Bought this vehicle new in May 2009. Car is driven 200 interstate miles daily for work. Very little in town driving. Clutch rarely used. Cannot believe we had to replace it! This is our 4th Mazda and the newer they are, the worse they are made. Our '88 626 had 268K miles when we gave it away to a college kid to drive till she died - he is still driving it. Our '89 323 had 236K miles when we gave it away. We currently own an '04 3 (replaced clutch, transmission and 3rd gear at around 100K) and now the '10 needed a new clutch - won't be buying a 5th one.

I have a 2010 3 2.5 5 door sport with the 6 speed manual. I have put 17,000 mostly highway miles on it (drive back and froth from Alabama to Texas a lot). This car spends most of its life in 6th gear with the cruise on.

Here is some background, I've driven mostly Hondas and Acuras and with only a couple of exceptions I have driven stick shift cars for 20 years. My last car was a Civic with 120,000 miles on the original clutch that still felt brand new. I have been in the Auto industry for 15 years and know my way around a car.

On Friday my wife was driving my car (she learned how to drive on a manual and has no problems driving it) on a back country 2 lane road with our son in the back and out of cell phone coverage. She was driving along at 60 mph, in 6th gear when the RPS started to bounce off the rev limiter. She checked to make sure she was still in gear. She took it out of 6th and put it into neutral then tried to go back into gear. No dice, it wouldn't shift. So she pulled over and shut it down. She tired to start again, tried to get it into first, nope, tried to get it into second, and nothing.

Amazingly she got some signal on the phone after a panicked 20 minutes and got roadside assistance out to tow her in.

Now Mazda is saying that the clutch is burned up and that it is not a defect so it is our fault and it won't be covered under warranty. Now, I have never heard of spontaneous and catastrophic clutch failure, with NO prior slippage or difficulty shifting being due to driver error.

Same problem here and dealing with it right now. 2010 Mazda 3 2.5 with 33K miles on it. Driving on the highway, tried speeding up and noticed my engined just revved up and then back down and locked into gear again. I thought, that's really weird. About 15 miles later, tried shifting into gear, and boom! nothing, I could easily push my clutch in and put the shifter into position but it would not go into gear....any of them. Dealership said it would cost $800+ to "diagnose" the problem & I would pay for parts if it's a clutch issue. I was upset, cause I thought this car would last forever with very little problems except normal maintenance. So I called Mazda Corp. they said they don't pay for a diagnoses but will pay if it's a problem covered by warranty. Here's my problems, Why isn't anyone questioning the fact that someone at Mazda Corp. picked a supplier that is making a cheap part that is failing and should be recalled and replaced with a better quality part? If Mazda Corp does not cover this problem I will be contacting the News and my good friend is a news anchor for Channel 2 in Houston! I mean really, I'm having clutch or transmission issues in the first year with only 33K miles on it. I would have rather bought a used BMW or Lexus. I'm terribly disappointed right now!!!!

The car was for my daughter. It was a manual shift. Five miles on it when I left the dealer, 8 miles when I got home. I was showing my daughter how to drive it and the clutch burned out after 5 miles of driving. No more than hiccuping as she learned to drive it but was getting the hang of it after about 20 minutes. Dealer took 2 days looking at it to see if it was abuse to the car or a car problem. They said it was so unusual. Interesting that because it was unusual it was our fault. How are they going to prove that anyway?