Consumer Safety Complaints
Search 2,245,377 safety complaints filed by vehicle owners with NHTSA, including 140,173 crashes, 56,794 fires, and 8,580 deaths.
What is a NHTSA consumer complaint?
A consumer complaint is a free-form report filed by a vehicle owner directly to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) describing a safety concern about their vehicle. NHTSA collects these reports through its Vehicle Owner Defect Report (VOQ) system and publishes them publicly. Each complaint includes the affected component, the date and circumstances of the incident, whether the failure caused a crash or fire, and any reported injuries or deaths. The owner's full narrative description is included verbatim, NHTSA does not edit or moderate the descriptions.
The database below contains over 2,245,377 individual complaints. NHTSA's investigators monitor it for clusters of similar reports, when enough owners describe the same failure mode on the same vehicle, NHTSA may open a Preliminary Evaluation that can lead to a recall. Many of the largest recalls in U.S. history, including the Takata airbag recall and the Hyundai/Kia engine fire recalls, started as patterns visible in this complaint database years before they became formal recalls.
How to interpret what you read
A few principles for reading consumer complaints usefully:
- One complaint is anecdote; a hundred similar complaints is data. NHTSA does not investigate the truthfulness of any individual report, that's the job of the Office of Defects Investigation, which looks at the full pattern. When evaluating a vehicle, look for whether multiple owners describe the same chain of events.
- Crash, fire, injury, and death flags are owner-set. They are not verified by NHTSA. They are still useful as a filter, because owners who tick those boxes are typically reporting more serious incidents than those who don't.
- Component categories are NHTSA-assigned, not owner-assigned. NHTSA standardizes the component field so that complaints can be aggregated. The owner narrative often goes into more detail than the component category captures.
- Complaint volume scales with sales volume. A best-selling model will accumulate more raw complaints than a niche model even at the same defect rate. To compare across vehicles, look at complaints per 100,000 units sold, not raw counts.
If you've experienced a defect
File a complaint. NHTSA's investigators rely on this database to detect emerging defects, and useful complaints, specific, concrete, with dates and mileage and clear descriptions of what happened, feed directly into the agency's pattern detection. The form takes about 10 minutes and is at nhtsa.gov/recalls under "Report a Safety Problem." Your complaint becomes part of the same public record that this page is built from. Owners filing detailed VOQs are how recalls get triggered.
Read more from our blog
Showing 29,895 complaints for MAZDA
Incident date: Aug 23, 2022
The contact owns a 2022 Mazda CX-5. The contact stated while driving at various speeds, the vehicle stalled without warning. The contact stated that moments after the vehicle stalled, the vehicle independently accelerated. There were no warning lights illuminated. The contact stated that there was an abnormal fuel and burning odor inside the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer howe... Read more
Incident date: Aug 23, 2022
The contact owns a 2022 Mazda CX-5. The contact stated while driving at various speeds, the vehicle stalled without warning. The contact stated that moments after the vehicle stalled, the vehicle independently accelerated. There were no warning lights illuminated. The contact stated that there was an abnormal fuel and burning odor inside the vehicle. The vehicle was taken to the local dealer howe... Read more
Incident date: Dec 9, 2022
The contact owns a 2004 Mazda RX-8. The contact stated that while the vehicle was parked, he noticed a strong gasoline odor originating from the vehicle. There was no warning light illuminated. The contact stated that the failure persisted. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where it was diagnosed that the fuel pump was fractured and needed to be replaced. The contact stated that the vehicle was ... Read more
Incident date: Dec 14, 2022
The contact owned a 2021 Mazda CX30. The contact stated while making a left turn, another vehicle struck the middle of her vehicle causing server damage. The contact stated that none of the frontal air bags were deployed. The contact suffered severe injuries and she sought medical attention. The vehicle was declared a total loss. A police report was filed. The manufacturer was not contacted. The f... Read more
Crash
1 injured
Incident date: Jan 1, 2016
The dash of the car is melting. It causes a reflection that is bright and impairs visibility. Mazda addressed this problem with extending the warranty. When I called the local dealerships, none of them had the dash to replace per warranty. I made several calls throughout the year and each time was told the dashboard was not available and to try again. Then COVID hit and I did not venture out. When... Read more
Incident date: Dec 1, 2021
The contact owns a 2014 Mazda CX-5. The contact stated while driving over a speed bump the front-end of the vehicle collapsed to the ground. There was no warning light illuminated. The vehicle was towed to an independent mechanic, and the front strut assembly was replaced; however, the failure reoccurred. The vehicle was taken to the independent mechanic and the front strut assembly was replaced a... Read more
Incident date: Sep 1, 2021
The contact owns a 2011 Mazda Mazda3. The contact stated while driving at an undisclosed speed, the clutch became inoperable. There were no warning lights illuminated. The dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was notified but no additional assistance was provided. The failure mileage was approximately 80,000.
