At light and check engine light come on. while driving on freeway hard shifts automatically from 5th gear down to a harsh 3rd gear. cannot get at light to shut off, replaced solinoids, tcm, pcm and still cannot locate the issue. car will not go past 3rd gear. car is still under 80k miles.
I was driving on the tollway to work yesterday morning, 3/24/2017, i lightly tapped my breaks, and my mazda 3 jumped, hard breaking sensation, and made me swerve due to the car malfunctioning. the automatic transmission light illuminated and went off. yesterday evening, i started my mazda 3 to reverse out of a parking lot and both the check engine light and the automatic transmission light immediately illuminated and never went off. the gear lights would not illuminate on my panel. my mazda 3 would reverse, but it took a few minutes to get the car to go into drive. i took my car to a mechanic first thing this morning, 3/25/2017, and the transmission needs to be replaced. with no warning and no previous transmission problems, all the electrical components of the transmission are gone and the transmission has failed. additionally, i took my car to the dealership on 3/14/2017, and no one in the service department said my transmission was in bad shape or about to completely fail. i am not the only mazda owner with this problem, it seems to be a very common theme with mazdas. my car has 88,578 miles on it.
Neutral safety switch gone bad and rusty and mazda refuses to help. did research online and found over 500 consumers with the same exact issue!
A collision accident
Car accident going around 60mph on a highway, hit guardrail head on due to black ice and rain, spinning twice hitting guardrails again front and back multiple times, not a single airbag deployed. thank goodness for the seatbelt as i'm sure death would have occurred if that failed too. going through the insurance process now and will have more pictures and police report in hand shortly. i thought my wife and kids were in a safe car... i guess not.
When i attempted to remove valve stem cover the valve stem cracked and came apart. i had to have the complete tpms valve replaced. i then noticed that the other valve stems looked in the same condition. the mazda dealer said that this was just aging and that the rest were o.k. i am not sure if they are. i said that the stems should not crack just by removing the cover.
At 71,xxx miles 2 out of 4 the tire pressure monitor sensor valve stems have failed. the valve stem caps were oem gray plastic caps. all parts of this system on this car are oem. the valve stems corrode below where the schrader valve seal so the tires goes flat in just a few seconds.
Takata inflators air condition never worked well. replaced all parts of air, each year air stops blowing cool or cold air. spent thousands of dollars.
Ever since i brought this car im having issues with my headlamps. i had replaced headlight bulbs atleast 15 times. lamps will last roughly 3 to 6 months and then burnout. i complained many times to the dealership and they have no answer to the root cause other than simply changing the bulbs. i suspect there might be an issue in wiring. many 2008 mazda 3 owners are complaining similar issues on-line and websites.