general problems of the 2006 Mazda MAZDA3

My engine has a sudden burst of acceleration. I have to always be ready to drop it into neutral it happens upon the car starting to move.

Mazda3 abruptly and unexpectedly shifted from 5th gear down to 3rd gear on its own while traveling at highway speeds. The car jerked violently and the transmission lights came on. Seemed like the steering/traction was impaired. Caused the motor to wrack and blow rendering the car inoperable. Towed it to a repair shop where they determined that shifting that suddenly cause the motor to blow. Had issues in the past with the same transmission problem and had it repaired, turbine speed sensor. This last occurrence affected not only the transmission but the engine as well. Has constantly had motor mount issues, as well, which required repairs. This is very unsafe behavior and is unacceptable. Why has this not been recalled?.

My car idles really rough. Once I get close to freeway speed my car constantly shifts gears from 3 to 4 to 3, so on. This causes my car to jerk, it revs from 3,000 to 1,000 and eveything in between. During this my brakes become practically useless, I have to completely press the brake pedal to make it decelerate. And braking distances are drastically increased. It further worries me that I dont have any dash lights on such as check engine, transmission, abs, etc.

I was on a freeway off-ramp at approximately 50 mph, when loud grinding and crashing noises came from under the hood. The car then became difficult to steer, and would no longer propel itself. I coasted into a driveway near the bottom of the off-ramp. Upon inspection, I discovered that the transmission "motor mount" had broken. The engine apparently lunged forward, sheering off bolts to the other motor mounts, and landed on the suspension, severely damaging many front-end parts. The car was towed to the nearest Mazda dealership, whose service department confirmed my assessment of what had occurred. The repair estimate is approximately $3,000. Before the incident, the car was in excellent condition, having been well-maintained. (I have service records. ) I discovered that Mazda had recalled a number of Mazda 3's for motor mount problems, but my car was not among those recalled. While the car is no longer under warranty, this is a very unusual type of failure, which, under other circumstances, could have caused a serious collision. I have owned numerous cars over the years, with far more miles on them, and never had a motor mount fail in such a catastrophic manner. This seems like a design/engineering flaw.

The engine was cold. I entered the car, started the engine, shifted into reverse and the engine accelerated uncontrollably, screaming. I could not stop the car with full braking and shut off engine. I restarted and it worked normally. This also happen about a year ago and the dealer could find nothing wrong. Help!!!!.

Vehicle has had, on several different occasions, been driven, not at any particular speed and lost 4th gear, the engine light appears, an at light appears, and the brakes are applied to downshift the car down to 3rd gear. Upon me noticing this. I wait until it is safe to stop at a red light or stop sign and make a complete stop shift the car into park and back into drive. This seems to fix the disappearance and removal of the 4th gear as well as the at light, but only occasionally. It does not however remove the engine light. Though after a few different trips on different days the light will not appear on start up and does not show up until this issue happens again. The car shows error code p0715 and is possibly needing a new transmission speed sensor. This issue has not been fixed.

The top engine mount is poorly built! the rubber insert doesn't last long enough. Metal part is not very sturdy!.

Motor mounts fail. There is already an existing complaint. We have had to replace three of the four motor mounts at various times starting from 1,000 miles to 76,000 miles.

Engine mount no 3 (located on front left side of the engine, under the washer fluid reservoir) failed. This type of failure is very frequent with this model. The failure jeopardizes the structural stability of the engine. This should be a recall.

Five times in the last month I have experienced problems when making left turns. The power steering momentarily shuts off, and the radio/electrical system shuts off momentarily as well. On one occasion the engine also shut off momentarily (for about one full second). When this happens, I feel a complete loss of control over the vehicle. Two different independent mechanics told me that they could not fix the problem and the Mazda dealership refuses to diagnose the problem without charging me because the problem is not a recall, and the car is not under warranty. There is a recall for a very similar issue with the 2007 model of Mazda 3s, but the 2006 models are not included in that recall.

I first noticed that my clutch was not coming back all the way after changing gears. I was able to use the top of my foot to lift the clutch up without difficulty and it would pop back up. I immediately called the Mazda dealership which, I was currently about 2 miles from. I explained what happened and they said to make an appointment in the morning. I drove home about 3 miles. The next day I called to make an appointment. No one returned my phone call, so I started to drive my car to the dealership and it became more difficult to shift into gear, than I broke down completely after only driving about 3 miles and only about 3 traffic lights. After that, I could put the stick shift into gear but when I lifted the clutch up it would not engage. I bought my car brand new at Mazda and had all my regular maintance and inspections at the Mazda dealership aside from regular oil changes which, I got done at a local shop. I have always driven a stick shift and never had any problems with clutches. I was also the sole driver of my car. When I got home I did a little research and someone recommended filling out a complaint at this website. If I had not stumbled across that I would be none the wiser. While looking over the site, I noticed that there was a recent investigation of Mazda rx8. It stated that after the investigation, Mazda has informed odi that it conducted an owner notification of an extended warranty coverage program increasing the clutch pedal assembly warranty to 8 years and limited at 100k miles for model years 2004 through 2009 rx8 vehicles. My question is, how can a clutch have a lifetime of 100,000 miles in an rx8 which is a sportier car and probably receives more abuse than other models and only good for 12,000 in a 2006 Mazda 3/hatchback? could you look into all models. Thank you for your time.

This is the 2nd time this car has refused to start. The "fix" was done by Mazda over the past summer due to a corrosion problem with the positive battery cable where it attaches to the starter. This time it is not under warranty. My concern is myself or anyone else getting stuck in freezing weather, icy conditions, or a bad part of town in the middle of the night. Mazda is aware of this problem and outlines it in a service bulletin 01-037/08. Should women or children, or anyone else be stranded and harmed in any way by this known defect, I hope Mazda is liable for not addressing this issue.

Motor will not crank and engine does not start, intermittently.

2006 Mazda 2i. Passenger side engine mount bracket failure.

2006 Mazda 3 was leaving a driveway and got stuck in the snow. The car was able to get unstuck and proceeded down the street. The car stopped in back of another car that was stopped, and briefly got stuck again. The car started going again, and smoke was seen coming out from under the hood. When the hood was opened there were flames, and the entire engine department ended up going up in flames. The car is a total loss. The car ended up (later in January 2009) at the local Mazda dealer, and all they can say is they don't know why the car caught on fire. The car is all stock. I'm concerned that the car caught on fire, as it is a 2006 model. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Also, I am most concerned that this may be a safety problem, and I believe Mazda should look into the incident a little more. Overheating, possibly, but not an out and out fire that burned and melted almost the entire engine compartment. This is brief synopsis of what happened and where we are at now.