ND battery under-spec'd?

[Mr Morlock]

The title was fine because it posed a question it did not provide an answer. It did highlight a problem that should not have been in a new car. Prematurely flat batteries is a bad look- it stops the car from proceeding . It also highlighted what a sloppy job Mazda did and how apparently dealers did not address the problem . RBH got off his tail and did something unlike Mazda who were happy to fob him off.

[Luke]

Luke sounds like an apologist for car companies and disparages consumers as wingers for issues such as batteries that die early due to no fault of the buyer. When your battery is prematurely dead from no fault of the owner and you miss your flight or an important appointment etc it can be costly and annoying- more than minor. A car ceases to work without battery power. Incidentally how would a driver know that a cruise control was linked to flat batteries ?

And how would the dealer know on a new car with no problem history that it is the cruise causing it? How would they have known to test it if they did not know of the problem? Their test procedure would not have told them to even look at that.
We can go around in circles with this.

You can call me an apologist for car companies all you like, but I assure you I hate them more than you and RBH put together. I won't even buy parts through Mazda Australia. I get them through Amayama who get them from Mazda Japan.
I'm just giving you my realistic point of view from what I have seen as a maintenance engineer that has to solve strange problems with equipment in a satellite broadcast environment on a daily basis.
I've heard plenty of "we haven't seen that before" from companies and vendors of equipment. It pretty much always ends up with the end user having to demonstrate the problem before a fix can occur, as the circumstance always end up being different for different ends users. A car company realistically is no different as everyone will use and control the car differently.
For example the battery going flat for RBH because he leaves the cruise on. If it was me, I always would have turned it off and never would have even known the fault existed, just like Mazda would not have as they would most likely never had done such an odd ball test.

[RBH58]

Luke, Mazda made the decision for the CC On/Off status to be retained during shutdown. I’d have been happy for it to default to Off every time you restart the car. But I shouldn’t have to think about that every time I switch the car off. I wouldn’t have to on the ST. So yes, it’s a design fault. One that Mazda should have picked up in their own testing.

[StillIC]

One that Mazda should have picked up in their own testing.

As I implied many pages ago, perhaps Mazda do know that the RF consumes more battery power when the cruise is left on, but the cost of the improvement hasn't yet been deemed to be worth doing. And now that the issue and work around is common knowledge and very simple, the chances of them doing anything to the existing cars are very slim IMHO.

I wish all my car problems were this simple and easy to avoid!

[RBH58]

My concern is that my new car had to be jumped 4 times and my battery probably damaged before I learned, through others monitoring (not being informed by Mazda), how to avoid the problem. Mazda just fobbed me (and others) off and told me what I was experiencing was “normal and within expectations”. Now I want them to fix it properly.

[NitroDann]

You guys are the reason everyone has to sign a 5 page contract every time we even so much as make eye contact with a large corporation.

Can't be too careful when people take the single most complicated object they own back to the dealer complaining that they have to leave the cruise off when they park, expecting the dealer to know about it.

It's not a fault, its a feature. One which was on the car when you test drove it. Inspected it. And signed that huge contract.

Dann

[JBT]

So yes, it’s a design fault. One that Mazda should have picked up in their own testing.

Yep. The corporate wheels turn slowly but, I'm sure Mazda will eventually sort it all out. I think your battery will be OK in the interim.

if your battery carks, and, assuming here is no caution or note in the owner's manual re selecting CC off before shutdown, chase Mazda for a replacement on the basis that the design fault caused premature failure.

[RBH58]

You guys are the reason everyone has to sign a 5 page contract every time we even so much as make eye contact with a large corporation.

Can't be too careful when people take the single most complicated object they own back to the dealer complaining that they have to leave the cruise off when they park, expecting the dealer to know about it.

It's not a fault, its a feature. One which was on the car when you test drove it. Inspected it. And signed that huge contract.

Dann

Dann....that is absolute horse sh*t.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Mazda to default the CC to Off when turning the car off. I would have been fine with that too. I’d be fine with that as a fix. But for me and others to have to find out the cause and be inconvenienced by a dead brand new car on several occasions, and be fobbed off and told that 10-12 days battery life is “normal” for a new car by Mazda and their dealers, is not acceptable. They had no intention of taking my complaint seriously until I started to embarrass them on social media. And now it turns out it’s a design fault (yes a “fault” because the ST doesn’t suffer it).

[Mr Morlock]

I fully agree with RBH. I don't think some folks here understand that cars are dríven by people who dont have any interest in any technical issues and they dont talk to "car people" and they dont go on to forums to discuss cars. I was also surprised that a cruise control could stay on after removing the key and exiting a car- what a crazy system. When you buy a car dealers don't go through every feature of a car- it would take too long and many folks will never some of the features anyway. Half the time the dealer i.e. salesperson is not familiar with all features anyway. Then we have the owners manual. Maybe RBH can tell us - does the manual have a warning about leaving the cruise control on( JBT raised this as well) ? I know plenty of guys that never look at an owners manual and don't use half the cars features. Some use a cruise control every day including around town and others think its unnecessary and too fussy and difficult to deal with altogether so it remains a mystery.

You cannot get away from the fact that you buy a new car and you expect the dealer to assist with answers or to rectify issues. They get asked pretty silly questions but thats part of the remit. Car co's will have a system for reporting and recording faults and a reference system for formal problem solving. When they ignore an obvious problem without looking for a cause its not good.

Mazda will address this issue because it has the strong potential to strand people sometimes in out of the way places and to cause people missing appointments, not getting to wok on time etc- you might even miss the start of the local MX-5 club run .....now that's serious

I don't think all car co's are the same and customer focus and continuous improvement varies.

[RBH58]

Mazda Australia have asked City Mazda to get my car in for testing in Jan. City Mazda contacted me this morning.

Apparently City Mazda have also recently received complaints from 2 other RF customers.

So, it would seem like we have movement on the issue.

[project.r.racing]

How many flats will you have between now and January? Nice they are now taking notice. Shame you have to wait now so long. Although it is xmas break. No help to you though.

[KevGoat]

It's probably not that hard to check yourself the amp draw with the CC on and off just to see. I think most multimeter's will show it (never done it myself so someone correct me).

Even without the problem you've discovered, the amount of standby used in most cars these days is a lot more than it use to be, and the MX has a small battery by comparison. I connect a battery tender to mine these days as mine often doesn't get enough use to hold the battery charge between drives.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[RBH58]

How many flats will you have between now and January? Nice they are now taking notice. Shame you have to wait now so long. Although it is xmas break. No help to you though.

Not traveling during the Christmas break so hopefully I should be good

[TieNN89]

TSB for the battery drain issue

https://www.miata.net/garage/tsb/RF%20E ... harged.pdf

[Mr Morlock]

very interesting ( tsk for the link) and the document was released on 26/12 . RBH highlighted and pursued an issue bringing it to attention- well done and Mazda do what car cos should do- address an issue like professionals The local dealers did not do so well ..