I am 81 years old and intended for this 2010 CX9 Mazda to last me the rest of my life. Knew nothing about the hidden water pump problem. The overheating first occurred when my wife and I were driving in the parking lot of a strip shopping center. The radiator fans came on as we were parking. The heat gauge was hotter than normal but never maxed out. Left for home and discovered that the antifreeze coolant had leaked into the motor oil. Knew immediately that something major had happened. After determining that the necessary repairs would exceed appraised value of my vehicle, I purchased another vehicle not a Mazda. I guess my Mazada sitting in my yard will have to be sold for junk. Such a terrible ending to a vehicle that I had truly enjoyed.

MAZDA NEEDS TO STEP-UP AND DO THE RIGHT THING!

First of all, I loved this car. It was mint, and a joy to drive. We had it serviced regularly and took excellent care of it. One day I was about to get on 93 South to Boston, just before rush hour. Luckily, before I got on the highway, out of nowhere, a loud knocking sound started in the engine. I immediately pulled over and the car stalled. I was able to start it again, but it continued to have a loud knocking sound, which I obviously knew was really bad. I had it towed to our Mazda dealership. At first, they said they wouldn't be able to even look at it for 6 days! A friend worked in sales there, and he got the mechanics to look at it the next morning. The mechanics knew right away that it was a failed water pump and it would cost $3300 to fix it. A lot for a water pump, but not the worst part of the story. They then told us that because of the weird place the water pump is located in the engine, the engine was most likely gone too. This would cost us another $8000 to replace. Though they couldn't be sure that the engine was gone, they said they've seen this problem many times over the years, and of all the cars they've replaced the water pumps in only ONE did not need a new engine. We called corporate, as our extended warranty had just ended 8 months before and we took very good care of this car. All they would do is offer is $2k for a down payment on a new lease and "special financing". I looked into it, and a junk car website would give us $2k for our car and ANYONE could have gotten that "special financing" just by walking in to the dealership. Once we figured this out, we told them we were sick of going back and forth in this "dog and pony show" (they had us calling our dealership to get offers, then calling them back to tell them what the offers were, and it was going on 3 weeks of this!), the gentleman told us he was extremely offended and would no longer deal with us at all! We were so beaten down by this, as we both are hard-working middle class parents with 3 children, and are careful with our money. We did everything right, and we are getting completely screwed over by this, as we still owe $3400 for this car AND we have to buy a new one!