[fleecy]

My 3 Sport has developed weird behavior from the recent colder than cold weather (-20 C during the day, -33 C at night).

1- My Check Engine light came on for a few days. It gave my service rep a weird P2006 (I think) code, something about the intake manifold. No problem was found by the dealer, so they reset the CEL and the problem never came back.

2- Starting the car from cold tonight, after about 10 hours in the cold, all blue and orange lights on the dash, steering wheel and even the central radio display came on but were very dim, at maybe 5% of their usual intensity. All I could see properly was the electroluminescent stuff (red gauges, no blue background). I let the car warm up until the engine RPM came down to 1000 from 2500 at first (about 5-7 minutes), cut off the ignition and started the car again, to see everything come back to normal.

3- My airbag sensors have been out of whack since New Year's Eve. Dealer says the sensors need to be replaced for Canada-specific models, but those are on back order.

4- My Brake and ABS lights came on 4 times over 2 days when the weather got warmer (back up to -10 C) a few days ago. ABS was out of order when the light was on. Again, turning the engine off, then on again took care of this.

5- My last grief is about the right wiper at temperatures colder than -10 C; it often fails to wipe with the rightmost 5-6 inches of the wiper. That makes the rain sensor misbehave (it's not cleaned properly by the same wiper) and forces me the play the intermittent wiper god (triggering it manually).

EDIT: Thread title :twisted:
NOTE: Let's take this to Mazda3/Axela so other people (not just Canadians) can benefit from it.

 

[Black7]

Re: Bad behavior in (very) cold weather

My 3 Sport has developed weird behavior from the recent colder than cold weather (-20 C during the day, -33 C at night).

1- My Check Engine light came on for a few days. It gave my service rep a weird P2006 (I think) code, something about the intake manifold. No problem was found by the dealer, so they reset the CEL and the problem never came back.

Haven't had this problem yet

2- Starting the car from cold tonight, after about 10 hours in the cold, all blue and orange lights on the dash, steering wheel and even the central radio display came on but were very dim, at maybe 5% of their usual intensity. All I could see properly was the electroluminescent stuff (red gauges, no blue background). I let the car warm up until the engine RPM came down to 1000 from 2500 at first (about 5-7 minutes), cut off the ignition and started the car again, to see everything come back to normal.

This I have experienced - and I did the same thing as you did. Did you have the use of your headlights? I had another car that did this and it was an energy saving feature built into the car. The night time dash lights and headlights will not come on until the car is warmed up (in severe cold) - then you have to shut it down and start it up (kinda like a reboot). It's a pain but makes sense that you don't want a huge draw on your battery when it's that cold (at least till things warm up).

3- My airbag sensors have been out of whack since New Year's Eve. Dealer says the sensors need to be replaced for Canada-specific models, but those are on back order.

I'm hearing about this quite a bit but haven't experineced it yet

4- My Brake and ABS lights came on 4 times over 2 days when the weather got warmer (back up to -10 C) a few days ago. ABS was out of order when the light was on. Again, turning the engine off, then on again took care of this.

Same here - what i am told is the ABS may be set a little to sensitive

5- My last grief is about the right wiper at temperatures colder than -10 C; it often fails to wipe with the rightmost 5-6 inches of the wiper. That makes the rain sensor misbehave (it's not cleaned properly by the same wiper) and forces me the play the intermittent wiper god (triggering it manually).

I bought a set of the tephlon winter blades at crappy tire - $16 each are outstanding. Take those flimsy summer blades off for teh winter before you destroy them. They bind up in the cold and will bend.

 

[neomonkey]

the joys of owning a first year car

 

[bobmtb]

That's a huge list of problems. I'm glad that I don't have any of those apart from my wipers that cracked off because of the cold. The back wiper on wine doesn't wipe all that good either. I have found that if the defrost is on and you give s quirt of washer, it helps, but overall, it seems like it just smears the water instead of cleaning it. Definitely will replace the stock wipers with something else. They just plain suck.

 

[D]

I don't understand the problems... Sounds to me like there's only one underlying problem. The real problem is that you live in a very cold region. Thats an easy solution. Move out to the west where the coldest we've gotten is -5C!! That should solve all the issues. lol. Naw just kidding.

 

[bknauss]

Sheesh! only -5C? We've hit -10C many times already in the past handful of weeks.

