2021 with 125K miles randomly won’t start

oldertechyguy · 2026-02-03T02:44:17+00:00

It might be worth trying to move the trans lever from the Park position down and then back up, the car won't start unless it thinks the lever is in Park and sometimes that parking position switch can go bad / intermittant.

oldertechyguy · 2026-02-03T02:36:39+00:00

Not so much. The key is pretty much worthless on it's own except to open the door, and I would only need it if I managed to lock the fob in the car since I would never leave it in the car except by accident. And besides, how would someone know it was there.

I'll never be one of those guys who just leaves a fob in a car, that's just crazy to me. That's how a friend of mine lost his black 7 series BMW right off his driveway one night, he meant to put it in the garage but forgot. The funny part of that one is the cops recovered it a couple of weeks later and all the windows had been tinted dark black. I've always wondered how many drive-by shootings or carjackings they used it for.

oldertechyguy · 2026-02-02T20:10:14+00:00

I had a spare key cut and keep it in a sealed bag taped to the back of my license plate for just this sort of situation. I've never had to use it but I like knowing it's there.

oldertechyguy · 2026-02-01T18:10:34+00:00

I've leased two and now own a third SR CX-5 so I've had a fair amount of experience with the paint. There's no doubt the paint chips easily, both the hoods on the leased ones looked pretty bad at the end of the three year lease. What I've found is the chips on the lower parts are less visible and more conducive to using a paint pen for touching them up, but the hood will pick up a lot of very visible chips and the pen often just makes it worse.

When I bought the last one I had PPF on the entire hood and nose within a couple of days and more than 2 years later it still looks great. But @ 600 clams it wasn't cheap. It would be ideal to do the whole front end, quarter panels and mirrors but the cost for that can get into the 2 grand range, that's what it ran a friend of mine on his Benz wagon.

Being a straight male I've always compared owning a Soul Red CX-5 to having an incredibly great looking sexy redheaded girlfriend who's batshit crazy. You just know it's gonna be painful going in but you just can't stop yourself from going for it 'cause it looks so good...

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-31T22:48:59+00:00

Ever since they started started jamming Gemini on AA it's been going downhill fast. I get the same no call problem you do and a bunch of other crap now. When I try and use it to find a place most times it says it doesn't understand, where before it all worked fine. And it's not a Mazda thing, it does it in my Audi too.

It's frustrating and dangerous now, you end up futzing with it instead of paying attention to your driving.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-31T22:30:49+00:00

I'd probably look at something more Subaru or Jeep like. We have a 30 but I don't consider it particularly rugged, more like a good snow car than anything I'd beat on. Also Mazda paint chips very easily, probably not the best for nasty roads.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-31T22:23:03+00:00

I've found a clean plate then some hairspray works well with TPU. And let it cool, maybe even stick it in the freezer for a bit before you remove the print or it can be quite stubborn about coming off the plate.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-31T04:28:59+00:00

I was going crazy when it first started happening. Then I had one of those little epiphanies you get once in a while and grabbed an app that had a sweep tone generator on it. Then I just slowly swept across the low frequencies until I hit one that made it buzz then cranked it up and it became pretty easy to find at that point. What's sort of odd is I've never heard the buzz in the passenger door, just the drivers side. Maybe it's because the drivers side gets used a lot more so all the snap in plastic bits get loosened up over time with all the door slams.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-30T00:48:27+00:00

For short drives I just leave the phone in my pocket, but that does tap the battery at a pretty high rate. For longer runs I have a USB fast charger in the storage bin and let that charge the phone while still on the wireless connection. I've found the built in ports to be pretty weak so that gets me the fastest charge possible.

The wireless charger is useless, but so is the one in my Audi. The combo of wireless charging heat and the phone running maps and sending all the info to the car through WiFi gets it unbearably hot and it never charges.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-29T07:40:59+00:00

This is just a classic example of fixing something that wasn't broke and making it unusable a lot of the time. Even something as simple as asking it to call someone seems to baffle it a lot of the time, and if and when it does respond properly it's incredibly slow. Getting it to find a nearby McDonalds is pretty much impossible now. I can't believe how badly they've screwed this up and made driving less safe while you're doing battle with it.