Incident date: Dec 20, 2022
I am being told by the dealership service center that there is a coolant leak from the engine. A previous coolant look due to a hose was repaired but this is a separate issue related to the TSB for coolant leak at the cylinder head Bulletin 01-007/22
Incident date: Dec 1, 2022
The car has a key fob which is supposed to automatically lock the car when you walk away (and unlock when you press a button on the door handle when the fob is in close proximity). My car sometimes does not lock when I walk away. They encourage relying on this method, and so sometimes I return to my car, and it is unlocked. I consider this a safety issue both from a personal safety standpoint and ... Read more
Incident date: Mar 1, 2021
Car is mint for age. Stock oem hid style headlights failed, headlights are still clear. The turn signals failed and activated safetys. Ground plug under air filter assembly that is a piece of metal bolted to car with 5 wires that plug into it corroded so bad no ground connection and each of the wires made no connection to the plug. No info on how to diagnose and/or repair. Common problem. Took eve... Read more
Incident date: Mar 1, 2021
Car is mint for age. Stock oem hid style headlights failed, headlights are still clear. The turn signals failed and activated safetys. Ground plug under air filter assembly that is a piece of metal bolted to car with 5 wires that plug into it corroded so bad no ground connection and each of the wires made no connection to the plug. No info on how to diagnose and/or repair. Common problem. Took eve... Read more
Incident date: Jun 1, 2021
My "infotainment" system was experiencing ghost touching. In other words, the touch screen in the car that controls everything from radio to bluetooth to settings for safety features such as braking assist and automatic sensor wipers would completely go crazy and select/unselect features in the touchscreen. Sometimes it was one touch at a time (ie, change the radio station). Over time, and the mo... Read more
Incident date: Jun 1, 2021
My "infotainment" system was experiencing ghost touching. In other words, the touch screen in the car that controls everything from radio to bluetooth to settings for safety features such as braking assist and automatic sensor wipers would completely go crazy and select/unselect features in the touchscreen. Sometimes it was one touch at a time (ie, change the radio station). Over time, and the mo... Read more
Incident date: Jun 1, 2021
My "infotainment" system was experiencing ghost touching. In other words, the touch screen in the car that controls everything from radio to bluetooth to settings for safety features such as braking assist and automatic sensor wipers would completely go crazy and select/unselect features in the touchscreen. Sometimes it was one touch at a time (ie, change the radio station). Over time, and the mo... Read more
Incident date: May 20, 2020
Navigation/backup camera screen reboots constantly. This problem often occurs when I'm backing up. Mazda is aware of the issue as I have found many complaints on forums. It is not exclusive to the CX5. It appears to be all Mazda's, cars and SUV's.
Incident date: Apr 29, 2022
My vehicle took off and accelerated without me depressing the gas pedal and it was very scary and hard to get stopped I was doing almost 80 mph. It had a safety recall for the throttle cable for this but you show no open recalls yet Mazda does and told me if recalls we're taken care of they would show up on the car fax which they do not my vehicle is a 2002 but this doesn't mean it was ever fixed... Read more
Incident date: Apr 29, 2022
My vehicle took off and accelerated without me depressing the gas pedal and it was very scary and hard to get stopped I was doing almost 80 mph. It had a safety recall for the throttle cable for this but you show no open recalls yet Mazda does and told me if recalls we're taken care of they would show up on the car fax which they do not my vehicle is a 2002 but this doesn't mean it was ever fixed... Read more
Incident date: Apr 29, 2022
My vehicle took off and accelerated without me depressing the gas pedal and it was very scary and hard to get stopped I was doing almost 80 mph. It had a safety recall for the throttle cable for this but you show no open recalls yet Mazda does and told me if recalls we're taken care of they would show up on the car fax which they do not my vehicle is a 2002 but this doesn't mean it was ever fixed... Read more
Incident date: Dec 1, 2022
The contact owns a 2015 Mazda CX-5. The contact stated that while operating the vehicle, the horn malfunctioned and there was no sound when the horn pad was pressed. The cause of the failure was not yet determined. The local dealer and manufacturer were notified of the failure, but no assistance was provided. The failure mileage was 148,000.
Incident date: Jun 1, 2021
The car wouldn’t fully turn off once it parks. Have to keep playing turn on/off game until it fully turn off. And apparently Mazda know about the issue but refuse to do anything. Other people are saying it’s a engine sensor issue.
