Mazda5 Extended Warranty

Quickbeam

Am interested in your opinions on extended warranties. We will be buying a 2009 Mazda 5 this spring and am leaning towards not purchasing an extended warranty. Anyone have any experience with either wishing they did purchase the extended warranty, or having purchased it, found they wasted their money? I know it depends on the reliability of the vehicle, and from what I have read it would seem that the Mazda 5 is fairly reliable so that is why I am thinking I will not get the extended warranty. Any opinions or thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks.

marlonchwo

I would not for for xtend warranty as it is only another wipped off money tools from the dealership, as most forum suggest that nowadays modern cars do build quite good, and not really worth for a extended warranty as long as the maintenance schedules are followed.

vg33e power

You are probably going to get a 50/50 mixed response to this question, I personally bought mine used but I still had the chance to buy an extended warranty that I opted not to buy. Extended warranties are like insurance, they are only beneficial if they are used otherwise they are money thrown away. Based on my experience and reading here, I would give our MZ5 a solid 8 for reliability. In my opinion, I would pass on the extended warranty, but I work for a dealership so parts and labor are never full retail for me, so my opinion may be a little biased. Besides the normal suspension crunching noise (that has been on-going since 2005), and little complains here and there about certain things on our MZ5s they seem to be very solid and reliable. One item that comes to mind that seems to be of concern to premature failure is the A/C compressor. I have read in the last 6 months of three people here in the forum of having A/C compressor failure. I do not know how common that is, but I guess it could come up. As for me, I will just take my chances without the extended warranty (knock on wood).

andy97

Just bought my new 2009 Mazda5 GT, love it. The fiance manager from the dealership asked for $1795 for a zero-deductible 10 years / 120k top of the line extended warranty covering most everything from Mazda the manufacturer. She quickly dropped it to $1400 when I said I don't need it.

At $1400 it is very tempting especially it is zero dedutible and last 10 years /120k.

What do you guys think? Should I go for it?

funktion-el

If you are indeed going to purchase an extended warranty I think it would be wise to haggle as much as you can off of the price. These are high profit items in the car dealership world. I spent roughly ten years working in the sales realm and have heard that extended warranties have a 100%+ mark up. If it were me, I would start negotiating the ex warr at $800 and see where they go from there. Also, I know that with Honda there are certain online sources where you can purchase a genuine Honda extended warranty after your initial vehicle purchase at a heavily discounted price. Maybe this also rings true for Mazda, certainly something to consider and look into.

Good luck.

nissmazlover

Make that FOUR people "vg33." My A/C's not working properly either, and the whole A/C Compressor things sounds like the culprit. The fan blows un-cold air when on fresh, but as soon as you press Recycle the whole systems sounds clogged up, strained and it hardly musters any blowing strength at all, even at full speed. Full speed makes a lot of noise now and blows as hard as having it on 1 or 2 did. Does that sound like the compressor to you?

vg33e power

nissmazlover,

Your description sounds like the compressor is NOT the culprit. It sounds like you may have debris (leaves, dirt, branches, and yes even a mouse I have seen this before many many times) inside your blower fan or have a bad blower motor fan assembly. Before you dish out the money for a compressor or a blower motor either DIY or have a shop pull your blower motor/fan assembly out and check that the "squirrel cage" (fan) for lack of a better term is clear of debris or rodent/s. If you park your MZ5 under a tree or around many trees you could have dried up leaves, branches and dirt inside there, and like I said mice do like to crawl in there and can't get out afterward, so be sure to check that there is not a little friend in there rotting away...you'll be sure to start smelling something nasty.

If you have a bad compressor you will most likely either smell a burning rubber type of smell from the drivebelt trying to turn the pulley and or see smoke. If your system is out of refrigerant your compressor will automatically shut down or will not turn on because it cannot pressurize, therefore you may have a leak instead. In all instances, the compressor will not have any impact on the speed of the air coming out of the vents and it will not make your blower motor/fan assembly make noise. Hope this helps.

jonat1x

Since you're apparently so knowledgeable about the A/C system, do you know where the cabin air filters go on the '08? I bought some replacements (the car has done 34,000 miles) but they come without instructions. So far I've been told to dismantle the left and right side of the console and the glove box. Can you be authoritative?

