Faults:

I have a Mazda mx6 1993 model. I got this car this year and it was driving extremely well. I noticed that the gears were not shifting properly anymore. The car would delay changing gears. I decided I would take the car to the mechanic at the end of the August month.

One morning, the unthinkable happened. I started the car to leave for work and the car would not get into gear. I can change the gears, but the car doesn't realize that it's in gear. If I put it in first gear or fourth gear or even reverse, nothing happens. It's as if the car has forgotten that D means drive forward.

I like the little car, but I have not clue what next. When I try to put it in gear the hold light flashes and it doesn't move. Can anyone please advise me on what could be wrong with my car. There is got to be a way to fix this without getting a new transmission.

If anyone has experienced this please let me know. A friend whom I bought the car from had the transmission changed 2 years ago with one from a car that had 40,000km on it. So this transmission should be good for another 10years.

When I shift gears, the engine realizes that I have shifted down or up, but it doesn't move the car. Help.

Pappah_mx6@hotmail.com.

General Comments:

The car handles extremely well, but I need to get this hold light to stop and I need the car to shift into gear.

Faults:

The real question is, what didn't go wrong? Even the CD player broke down! Where do I start? Here is the long list!

- Water pump (very costly on 6 cylinders).

- Timing belt tensioner (often not replaced, creating loud tapping noises, which then means going back in as if to replace the water pump again!).

- Distributor (common in all models, and sometimes replaced more than 3 times in 1 year! - due to poor regenerated parts).

- Power window button broken or stuck.

- Air filter box leaks with weak holding brackets.

- Head gasket replacement (after 10,000 miles of water pump replacement, already leaking coolant!).

- Boot gas struts are dead on all models after 30,000 miles.

- Sunroof was more of a manual version, you must use two hands, therefore you must stop vehicle first.

- Rear calipers seized more often than not; you'd find yourself with a hand brake that didn't work, and the vehicle not able to roll, wasting brake pads and fuel!.

- Fuel went from excellent to terrible, due to anything from rear calipers seizing to different fuel from different petrol station.

- Water leaking into boot!

- Power steering rack was leaking massively; had to be replaced.

- Oxygen sensors died.

- Ignition leads died out, due to high output of the coil, which lead to the distributor dying.

- CD player died.

- Turning on the A/C system made the idle terrible.

- VRIS 2 (stands for Variable Resonance Induction System) died out on most models.

- Last, but not least, engine tapping! Loud!

That's about it, and no I didn't abuse the car, I drove it very carefully, as it was the most expensive car I've owned. I thought it was just the water pump, but I was wrong! After replacing that, I thought I could get away with a year of being trouble-free; I was WRONG! It cost me well over 4000 dollars to repair. One fault after the other, I went to the MX6.com forum, asking for help, it seemed that a lot of other people had the exact same problem. It had dawned on me that I had bought a problem-prone car, and perhaps the problems I had were already fixed before me, or I was the first to fix them, but I doubt that.

It surprises me, how many people in this review of the MX6 have excellent reviews for it, despite saying things like, caliper seizing, etc. I know a lot of people have respect for it, whether it'd be because of its looks, which by the way, caught me off guard (don't let looks fool you), or because of its athletic abilities, or maybe they're just too embarrassed to admit that they have bought one of Mazda's most problematic vehicle in its history! That's why it had stopped production in 1997! The vehicle when new, had a lot of issues, as shown on receipts of the previous owner.

Anyone interesting in buying an MX6? DON'T, I promise you, you WILL regret it. All models share the similar faults and defects, go to MX6.com, you'll discover what I mean, and that this is not a one-off gripe session.

General Comments:

Don't buy an MX-6, it WILL cost you more to repair it, than buy it.

The most expensive lemon in Mazda's history. They knew it, and disguised it under a sporty theme. People who back it up classify it as a luxury vehicle. The manufacturer marketed it as a sports car.

Under its gorgeous outlook is a shell of cheap parts (rear calipers, engine tapping, weak gas struts, faulty electric sunroof, etc.) and bad engineering (engine overheats in most models).