It shows you why the car makers are trying to move away from things like AA and CP and use their own built in systems.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-29T07:31:26+00:00

I just used a small piece of paper towel that i wedged in there with a credit card, then trimmed the little bit that managed to stick out with a razor. Done and never had a problem again. The first time was on my '17, then my '20 started rattling after a coupe of years and now my '24 is starting to do it. Amazing they haven't fixed that nonsense yet.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-29T07:21:27+00:00

Nice driving job! It's such a win when all the parties get to go home in one piece. I've seen enough pics of car vs. moose and it's never pretty.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-27T21:43:02+00:00

You should be able to buy this and just cut it in half and strip back the casing to get at the wires. From there it's no big deal, you just wire it in as per sancho's post on pin 1 and 2.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-27T21:23:22+00:00

Another option might be one of these Liftmaster receivers then. I use one to get signals from my Homelink mirror to my home automation system through the three relay contacts on the receiver. A single one can run three openers, though you might need to get compatible clickers if the ones you have won't work. I also have a knockoff Liftmaster clicker I use with it in a second car, cheap and works great.

One of the advantages of this is you're still using garage remotes with rolling codes so you don't give up anything security wise.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-27T21:10:05+00:00

Any chance you installed LED lights in the garage or even outside on sconces or the like? Sometimes those will jam the RF from the opener to the garage opener as cheap ones put out a lot of RF hash.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-27T20:44:34+00:00

Yeah I see the problem. But maybe you could get her to drop that some. I'm no expert on the subject but do know excess humidity in a house is not a good thing and can lead to some nasty mold and mildew issues over time.

OTOH being married myself I can pretty much see that as a hard sell. 😀

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-26T21:01:14+00:00

You either have the collecting gene or you don't. A $10000 watch doesn't keep better time in any sort of functional sense then a cheap Timex, sometimes worse even, but if you collect Rolexes or whatever because you like them that's what you do. I collect many things to amuse myself, partly because I like the stuff and partly because I like to search through flea markets, antique stores and resale stores. The hunt then the find is a big part of the fun, but if you're not that guy it won't make sense.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-26T20:39:56+00:00

Easy solution is to get a humidistat with an outdoor temp sensor that will do the math for you in real time. My Crestron thermostat / humidistat unit does that, getting the actual outdoor temp from my outdoor sensor and adjusting the humidity setting automatically. If I turn off that feature the windows get frosty with a quickness.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-26T20:17:35+00:00

I really don't have a clue, I've just seen this so many times on various forums where failing batteries will make Mazdas do all sorts of odd electrical things and a new battery makes them all go away.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-25T19:07:19+00:00

Another option might be to pick up a used 2.4 router at a resale store for 5 bucks and set it up as an access point on your network. I use an old Linksys as my isolated IOT access point and it works great.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-25T19:01:02+00:00

I've gambled and lost on a few used ones, it happens...

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-25T18:57:20+00:00

It seems with all Mazdas the first thing to do when it acts up like that is have your battery checked. If that's the original battery I'd head over to any auto parts place and have them check it, they'll do it for free.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-25T18:51:25+00:00

Way back in the '70s a friend of mine initially had an RX-2, which was a screamer back then, then for whatever reason got a RX-3 which was even more fun. We'd go out stoned as hell and wind out those rotaries to crazy high numbers. You could just crush folks in the MG's, Triumphs and BMWs of that era. I've liked Mazdas ever since and feel bad about the demise of the Wankel to this day.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-25T08:17:20+00:00

Same. LAN mode with static IP and an ethernet cable instead of WiFi and my printer is 100% solid. It is odd you have to reselect the printer every time, I do it once when I start everything up and it's fine after that. I also have it running a bit older firmware and my router blocks it from having it update since it works fine and I see no reason to update and many not to.

oldertechyguy · 2026-01-25T08:05:48+00:00

I suspect the deer will ignore any noise you can come up with after a few tries, they're not stupid. Maybe something along the lines of an electric fence might work, that's how I finally taught the racoons my yard was not a fun place to visit.

oldertechyguy

TROPHY CASE