Incident date: Dec 13, 2022
I was resting my foot on my brake in the middle of sealed traffic and when I eased up to move forward when traffic my brakes did stop causing me to bump the car ahead of me. After that what came next was that my car then accelerated forward with my foot still on the brake. By then 2 other vehicles were involved in this accident. My car is now totaled from this.
Crash
Incident date: Aug 1, 2022
The contact owns a 2011 Mazda Mazda3. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed, the steering wheel started to shake. The contact stated that the tire pressure warning light and check engine warning lights intermittently illuminated. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where it was diagnosed that the suspension, seat connector, and an unknown software needed to be updated. The ... Read more
Incident date: Dec 4, 2022
There were two separate incidents on the same day, Sunday, December 4, 2022. I rounded a corner on a city street (Goodfish Farm Road), which is parallel to the Wal-Mart shopping center in Albeny, Oregon. USA. When I applied the brake the car “floored it.” I pushed the brake pedal hard with my right foot and car rushed a little but came back under control, It scared me and I did a mental not... Read more
Incident date: Dec 4, 2022
There were two separate incidents on the same day, Sunday, December 4, 2022. I rounded a corner on a city street (Goodfish Farm Road), which is parallel to the Wal-Mart shopping center in Albeny, Oregon. USA. When I applied the brake the car “floored it.” I pushed the brake pedal hard with my right foot and car rushed a little but came back under control, It scared me and I did a mental not... Read more
Incident date: Dec 12, 2022
TSB issue with suspension steering gear assembly needs to be removed and have spacer kit installed. Issue caused the front lower ball joint to wear more than usual and crack. Due to TSB a joint kit needs to be installed and control arms replaced.
Incident date: Dec 12, 2022
TSB issue with suspension steering gear assembly needs to be removed and have spacer kit installed. Issue caused the front lower ball joint to wear more than usual and crack. Due to TSB a joint kit needs to be installed and control arms replaced.
Incident date: Dec 12, 2022
When I reached 7000 miles on my car the low oil light came one. I immediately drove it to the dealership - ending a vacation early as I thought something was seriously wrong with the car. I got to dealership and they blamed me for getting an oil change at a competitor and not putting in enough oil. They then changed the oil and again at 12000 the low oil light came on. There seems to be an... Read more
Incident date: Dec 12, 2022
When I reached 7000 miles on my car the low oil light came one. I immediately drove it to the dealership - ending a vacation early as I thought something was seriously wrong with the car. I got to dealership and they blamed me for getting an oil change at a competitor and not putting in enough oil. They then changed the oil and again at 12000 the low oil light came on. There seems to be an... Read more
Incident date: Dec 5, 2022
The contact called on behalf of his daughter who owns a 2015 Mazda CX5. The contact stated that while his daughter was loading groceries in the trunk, the liftgate dropped unexpectedly and the corner of the liftgate hit her in the head, causing a laceration. The contact's daughter was taken to urgent care where she was informed that she had sustained a laceration and three staples were put on the ... Read more
1 injured
Incident date: Aug 1, 2022
The headlights on this car are dangerously dim. Like the turn signals overpower them levels of dim. I’ve replaced the bulbs, the battery, cleaned all the connections, replaced the alternator, nothing makes a difference.
Incident date: Aug 1, 2022
The headlights on this car are dangerously dim. Like the turn signals overpower them levels of dim. I’ve replaced the bulbs, the battery, cleaned all the connections, replaced the alternator, nothing makes a difference.
