Mazda Problems

Assuming your car is fitted with a manual transmission, this could be as simple as a gearshift linkage that has jumped ship, or a selector cable that has stretched or snapped. If that’s the case, you should be able to look from underneath the car to see what’s hanging off or missing and not connecting the shifter to the actual gearbox. If the shifter moves freely inside the cabin, but doesn’t sound or feel like it’s connected to anything, that’s probably the case.

If you’re unlucky, you may find that there’s something inside the transmission (probably to do with the selector mechanism) that has broken, worn out or failed. In that case, you need to go inside the transmission to see what’s what, and that’s a much more complex task that involves removing the transmission from the car and lots of labour.

The automatic transmission is a mysterious, marvellous piece of equipment that manages to work almost in spite of its complexity. Guessing at a problem like this is fraught with danger, so the best advice is to get the vehicle to a transmission specialist, download the fault codes and see if they give the technician any hints as to what’s up.

Transmission problems with this make and model are hardly unknown, so avoid driving the vehicle any farther until it’s been looked at. You may end up doing more damage by continuing to drive it.

The actual problem could be anything from a transmission that is about to catastrophically fail, to one that has simply lost its 'memory' or programming and can be rebooted fairly easily and quickly.

It all depends on how you define long and bulky. But no seven-seater is going to be exactly small, is it? That’s because, to accommodate the third row of seats necessary to seat seven a vehicle physically has to be a certain length and there’s just no getting around that.

But I take your point; a lot of the seven-seat SUVs out there do seem pretty big. Again, however, that’s not a bad thing if you plan to fill all three rows of seats and still have some room left for luggage. The smaller seven-seaters aren’t all that good at this as the third row gobbles up the luggage space, making these cars best for those who only need seven seats on an occasional basis. If that’s your situation there are lots of mid-sized seven seaters around, but they’re pretty much all SUVs.

And while it goes against your preference for a smaller vehicle, the very best seven-seaters aren’t SUVs. They’re usually people-mover vans such as the Ford Tourneo, Kia Carnival and VW ID. Buzz. In fact, some of these even seat eight. They’re also a lot better for accessing the rearmost row of seats and they’ll still have lots of luggage space even with all seats occupied. And, yes, they look big, but that’s physics for you.

In the meantime, you could look at slightly less bulky options including the Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sorento, Mazda CX-80 and Toyota Kluger. There’s also been speculation recently that Subaru’s seven-seat Tribeca might make a return to the Australian market.

The overheating is far from a mystery: Any time the coolant level in the radiator and cooling system drops below a critical point, there’s simply not enough coolant remaining to effectively cool the engine. So it gets hotter and hotter until it overheats.

The bigger question is why the coolant is leaving the radiator via the coolant recovery tank. In many cases, this is because of pressure from the combustion process finding its way into the cooling system. In turn, that’s very often caused by a failed head gasket which is allowing the combustion pressure into the coolant passages inside the cylinder head and crankcase.

The head gasket not only keeps combustion pressure (the result of the air and fuel being burnt in each cylinder) inside the engine, but also separate from the cooling system. But a failed gasket will often allow the pressure and the coolant to mix, at which point the pressure overcomes the pressure inside the cooling system and the coolant has to go somewhere. Generally, that somewhere will be the recovery tank as this is where the coolant goes in the normal course of its expanding as the engine heats up.

There’s a quick, simple chemical test that a mechanic can carry out to confirm whether the head gasket has failed, and this would probably be your first step. And don’t be tempted to continue driving the car and simply topping up the coolant. This type of leak can get a lot worse very quickly, and overheating can destroy an engine while you watch.

This could be something to do with the engine’s idle-air control valve which plays an important role in making sure the engine gets the correct amount of air. This amount varies according to (among other things) the engine temperature. So, in a cold-start situation, the valve helps ensure the ratio of fuel and air entering the engine is correct to account for the lack of heat in the engine.

But you could also be looking at a dud temperature sensor that is sending the wrong information to the engine’s computer and causing the same problem. It could be as simple as a dirty intake system or airflow meter that needs cleaning.

But don’t forget the basics, either; a vacuum leak in any of the many rubber hoses on an engine of this age can lead to a lean mixture and a high idle as a result.

A trip to a workshop with a scanning tool should reveal more about what’s going on.

Conventional wisdom says the first place to start looking is the turbocharger and its plumbing. A turbocharger operates at very high speeds and a whistling noise is quite common. What you shouldn’t have, however, is a loud version of that noise, or a whistle that is suddenly louder than ever before.

Cracked or leaking turbo-plumbing can allow the noise to escape, but a turbocharger with a worn bearing can also suddenly become louder in its operation. So that’s where to start looking.

Why does the noise drop in the higher gears? Perhaps because you’re cruising in those gears and not accelerating hard as you do in the lower gears. Less throttle input means a slower turbocharger speed and a drop in turbo volume and pitch.

There’s been no recall for this model regarding oil consumption. And although there have been a handful of recalls for the CX-5, your car is not within the build-date parameters to be one of the affected ones.

It’s important to remember that often, a problem with a car sold in another market, won’t affect the same make and model in another part of the world. This can be because of vastly different operating conditions, different driving and usage habits and even the two apparently identical vehicles being built in different factories with different suppliers producing the parts.

Don’t forget, either, that all engines consume some oil. A turbocharged engine with its higher combustion chamber pressures will often sip a little more, but some oil consumption is part of the normal process of engine operation. That’s particularly true of modern cars which often use low-tension piston rings to reduce internal friction and, therefore, fuel consumption, at the cost of a little more oil consumption.

You might be looking at two distinct issues here. The high idle could be caused by any number of things including a dirty intake system, or something electronic. It could simply be that the idle was set too high the last time the vehicle was serviced.

This may be contributing to the feeling of the engine shuddering when you switch it off, but in reality, a lot of diesel engines exhibit this. It’s all to do with the heavy-duty nature of the diesel engine design. Because of the high combustion chamber pressures inherent in the diesel’s design, the whole thing needs to be more physically robust than a petrol engine of the same size and capacity. That means everything from the crankshaft to the con-rods, pistons and even the cylinder head and crankcase need to be made stronger. And that means more material and that means more mass.

This is why diesels generally don’t rev as high as petrol engines (there’s much more reciprocating mass) and why they can feel a bit lumpy when you load them up and even at idle. So, when you switch one off, it can feel like it’s trying to jump out of the engine bay. However, if this sensation has become more pronounced over the years, it might be wise to check the engine and transmission mounts for wear. Any wear or looseness here can contribute massively to vibrations from the driveline being passed through to the cabin.

A trip to your local transmission specialist is the first step here, and don’t even think about driving the vehicle father than that. You could easily do more damage than is already existing. Modern automatic transmissions are incredibly complex things and there’s a lot that can go wrong.

You might be lucky and simply have a low transmission fluid level (although you’ll still need to find and fix the cause of the leak). But, equally, you may have a transmission that is literally on its last legs. The problem is that all these symptoms can show up through all sorts of transmission woes.

Either way, a specialist workshop should be able to diagnose the problem and work from there.