NHTSA Complaint #11457761 — 2015 MAZDA MAZDA3

In February, 2022, my 2015 Mazda 3 experienced a major failure, while I was driving on a local road, going 35 miles per hour. All of a sudden, the engine lost power, three warning lights came on, and the car was struggling to go 20 miles per hour. Being near a friend's house, I drove there. From there, her husband followed me home. The next day, my car was towed to the Mazda dealership. The mechanic diagnosed the problem as “found TBS NUMBER: 01-014/16 and inspected coils found they were bad according to lot numbers”. He replaced all four engine coils and all four spark plugs. The service manager told me that the parts were not under warranty. My research revealed that engine coils are supposed to last the lifetime of the car, which is 150,000 to 200,000 miles for a Mazda 3. My car only had 43,048 miles. The spark plugs should have lasted about five more years. I looked into the Bulletin issued by Mazda USA. Mazda USA was first aware of a problem January, 2016. On 17 March 2016, I bought the car. Mazda USA updated the Bulletin to include my car on 29 July 2016. The car was under full warranty at this time and could have been fixed, if I had been notified of the defects. The faulty coils can cause a catastrophic failure, resulting in serious accidents and injuries. My car was a “ticking bomb”, waiting to go off. I was on a local road, with light traffic, not a secondary road or highway, with heavy traffic. Rather than notify customers of the danger of the engine malfunctioning, Mazda USA chose to remain silent. The Bulletin directs that nothing be done until a customer complains. The customer does not know to complain until the car malfunctions! The customer must complain within the normal warranty period. Mazda is hoping that the bad coils fail after the warranty period.