We dumped our one and only Mazda over Labor Day weekend and will never go back. Ironically we moved over to a Rav 4.
We had bought a CX-7 in 2010 and had been having headlight problems for years. It got to the point we were using our older vehicle for night travel as we had no headlights at all. It was blamed on bad seals on both headlights, leading to moisture entering the headlamp itself. Multiple estimates lead to close to $2,000 to replace. There are numerous complaints regarding Mazdas and this problem with the NTSB, but nothing has been done yet.
In addition, the driver's seat was broken, we could not move it up. They wanted $900 to fix that.
We had sudden acceleration issues also, we'd go to back up and the vehicle would literally take off. Same going forward, we had to be careful in a drive thru line or at the bank. That was another grand.
The final straw was the driver side window would not roll down anymore. Didn't even bother with an estimate as that was it, time to dump.
We keep cars til the wheels fall off, but this car was only 8 years old with 110K miles and it was either put upwards of $4,000 in repairs into it, or dump it to some other poor soul. We traded it in and are thrilled with the Rav 4. We were quoted 28 mp highway, we're getting 31. The Mazda had been recalled multiple times, the dealership never had the loaner car promised by Mazda in the letters. Took several days off from work, had to cancel doctor appointments due to no transportation, it was a nightmare with both the car, and the dealership.
Never again.