This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
Good afternoon. I am reporting an incident that occurred on December 29, 2024. I was driving my 2019 Mazda Cx-5 and I was about to make a left turn. However, as I was making the left turn, I received a notification on my dashboard about a "Forward Smart City Brake Support Malfunction" (a photo of the notification will be included). My car instantly lost control and it did not stop until it collided with the street curb of the road I was attempting to turn on. Fortunately for those around me, my car did not collide with any other vehicles on the road. However, this collision caused damage to the right side of the vehicle, as the right airbag of the vehicle had deployed. I believe that this is a very significant problem that should be looked into as soon as possible. If my car were to hit other drivers on the road, it could have led to a very tragic incident. As far as repairs go, I wanted to wait and see how this complaint would carry out. I do not believe that it would be fair for me to pay repairs for an event that was out of my control. Thank you.
I started to smell a burning smell while I was driving and noticed smoke coming from under the hood along with the burning smell. When I parked the car I noticed a bunch of oil leaking from under the car. I took the car to get checked out and there was oil all under the bottom of the car and it was confirmed that there was a very bad oil leak which occurred due to a crack in the cylinder head. No check engine lights or any indication of this issue aside from discovering the burning smell, smoke from under the hood, and a significant amount of oil underneath the car. The car hasn-??t been driven in a month because of this issue. When you turn the car on you can hear a ticking sound coming from under the hood. The bad part is there was no indication. A 2019 with 50,000 ish miles shouldn-??t have this problem and I confirmed that with mechanics and Mazda. This is a safety risk as you can-??t safely drive the car without being concerned about the lack of oil in the car due to the leak as well as the smoke coming from under the hood, not being able to drive the car thus resulting in needing the car towed in order for the car to be serviced for this problem. I was told that if the oil continues to leak and if I was to drive it the engine could start to have issues and possibly turn off due to the leakage. This leak had oil all over the exhaust system as well.
We were locked out of the car on a road trip due to a dead battery. We needed to open the car door to pop the hood in this emergency situation. With the Battery down, we had to use the physical keys provided by Mazda to unlock the door. Both Mazda's original keys did not open the driver-side door. We were stranded and had to call emergency key services to open the door. The purpose of physical keys is to open the car in case of emergency but in Mazda CX5 case they were useless. We have also reported the issue to Mazda and are awaiting a response.
Mazdas infotainment system was issued defective. The system is plagued with issues in which a -??ghost-?? touch on the screen makes changes to the system. It is a very distracting issue and poses a safety concern as it distracts the driver from the road as the ghost touch can make changes on the infotainment system moving between settings, changing music, making random calls, and randomly triggering voice assistant if an Apple car play is connected. This is a known issue for which Mazda has a fix but has never issued a recall. If you search online you will find hundreds of examples of the ghost touch affecting Mazda vehicles.
The infotainment system ghost touches on its own. It changes all car settings by itself. Active driving display, safety features like distance recognition, lane assist, blind spot monitoring, etc. Every setting available in the infotainment system gets changed or reset on it own. Even when you turn it off. It turns back on. GPS routes, dials people, hangs up, mutes on its own, etc. Mazda dealership says it-??s out of warranty and I would have to pay out of pocket to fix it. However it is an ongoing issue where now there is a class action lawsuit.
- Woodhaven, NY, USA
Search CarComplaints.com for these popular complaint phrases...
The main display has failed and/or malfunctioned regularly. Lighting systems for vehicle navigation system has been impacted and HUD lighting and visibility have been impacted. My safety and the safety of my passengers have been put at risk because of distraction and vehicle navigation malfunctions. The component has not yet been inspected. There were no other problems prior to failure. The first incident of this occurred several months to a year ago. This has been a continuous issue. The date provided below is simply to indicate that this has been occurring for an extended period of time.
Mazda infotainment system experiences ghost touching. It would operate on its own and exit applications like navigation on its own. Mazda is aware of the issue but won-??t issue a recall. This can be a safety hazard when the system exits out of navigation in the middle of nowhere. The system would also make calls on its own which would cause a panic to the driver who is distracted trying to end a call they never placed.
"Ghost Touches", a known service alert for several years now, have stated to affect my car in the past couple of years. At times, it will max out my volume to blast through the car speakers, change settings in my car system (gps, phone, etc), and more. Mazda hasn't issues a recall on this, despite safety concerns by many owners.
My Mazda connect touch screen operates by itself (ghost touch) while driving down the road. My safety is at risk trying to press button to get it turned off, while driving down the road. It is a huge distraction. The volume speakers at the high level and continues to beep and yell your audio will be at this volume level (the loudest). It is not listed as a recall foe this make and model, but should be. Doing further research this looks to be an issue with all of their vehicles and Mazda is not holding themselves accountable or trying to fix the issue in newer vehicles. There have not been any warning signs. I-??ve had my car for 5 years come this August and my vehicles has been doing this for about 6 months now.
