"Damage" caused by a recent service

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › "Damage" caused by a recent service - how to handle

nzkiwiman

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#271839 28-May-2020 20:49

My 6th monthly car service was due in the last week of March; I delayed it on purpose due to the impending lockdown and working 12+ hour days.
In the first week of May I took it in for this service, and when I got it back, noticed that the on screen display was prompting to connect a phone. A few times I canceled the message only for it to reappear.
Today I got annoyed that this message just would not go away and tried to enter the settings of my display, only to find that when I left the control stick alone, the selected option would change and things would be selected and unselected; at this point it was very clear that it was if my control stick was "jammed" on.

(for those who have a 2014-2016 Mazda3, the default option on the touch screen display is Communication, it seems as if the control stick/knob is pressing down on this automatically to select it)

I took the car to the dealer I had it serviced, got a technician to look at it who said he had never seen anything like this and to book a repair and it would be covered by warranty; he then asked how old the car was and when I said, coming up 6 years he mentioned that the warranty only lasts 5 years but to still book it in for a repair and left.

At this point, I don't really want to be forced to pay for a repair job on a issue that seems have been caused when I took the car in to be serviced ...

Anyone got any wise words of wisdom they could share on how to handle this situation?

frankv

5678 posts

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#2493915 28-May-2020 21:01

There's no way of knowing that the fault was caused during the service. It could have been incipient and just became visible at that time. Perhaps there's some feature like access to diagnostics or resetting the service countdown, I don't know. But otherwise they wouldn't have touched the unit.

You could ask the Servicing Manager to investigate, but I doubt they would find anything.

Bung

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#2494023 29-May-2020 07:25

What sort of use does the car get in 6 months? Mazda seem out of step with other brands. I seem to remember Mazda being on 6 monthly servicing and Ford on 12 monthly on virtually the same vehicle. That's fine if it's on a service plan but now that you are out of warranty it may be something to consider. Asked this question about another Mazda 3 the AA recommended 12 monthly or every 10,000kms.

E3xtc

771 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2494084 29-May-2020 08:26

Its going to be a damn hard argument to pin point the time and cause of the failure and associate it to the servicing of the vehicle. I think your time would be best trying to see if you can get a warranty resolution (partial or full cover) without trying to finger the blame.

MikeAqua

7769 posts

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#2494130 29-May-2020 09:43

Sounds feasible to me. The easiest way to clear the disclaimer on the touch screen is to press the main selection knob.

A service tech who has to do that 30 time a week as part of updating the software, might get a little firm with their use of the knob.

Not something you can ever know for sure or prove though.

Mike

Bung

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#2494204 29-May-2020 10:12

May be relevant

http://www.mazda3forums.com/355-technical-information-faqs-how-tos/708425-center-control-knobs.html

alasta

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#2494224 29-May-2020 10:52

MikeAqua:

Sounds feasible to me. The easiest way to clear the disclaimer on the touch screen is to press the main selection knob.

A service tech who has to do that 30 time a week as part of updating the software, might get a little firm with their use of the knob.

Not something you can ever know for sure or prove though.

I never dismiss the disclaimer screen. It just ignore it, and it goes away after a few seconds.

I assumed that's what everyone did.

MikeAqua

7769 posts

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#2494270 29-May-2020 11:33

alasta:

I never dismiss the disclaimer screen. It just ignore it, and it goes away after a few seconds.

I assumed that's what everyone did.

I do too. But if you imagine that you are updating bunch of these everyday - you will dismiss the disclaimer screen ASAP.

Mike

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nzkiwiman

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#2494291 29-May-2020 12:01

The car is set to display a warning on the dash when it needs a service. I believe to clear this, they need to enter the settings via the control knob.
As they didn't do this for its 5th year service, I specifically asked them to make sure they clear the warning on the dash this time around.

Until I saw the auto movement in the menu system, I wondered if it was actually one of the phone buttons on the steering wheel that was causing the issue - when the Communication menu is selected, it offers to pair the phone and then sits on the yes prompt - that yes prompt is not auto selected, and I can move (sometimes with great delay) to the no prompt and it also never gets selected. However pressing the home button to get back to the main menu sees the phone prompt milliseconds later.

I'll try and get on the phone to Dunedin City Motors and see what they say ...

nzkiwiman

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#2494641 29-May-2020 20:32

Drive

I took a small video of the issue, because it is actually hard to describe what is happening.

Left hand in shot to show I am not controlling things with the commander knob, right hand on the camera filming

itxtme

2102 posts

Uber Geek

#2495370 30-May-2020 22:15

You sure its the knob? Drive faster than 10km an hour (disables touch in the Mazda). Does the problem go away? If so suggests its a touch screen issue rather than the knob.

nzkiwiman

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#2495621 31-May-2020 12:03

If I press the home button near the knob to cancel out of the prompt, then seconds later the prompt to connect happens - regardless of being stationary or driving.

I clearly can't start playing around in the menu systems using the knob while also trying to drive.

Bung

6403 posts

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#2495627 31-May-2020 12:20

It's not just something like the car got paired to the mechanic's phone during a test drive and now needs another default mobile selected.

nzkiwiman

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#2496514 2-Jun-2020 10:56

While I only took the car out three times over the weekend; I noticed that on Sunday and Monday the issue did not happen (it did on Saturday) and it didn't occur while travelling to work on Tuesday.

There are no phones paired with the system currently - when I turned Bluetooth on, it showed two very old phones paired (my Nexus 4 from 2015 when I got the car, and my fathers iPhone 6S) - and I was able to fight the system to get those deleted and then turn bluetooth off again.