Mazda Problems

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 first thing to do is drive the car yourself and see if there’s a pattern to what’s happening. Until then, you have even less idea of what’s going on and a diagnosis is all but impossible at that point. You might find that the car is cutting out after a period of driving (maybe caused by a dirty fuel filter) or when the engine reaches a certain temperature (possibly a sick crank angle sensor).

I’d also recommend an electronic scan to see if any fault codes show up. These codes can be very specific and will often lead you straight to the root of the problem.

This sounds more like a gearbox that isn’t selecting fifth gear properly, rather than one where it’s leaping out of fifth. For it to pop out of gear when cruising along suggests it’s not getting into gear fully in the first place. You might be able to adjust the shifter’s position and alignment and therefore get fifth gear to engage more fully.

There’s also a chance that this refusal to select fifth gear is the result of bent or worn selector forks within the transmission itself, and that’s a gearbox-out job unfortunately. So the first step is to get underneath with a torch while somebody inside attempts to select fifth gear. If the selector linkage runs out of range of motion, you might just have an adjustment problem which can be pretty easily sorted.

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.

This is not as simple as perhaps it should be. Different carmakers use different methods to calculate cargo space, and Mazda uses the VDA method which uses 200mm X 100mm X 50mm blocks to determine the volume. In this case, the CX-5 has a volume of 438 litres with the rear seats up and 1340 litres with the seat folded down.

However, you need to know the dimensions in centimetres, so here’s how it pans out: The CX-5 has a luggage space length of 89.7cm with the rear seat in place, 171.5cm with the seat folded, a luggage space height of 82.7cm and a width of 105cm at its narrowest point.

Perhaps that helps, but the best way by far (if possible) is to visit a Mazda showroom with the wheelchair in question and physically see if it fits.

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.

I’d start by talking to a transmission specialist. There’s a fair chance they will have seen these exact symptoms before in this make and model and will know what’s wrong without wasting any time or money on guesswork. It’s probably also worth going back to basics and checking the transmission fluid level, as low fluid can cause all sorts of drive problems. If, on the other hand, the gearbox is worn out internally, you’ll either need to rebuild or replace it, but don’t rule out something less expensive like an internal selector fault or even a torque converter problem.