Incident date: Dec 6, 2022
CAR HAS 24,547 MILES AND THE FUEL PUMP WENT OUT. CAR STALLED WHILE DRIVING AND HAD TO BE TOWED BY AAA. CAR WAS REPAIRED AT OVERBECK AUTO SERVICE 1793 OHIO PIKE, AMELIA, OH 45102. [email protected]
Incident date: Dec 3, 2022
The car's battery has failed two times. The second time is after the battery was replaced -- so the problem was with two different batteries. Both times, I had to call & wait for roadside assistance. Dangerous situation. Both times, the car required a jump-start then a full charge. The dealer denies a battery problem or electrical system problem. However, a Mazda Roadside Assistance service provid... Read more
Incident date: Dec 3, 2022
The car's battery has failed two times. The second time is after the battery was replaced -- so the problem was with two different batteries. Both times, I had to call & wait for roadside assistance. Dangerous situation. Both times, the car required a jump-start then a full charge. The dealer denies a battery problem or electrical system problem. However, a Mazda Roadside Assistance service provid... Read more
Incident date: Dec 1, 2022
I keep getting a automatic emergency braking malfunction alert
Incident date: Dec 1, 2022
I keep getting a automatic emergency braking malfunction alert
Incident date: Dec 1, 2022
I keep getting a automatic emergency braking malfunction alert
Incident date: Nov 29, 2022
A substantial amount of water has made its way into the headlight housing. This has caused the driver side light to go out. There is no evidence of any damage, cracks, or failure otherwise. It seems, like thousands of other Mazda3 drivers, the seals have failed. My particular model has the auto leveling and turning headlights. Cost to repair will be well over $1,000. This is a well known problem ... Read more
Incident date: Nov 24, 2022
Transmission Control Module Failed while driving. Do to this there was a loss in ability to properly shift which made driving dangerous. There has been several online reports and accounts about this specific car signaling a check engine light coming on, AT light coming on and when other indirect or incorrect codes like Solenoid (A), (B), or (C). Luckily I did not crash therefore, I have no inspec... Read more
Incident date: Nov 9, 2022
I was driving on the freeway, going 60-65mph for about 10 minutes. All of a sudden, the engine went from ~2k RPM to ~4 RPM. The speed stayed the same. And then it happened again a few minutes later. A few days after this incident, while driving on the freeway, going 60mph, the car refused to go past 60mph. This also happened ~2 weeks prior. This would have caused an accident had I needed to speed ... Read more
Incident date: Nov 23, 2022
The driver side airbag did not deploy in a front end collision on the drivers side. When approaching a vehicle that had come to a sudden and complete stop, the brakes were applied hard to the Mazda CX-9 in order to stop, but after about 1 second they just totally let go and there was no braking at all and the Mazda continued to move forward until it slammed into the vehicle that was stopped. The ... Read more
Crash
Incident date: Dec 2, 2022
2020 MAZDA CX-5. CONSUMER WRITES IN REGARD TO THE EMERGENCY BRAKING FEATURE ON VEHICLE.
Incident date: Sep 4, 2022
Low oil level between oil change cycles with over 1,000 miles remaining before oil change is required. This has happened between both oil changes so far and I have to add oil myself to ensure oil level isn’t low. The oil consumption seems extremely high and is concerning that at only 12,000 miles I’ve had this problem happen twice.
Incident date: Nov 1, 2022
I as well as many other mazda cx5 owners have experienced the same issue where the suv will not power off when the push to start button is pressed. The suv requires you to power it back on and shut it off several times before it actually shuts down. The radio and other accessories will not shut off when the car is powered down. Resulting in serious issues possibly happening if the car is not shut ... Read more
Incident date: Nov 1, 2022
I as well as many other mazda cx5 owners have experienced the same issue where the suv will not power off when the push to start button is pressed. The suv requires you to power it back on and shut it off several times before it actually shuts down. The radio and other accessories will not shut off when the car is powered down. Resulting in serious issues possibly happening if the car is not shut ... Read more
Incident date: Jul 15, 2021
The vehicle remains ON when you hit the turn off switch. Sometimes it takes several jiggles of the gear shifter to turn it off. I reported it to Mazda and they said that they can't do anything. Seems to be a common issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/b77yli/my_2014_mazda_cx5_wont_turn_off_kind_of/ Thankfully, my car is still operating but I would like it to shut off every time the f... Read more
Incident date: Nov 29, 2022
Check engine light appeared then I had a dead battery. I purchased a new one and the check engine light went away for a while until now. Then I found a letter online that I never received of a recall for california vehicles that were manufactured during specific dates. Mine is listed as one but it does not have an active recall.
Incident date: Oct 23, 2022
•The first incident I had with the SBS was about a month on the highway, I was approaching a vehicle that was braking due to upcoming traffic. I had plenty of time to stop, upwards of 8-10 car lengths. Yet my SBS kicked in and slammed the brakes, jarring me forward. Luckily no one was directly behind me at that time because I have no doubt it would have caused an accident. At that time, it was t... Read more
Incident date: Nov 16, 2022
Blind side modules have to be replaced. Mazda bulletin BSM indicator flashing dtc u3000 2013-2015 Mazda. No accidents or body damage yet dealers is asking $2100 dollars for repair. 2014 Mazda 6 with 99k miles. BSM is very useful and functional when working and provides an added element of safety.
MAZDA
MX-5 MIATA
(1999) - FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM
Nov 27, 2022
Incident date: Sep 10, 2022
When I filled the gas tank the next day there was the smell of gas inside the vehicle which persisted as I drove. I took it to my Fiat dealership which maintains the vehicle and they have been unable to identify the source of the gas smell. They have been working with Madza for six weeks and no solution can be established. There was a recall on the 1999 models for a similar problem, however my VIN... Read more