Automatic braking system has almost caused multiple rear end accidents as it still detects cars that have left the lane after they turn. The infotainment system has dangerous ghost touches that glitch every time the car stops which has been reported for Mazdas for the past 7 years with no recall.
At any speed over 55 miles there is a loud whining/whistling/moan at the top of the A-pillars. I have tried taping the seams as well as silicone caulk but nothing works. My daughter has the identical car and identical problem and there multiple videos on-line of the same problem. Definitely a distraction from driving safely.
Mazda ships a defective touchscreen that will degrade and eventually register phantom inputs to the infotainment system. In my vehicle, the screen was able to randomly access my settings, including for safety (blind spot monitoring) and display (driving units, heads up display, etc) and start messing with my settings. When I was using maps, the screen would randomly zoom into different spots, or change my destination, or modify settings. This was an enormous distraction and rendered the screen useless. Also, I was never sure if I stopped the car from changing settings related to vehicle safety because I can't keep my eyes on the screen while I'm driving. It was just registering random inputs all over the screen while the vehicle was in motion.
The radio/navigation/entertainment system malfunctions. The issue is known as ghosting and is a well-known issue with selected year Mazda's. Radio stations and apps will randomly skip around or the volume of the system will blare out at the highest volume startling the driver. Which has occurred multiple times in my case. The first time I reported it to the dealer, they told me there was no issue. The second time I was informed I could pay for a repair kit and installation for over $500.
There is a known issue with the infotainment systems of several makes/models within a certain date range of Mazda vehicles called Ghost Touch. It seems to mainly occur in very hot or cold weather. The touch screen will press different buttons on the screen on its own, which can be quite dangerous while driving: maps will start directing you to a different location, if you are on a call, it may put the person on hold or call another party. Music skips and pauses. It can cause extremely distracted driving (ie: trying to hang up on someone it has dialed on its own or switch directions back to the original address). Dealerships know about the issue but require a test to be done at the cost of the owner to prove the issue, and then they may or may not cover the cost of the fix. This should be a recall to fix this, but have not. Here is the service alert: [XXX]. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)
the infotainment LCD screen has "Ghost Touch" issue. The screen randomly appears to move around as if a ghost is touching the lcd touch screen. After researching online this is a common problem Mazda will not address.
The computer monitor on the vehicle seems to have a mind of its own. After talking with the service rep they actually have a name for it because it is happening to many owners "Ghost Touching. The car tends to call people on your contact list automatically, change radio stations, move from settings all on its own. I feel it is dangerous because it will all of a sudden call someone and then you are trying to stop it and it does not disconnect and your focus is now taken off of the road and driving. Even if you try to turn the monitor off it turns on by itself. I was told there is no way to disconnect it and I would have to pay to have it fixed on a car that is only a couple years old. They know this is happening quite a bit, Mazda corporate would not do anything and I think it should be a recall issue before someone gets in an accident. This happens many times in one driving day.
UNKNOWN While stopping the radio system (which can not be powered off) will change and go to other apps. This causes the driver to take their eyes from the road and hand from the steering wheel to press buttons to get the radio system under control. When the radio does this it often goes to the settings and changes the navigation voice volume to the loudest it can go essentially frightening the driver and causing them to look away from the road and divert their attention to the radio system. This occurs every time the vehicle is driven and often occurs when hitting the brakes.
The screen in the middle of Mazda vehicle starts selecting menu, change the radio station or selects/plays whatever it likes. It suddenly activates some functions on its own. Most likely similar issue as in this document - https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2019/MC-10164268-0001.pdf This is dangerous for the driver as the automatic change in the screen and menu items distracts the driver which may cause accident and put life in danger. This is generic problem and searching on the internet, lot of people are suffering with this issue. When the issue started last year, we thought this is something random occurrence and will go away by itself but with the time, this has gone worse. Now looking in the internet we came to know this is actually an ongoing issue.
the infotainment system is acting up and making its own selections, if im sitting parked and my call history is up it will sometimes click a random number and start calling that number. It will scroll and make random selections on screen
My vehicle appears to have what is known as the "ghost touch". The radio ends up clicking random things, skips songs, goes to the maps and zooms all the way in. This puts the driver at risk if they are distracted by what is happening to their radio. I informed the dealer, but they thought it just needed a software update. The issue continued even after the update that I had to pay for. Warning lamps to not appear, and it happens at random times, it's never consistent. It's been happening for a while now, probably over a year, and months after I had purchased it as a used car.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Brandywine, MD, USA