vg33e power

I have replaced mine, but mine is an 06 so I am not sure if the 08 is the same since the dash was changed that year. However, as for mine everything was done on the passenger side. Removed the cover underneath the glove box (snaped-in), removed the passenger side left lower kick panel (also snaped-in) removed 4 screws from the side access panel (off-white) to the filter housing and pulled out filters. Installing the filters is a bit tricky because one goes on top of the other one, so you slide one in and then push up to clear the second one to slide in. Install cover and panels in the reverse method and...voila!

nissmazlover

Oh, REEEEEEEEEAAAALLLY? Wow, I guess I should check it myself. But, I really don't know where the heck I would start looking! Eesh. Anyway, you know what sucks about this? My wife, who knows zilch about cars, is the one who actually told me something similar to what you just said. She said: "Maybe it's clogged up with leaves or something. Maybe you should just check it yourself and clean it out!" HA! Wives...I hate to admit when they're right! LOL

I'll check it out and keep you posted. Thanks so much for the advice!

nissmazlover

Oh, also, I have an '08, so I don't think I would need to dish out any money to fix it. Wouldn't it be covered under warranty?

nissmazlover

I just spoke with my wife, who is the one majorily driving the car now, and she says that she has at times smelled a slight burning smell but she wasn't sure. When I mentioned to her what you said, she said it makes sense now. So, can it be both the compressor and the fan?

vg33e power

Sorry I failed to see that it is a 2008...and yes it should be under warranty, at least the compressor. As far as the fan, if the fan motor is faulty then it should also be covered under warranty, if there is leaves and or rodent/s in there it will not be covered but it is to the dealerships discretion if they want to charge you or not. I would just take to the dealership and let them deal with it instead of you pulling it out and then blaming you.

nissmazlover

Guess what? I took it and everything was fine and in workig order. Turns out that a plastic bag had fallen inside my dashboard - from the glove compartment and that dumb hole that's in the back of it - and it was covering/clogging the A/C mechanisms and stuff. They, actually, had to take apart my lower, right hand side dash to get in there and remove it!

And, yeah, since it wasn't a warranty issue, I had to pay for it! $149.95 + tax!

vg33e power

Well, the bad thing is that you had to dish out the $149.95 plus tax, the good thing is that it was nothing major and at least it serves as a lesson next time you may hear somthing similar you'll know what it couold be.

nissmazlover

Yup. Thanks for your advice, though! :-)

vicenac

Unfortunately, at least one of the previous posters also reported decreased air volume output. Dealership told her the compressor was defective.
Would a dealership make unnecessary repairs under warranty just to bill Mazda? I know that if they miss-diagnose it, they would not admit to it and just go on.

pigdoc

I've got a 2004 Cadillac SRX, purchased used, so I got an extended warranty from my local dealer. Had check engine light come on, took to the dealer, they did diagnostics and said that it was probably a problem with the emissions system, but they would have to remove the gas tank to check. The problem, the warranty people said they will not cover the expense of removing the gas tank if it is not what caused the check engine light to come on. The dealer wants $580 to remove the tank to check it out. So they want me to assume all the risk, in case this does not solve the problem. Do I have any recourse? Thanks in advance.

vicenac

Yes you have recourse. Read the terms and conditions in your warranty.
Is diagnostic not covered? The operation of removing the tank is part of the diagnostic process.
They have to fix the problem and not ask you how to do it. You give them the car with a covered (by the warranty) problem and they give it to you back fixed.
Tell them that you just want the problem fixed under the warranty conditions. If not go to BBB.
It's surprising how many people hire lemon law lawyers or are afraid to talk to BBB. I was in that category until it was just too much. I was surprised how quickly and with no pain the problem was taken care of.
DO IT!

drb11

Can somebody please help me out?

I imported a canada manufactured mazda 5 car into US. It is 2008 model. question is - does the warranty coverage exist the same? is it in km or miles? as car speedometer and odometer are in km.

If the warranty is not covered, are there any recourse?

mazda5owner

I'm not sure if the extended warranty is worth is. I find Mazda's coverage of problems lacking.

The engine went in our 2007 Mazda at 108,000 km so it was 8,000 km off warranty. Mazda didn't cover it. Who knows if they would have covered it even with an extended warranty?

Quickbeam

I am sorry your engine went, but with all due respect, why would expect Mazda to cover it when it was no longer under warranty? I understand it was not off the warranty for that long, but it was still off the warranty. I really don't think you can blame Mazda for not covering something that is clearly off warranty.