62 plate Mx-5 KURO 2.0 body wide rust - Mazda denial, don't get caught out

Technical Area Body, Interior & Styling
2

 Hi all

I am just posting this really in case it helps to raise awareness. I purchased a new, 62 plate pearelscent white, hard top, 2.0 kuro last November (had a mark 1 few years back and loved it). All was well until when washing in March I noticed some ‘rusty’ coloured water drip from the right side indicator (near door) and I noticed what I interpreted to be a 3 mm or so split in the paint work just above. This was not there before and beleive me I inspected my car a lot! Long story short I looked around the car and also found a rust pin prick in the rear water channel  on the boot, and also on two of the weld points on the underside of the boot. I contacted Mazda and went through the rigmoral and got official pics from dealers. They authorised fix and respray on the boot but refused the front as they argued I had scratcehd it - it was never a scratch.

I went to the recommeded body shop and explained things to him and got my own £200 squids ready to cover that repair. Got a phone call next morning as he had removed the side indicator for a respray and all around this, hidden, was completely corroded and fair play to him he refused to fix (taking him bottle of wine). Went back to mazda with more pics etc and they covered that. I refused however to get this done arguing the car needed looking at as there was rust on 3 separate panels on a 4 month old car with 3000 miles on the clock. They refused.

Long battle later I ended up evoking my legal rights and made the garage buy the car back off me under the sales of goods. By that time there were small rust spots on every single panel virtually, some that had gone throught the lacquer and others that were still under this indicating an inner corrosion problem.

I consider my self lucky here so people beware!!! This problem could not have been a one off so if you have a similar car look closely. They are easily missed if you are not looking for them. In white, it was easy to see the rust marks but in others I reakon people are gging to become croppers. The last I heard form the garage (Arnold Clark in Liverpool, which for the record have been great all along) Mazda still claim there is no fault!!!

I did question when the car was built as I understand Nissan had to chuck 1000’s tons of metal that was on the dockside when the tsunami hit. They tried to dip and paint but rust kept appearing, they did the right thing. I put this to Mazda but no luck. Makes me wonder though.

Now awaiting my new 13 plate fiesta ST which will hopefuly go longer than 3 months without rusting. Please don’t get caught out however or your nice 20k car is going to be worthless in a year and Mazda won’t be any help believe me. My last cars in the familly have been mx5, mazda 6, mazda 3, kuro. Never buying mazda again however due to their lack of reponsibility and customer service when s**t hits the fan.

3

That’s not good, do you have any of the pictures so that others can see the issues and check on their own cars if they haven’t noticed already?

4

I think many would agree with your last sentence or at least until Mazda admit that they have a major problem of Lancia proportions looming.  I am keeping my Mk2.5 although it has an unacceptable amount of surface rust underneath (now treated with Waxoyl) but the new sports car I bought this week is a Toyota GT86. 

5

 I have some, will see if can get them uploaded, not done it before on here. The smaller ones are hard to see but others are obvious. Any quick guidance on where the upload buttons are to save me time.

6

Hi,

this is a nightmare scaenario for you and I don’t blame you for going down the route you have. I have had four MX5s now and although I have never had issues with panel corrosion as you have, there are serious issues with the manner in which Mazda appear to be:

  1. not applying corrosion protection to the underside of their cars to cope with UK/North European climates

  2. applying the thinnest of paint finishes to underside components such as subframes, especially at weld points and x-braces, (my 20 month old Sport Black has had paint flaking off these areas since I bought it at 11 months old)

  3. When challenged on these issues Mazda UK and Mazda Motor Corporation in Hiroshima appear to turn ostritch and deny any issue or responsibility for the issues.

It’s a well told story on my part but my Wifes 28 month old Fiesta still looks like a new pin underside.

My own cvar has had some serious modifications carried out to it and will hopefully be my project car/toy but still a daily driver for many years to come. Unfortunately part of the project work on this car will now be at its tender age, to have many of the underside components removed, stripped of corrosion prepped and given several coats of something along the lines of smooth Hammerite, not to present a nice shiny underside to any who looks but to hold back potential serious future corrosion and MOT test issues.

Whats to be done then? I know of some who deny that the corrosion on Mazda cars is an issue or anyworse than any other car, well it bloddy well is, look at the issue with some Mk2/2.5s being sent to scrap at 10 years old due to chassis rail corrosion, a disgrace by any standard. The fact that cars that are only months old are corroding as badly as they are is disgraceful, paint flaking off weld points is unacceptable, from little acorns etc. Is it possible that the AA or RAC might be interested in your story and mine and any others out there? Just a suggestion.

For anyone in any doubt, I have just spent many hours renovating my brake callipers, yes, renovating on a car that is less than two year old, this image is of a rear calliper carrier bracket, on a 20 month old car?

and after a thorough clean up

Needless to say, the carrier was only returned to the car after several coats of the appropriate heat resistant paint was applied.

