1995 Mazda Protege Transmission and drivetrain Problems

“Transmission failed at 60128 miles. This occurred while I was passing another vehicle which made it a safety issue. Luckily the vehicle that I was passing decided to speed up so that I could get back into my lane before another vehicle came along which would have ended up in a head on collision.”

“When turning to the left, there's a hard popping/clunking noise. We took it to the shop twice & they said they couldn't find a problem. The third time we had it looked at we were told that there might be a stress fracture in the front axle and that the cv boot/joint assembly needed to be replaced immediately. We have already replaced the cv boot/joint once before and replaced the struts on the front of the car twice since we bought it. …”

“The front right and left axle started to make a grinding sound upon going bumps since we purchased the car in 1995. As time went on, the grinding got worse making louder noises. We told the dealer at first about the noise and they said that it was just getting broken in. As a result, the left drivers side had to be replaced first in december 2000, and the passenger side was just replaced in feb.2001 due to lackage of funds to replace both sides at the same time. …”

“The automatic transmission on my Mazda Protege failed completely at 75,500 miles. My mechanic informed me that the friction clutch had been disintegrating for some time and that the debris had caused the failure. Even after the transmission was rebuilt, problems persist. I believe the problems are a safety concern. On one occasion I was forced to make an emergency stop. After the very sudden stop, I tried to accelerate away from the immediate scene, but the automobile would not move. I had to shift from drive to neutral and back to drive in order to move the vehicle. …”

“We have experienced a chronic problem with a rattling sound from the front end of the car around the brakes and the cv joints. We took the car to a Mazda dealer who informed us the problem was the lack of caliper pins in the front brakes. We had the dealer install these necessary parts (about 4 months ago) and the problem seemed to go away for about 2 months. However, now the problem is back. - we will be taking the car back to the dealer again but are very concerned this could be a structural safety problem that could be serious. Both sides of the car seem equally affected.”