same problem.
When i reverse into or drive out of parking spaces at low speeds and on a nearly or full lock i get a terrible droaning noise from the steeing which has been happening for approx 4 weeks and is getting more frequent.
I am also waiting for a replacement sat nav because the one installed can only be turned from day/night sceeen manually, the auto does not work, i know that this may sound a little petty but i do a lot of night driving and the screen is to bright on day mode at night. and the dealership made it worse because whenwhen i found thisproblem i took it into the dealer , explained the problem to the service dept who tried to fob me off by saying that this model does not do this.(the dealership can not give me a date for when this will be changed because it will be an exchange unit and Mazda UK do not have one to exchange at the moment)
The car has also had one of its rear shocks changed at 8000 miles because it leaked all of its oil over my drive and was banging at every little bump in the road(this took two weeks to get done because the dealership could not change the shock under warrenty until they had the go ahead from Mazda Uk even though it was problem was obvious)

I have putthree complaints to Mazda UK the 1st in June and so far all i have had back from them is a standard letter thanking me for my communication and that they would be back once thay have looked into the problem, I AM STILL WAITING.

I am sorry if i sound like i am moaning but i love the car, it looks good, drives lovely and is purfect for my needs, but Mazdas customer services leaves a lot to be desired, i can't wait for all of the problems to be sorted out because i am seriously thinking of selling it and buying a VW Touran which was the other car i was consideringwhen i started looking (i should have stuck with my head and not my heart)

Dean

 

Hi,
and welcome to the club! The tyre wear issue seems to have so many different dealer/mazda ukstories surrounding it that it is difficult to know what is true.My wifehas a diesel sport with the front tyres initially wearing on the inner shoulders (quite heavily). I upped the tyre pressure and the wear slowed, it now has around 11000 on the clock, but the outer shoulders are starting to go, and has gone in this morning for two new fronts (Hankook Ventus). The steering noise is also an issue on ours, it sounds quite like a hydraulics issue, a sound like that is not uncommon on articulated arm cranes when in use, and is a sort of resonance. I will bring this up when it goes in for its annual service from the supplying garage. Interested to hear what you said about the rear shock, ours blew (rear nearside) recently, but the dealer could not have been faulted for his efficiency, as soon as I reported the problem every base was covered within a couple of hours, that is the new shock ordered for next day delivery (and was there by next day) and the courtesy car arranged with a contingency plan should the spares not arrive. I am having my warranty concerns dealt with by a different dealer from the supplier, simply because I have found that different dealerships seem to have varying levels of customer care, find a good one and it is OK, guess you have to shop around.

Dave