My advice is not to be complacent, if you are hands on at all, then for the sake of preserving your vehicle and keeping it safe and roadworthy, check and where appropriate take the required action. Yes, perhaps I should have gone straight to Mazda with this but as I say, the car has been heavily modded and perhaps invalidated many elements of the warranty, of course they would use this as a lever to get out of any warranty claim although quite how they could clain that corrosion is down to the car being modified is beyond me and in any case, I simply could not be bothered with the hassle, in simple terms they would squirm out of this one by saying that the integrity of the component was not compromised and the corrosion was only on the surface. I’ve been around cars and the motor trade for far to long perhaps and have an inbuilt cynisism when it comes to them now.

 

7

Sorted.

 

8

 

lets see if this works

9

It did. And, it’s an absolute shocker.Sad

10

 

 

Sorry if they are a bit big. Some of the rust wouldn’t picture well with the perlescent paint refelction int he light. Rust points, as varieifed by by neighbour who is service manager for another company, located on:

Inside boot lid,

rear boot water channel,

outside boot lid,

drivers door (middle of panel)

front right wing as in pics

x2-3 on mid to outside bonnet

passenger door (mid panel)

start it loks like over left wing indicator

And thats all teh exposed bits I could see …

11

Don’t rub it in, Nick!


This really is unacceptable from a modern car… though I have had experience of similar problems in Hondas years ago.


Goodness there are some familiar names here.

12

 

Funny that eh, all passionate about the cars but getting sadly disillusioned by what we are experiencing and see.

S

 

 

13

 Think it s a great shame. Loved the car in pretty much every way and the look on my 4 year olds face everytime the roof went down was great. Unfortuantely cars nowadays have no excuse for rusting what with varying alloys and galvonising which is why we all feel so agrieved at Mazda’s current ‘blase’ attiutde. Feet will be a walking…

14

Well, for what it’s worth, Ive grabbed the bull by the horns and using the pro forma on the AA’s site I have sent them the following message

“To whom it may concern. The AA is a well recognised organisation who as well as offering many direct customer services has over the years been a voice for the motorist on many subjects including rising fuel costs, the increasingly poor condition of our road networks and many other issues.

I should like to ask you where the AA stand with regards to raising awareness with motor companies to corrosion issues with practically new cars. I myself am affected by this on my 20 month old Mazda MX5 but not so badly as others have been, one chap recently returning a brand new car under the auspices of the sale of goods act, his new car covered in small areas of corrosion on every panel on the car. Mazda refused to acknowledge that this was an issue. Unfortunately stories of this nature are becoming more and more common, suggesting that Mazda have a significant quality control issue with their cars or the cars imported to the UK are simply not fit for purpose on our roads, commonly salted in the winter.
The whole story here takes up much more than the alotted characters allowed but there are instances of cars circa 10 years old having to be scrapped due to extensive and potentially fatal corrosion in major structural components. Would the AA be interested in this story in full?”

I’m not suggesting this is the case with you Chris but there is an element of apathy amongst many who hit these issues, obviously Mazda are not interested, frankly they are not interested in customers other than getting them into the showrooms and shifting metal, I’ve had a number of comms with MMUK over the years and they are the most shiftless, teflon shouldered group of individuals I have ever had the displeasure of dealing with either professionally or personally. If you don’t mind me asking, how long did it take for you to get amy response from them, or was this all done through your dealer? What is the answer, well, it’s not that hard, use the likes of the AA, RAC, Watchdog or suchlike, I’m damn sure that MMUK and the Mazda Motor Corporation in Hiroshima would be pretty quick in upping their game if the BBC did an expose on these issues but we as owners have to be the ones who make the initial moves, some of us have, and certainly one individual effectively launched a forum campaign and got involved with VOSA, on the issue of corrosion destroying a number of cherished cars in the 10 year old category, of course, some eleccted just to write these off as old cars that this kind of thing should be expected on…utter bollox.

 

 

15

Just to add, there is no galvanising on the MX5, nor do they use any specialist alloying of the main bodywork or monocoque that will prevent corrosion, this does not excuse their attitude to what must surely be a rogue car in terms of body corrosion, never seen the likes and yes, there will be a knock on effect if becomes more prevalent.

 

 

 

16

I’m becoming puzzled at the masking tape? Who was trying to repair? The Dealership?

Certain it was not you OP if you were going for recompense! I hope!

17

Could the owners club take this up with Mazda and report back their response .This is of interest to almost all members.

Reg.

18

I’d love to see what clout the club has with MMUK. I’m on my fourth MX5, love 'em so I do but although Mazda have been £80k approx to the good from my wallet, they have failed miserably on every occassion when I have had cause to contact them regarding ‘niggles’ I won’t be holding my breat for the OC to get a response that amounts to any substance.

19

I have to agree that I am disappointed at the amount of superficial rust on my '07 nc. I’ve owned 20 cars in my time and this is the first since my 1977 Datsun that I’ve had a constant to-do list of minor rust repairs. Even my 1979 lancia beta spyder had less rust!

 

having said all that, it’s a wonderful car and I think I’ll always own one. I’m saving up for a respray in 2 or 3 years time. 

20

 tape was put on but the repair centre to hold the indicator wires in, nothing to do witht he repair. they did not want to reinsert the cover befor eI have driven the 10 miles to the dealer to get in photoed in case Mazda claimed they had done it whilst undertaking sucj tasks. The mazda dealership then put it back on later.

I was not repairing and I actually took the gamble and didn’t allow it to be fixed unless Mazda was to undertake a full inspection of the car.