 

[SyChO]

Sheesh! only -5C? We've hit -10C many times already in the past handful of weeks.

LoL! You make it sound like -10 is alot... We have had -20 to -40 in the past weeks... now that's cold!

 

[dinu01]

And today it's c-c-c-cold and we're getting that storm - but with a tuque and gloves and a good Columbia jacket, anything can be beat

 

[fearturtle44]

My wife's Highlander has the airbag light blink on/off during cold weather (in Virginia that is anything below 25 degrees). Once warmed up and restarting, the light problem goes away.

Wonder how many cars have similar problems in cold weather.

Kevin

 

[Fobby_Monkey]

it's -25 right now and I haven't experience any problems yet.. except trying to go up a hill with my 17s..

 

[cowtown]

-31 this morning when I drove to work with Windchill @ -51, car started right up and has been running great.

I took her in today and got the block heater installed and got them to put in a floor mat bracket for me too.

Sorry about your luck, maybe the moisture in Montreal with the cold is setting your sensors off.

 

[lexterminator]

I'm in Montreal as well and I had the airbag issue twice, but it went off by itself on the next restarts.

The complaint I have so far is the cold morning starts are very rough. This morning (-23Celcius) was the worst so far since I got the car. The starter is turning pretty quickly and you can clearly hear the car igniting but it took at least 6 cranks (holding the key at start) before it catched up. Could it be the gas ? I already put some antifreeze for gas line and it didn't seem to help.

On the very early cold starts the car was great but it now gets badder and badder even the weather is not as cold as it used to be (it started well at -28Celcius when I got the car).

 

[Killer Chickens]

Keep in mind that when the windchill is about -40C, you increase it quite considerably as you drive. I have heard some estimates of around -100C(!) and that can only be harsh on any vehicle.

Vehicles in Canada are exposed to extreme conditions not often found in other regions of the world, so I am not surprized that some of these issues are comming to light in this weather. I suppose that by next model year Mazda will have addressed some of these cold weather related issues (just in time for me to trade in my Protege ).

 

[budgy]

The worst problem is the tires. Today on the way to get my block heater installed I lost control going around a corner at about 20km/h and did almost 2 full rotations into a ditch. Embarassing.

 

[Airboy]

Just a note on windchill. If the ambient air temperature is -30C, that is as cold as the engine block or any other part will get, doesn't matter what the windchill factor is. Windchill is an indicator for how fast heat is removed from something. If the windchill is -50C, the object will cool down as if it was exposed to a surrounding temp of -50C BUT once it reaches -30C (actual air temp), thats it. It won't go any lower.

Windchill does make it harder to warm up the engine block to working temperature.

 

[cowtown]

It also makes it harder to warm up the car in every aspect. My car has been doing well (plugged it in last night and had a fantasticly quick start and "warm up") but drove for 10 minutes before it was even remotely "warm" in the car. Windchill was agian near -50 this morning, that's some damn cold weather!

 

[bobmtb]

It also makes it harder to warm up the car in every aspect. My car has been doing well (plugged it in last night and had a fantasticly quick start and "warm up") but drove for 10 minutes before it was even remotely "warm" in the car. Windchill was agian near -50 this morning, that's some damn cold weather!

:shock:

If the block heater made that much of a difference, I think I will go through the expense of getting one installed at my first oil change. How much did it cost you guys, who have it installed?

 

[cowtown]

Nothing, we get them for free in Canada. My dealership just didn't have them in when I picked up my car. I got the call last week (as did others in Calgary) that they were in and we scheduled our appointments.

It's night and day with a block heater though, have you never used one?

 

[bobmtb]

Definitely not included! I asked and they asked for 120$ to get it installed... I never had a block heater on any of my cars and they all started fine, but my dad swears by them. :roll:

 

[cowtown]

Bizzare, you may want to call BS on that. I even think if you do a build and price on the Mazda.ca website it indicates the block heater is included. I haven't priced out a vehicle in Canada in the last couple years that didn't include one.

If they screw you on it it's still probably worth it though like I said I would demand they put one in.

Just to put it in perspective at the difference... When I started the car Monday without my block heater the car was idling at about 1800 when warming up. Today right after I started it after having the block heater on it last night it was instantly idling at 1000-1100 RPM.