2022 Mazda CX-5: What to check before buying

Headlight cooling fans start to hum, buzz, whine, or grind, sometimes for minutes after the car is shut off. Reports describe this as a warning before the LED headlight overheats and fails, and some owners lost both sides. Onset clusters roughly between 29,000 and 41,540 miles, often just past warranty. Dealers point to Technical Service Bulletin 09-015/23, which blames contamination during manufacturing, but the fix is a full assembly replacement. Out-of-warranty quotes run $2,500 or more per side. One owner also reports a dim, shadowed beam after replacement.

Two reports involve fire. One vehicle burned while nearly new and still under warranty, and another describes the windshield heating element smoking and cracking the glass. Other reports describe sudden loss of power on the highway with the check engine and battery lights on, recurring after a dealer replaced the battery and fuel pump. A parked car repeatedly drained its battery and triggered a "Critical Vehicle Malfunction Alert" app message. One crash report describes the car lurching forward while braking in a parking lot.

A sharp, metallic ticking on cold starts is the most common report, tied by owners to the hydraulic lash adjusters. Mazda's bulletin 01-002/21 covers earlier model years, not 2022, so affected owners say the dealer may not cover it. One report describes a cracked cylinder head causing overheating, coolant spray, smoke, and a pull-over warning, which was repaired under warranty. Mazda has also extended thermostat coverage to 15 years under Special Service Program D8 because the part can stick open.

Transmission failures are the most serious pattern here. Cars fail to move after the driver releases the brake, or the engine revs past 5,000 RPM without warning. Dealers replaced valve bodies and in one case the whole transmission, yet the problem returned, sometimes within the first few thousand miles. A cracked cylinder head spraying oil around the engine bay set off the low oil light at about 14,000 miles. A timing chain cover gasket oil leak appears at 66,000 miles.

Automatic emergency braking activates with nothing ahead, bringing the car to a full stop in moving traffic or in the middle of a busy intersection. In one crash the false stop caused a rear-end collision, with the alert sounding only as the brakes engaged. A second crash report describes the opposite problem: the system gave no warning and did not add braking when a car turned in front. Two of the three reports involve a crash.

Failure runs in both directions. In one crash, the car left the road, the driver suffered a head injury, and no airbags deployed even though the car detected the impact and called 911. In another case the passenger-side curtain airbags deployed while driving with no collision and no outside damage, with a child in the back seat.

One crash report describes the brake pedal sinking to the floor during a sudden stop at about 25 mph, with the car hitting the vehicle ahead at only 1,546 miles. A separate report describes all four rotors worn below minimum thickness at 17,000 miles, requiring replacement of every rotor and pad. Both involve low mileage, but the two reports describe different failures.

A 225/55 R19 tire sidewall shredded at highway speed. A second report is a design complaint about the asymmetrical tread on the same tire size: on left-side wheels, the owner argues, the slots push water toward the center of the tread instead of away from it. Neither report points to a fault in the vehicle itself.