In-car Electronics
CD or DVD players, radio, speakers, GPS, communication system (e.g., OnStar), display screen freezes or goes blank, phone pairing (e.g. Bluetooth), voice control commands, steering wheel controls, portable music device interface (e.g., iPod/MP3 player), backup or other camera/sensors.
What Owners Say
"intermittent the screen goes blank for a day then works fine. This has happened about 20 times in the last couple months."
Anonymous, CA (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"Intermittently does not work"
Anonymous, (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"1/3 works ok, 1/3 image distorted, 1/3 image blank"
Anonymous, TN (2016 Mazda 3 Unsure 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"The on-dash screen split with the top at the the bottom and the bottom at the top. Both the screen and the back-up camera were replaced under warranty"
Paul P., CA (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"About a year after purchasing, the back up camera just stopped working."
Sean M., TX (2016 Mazda 3 Sport 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"difficult to see in bright sunlight, dims considerable when you turn on your headlights at night"
Anonymous, GA (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring)"tiny numbers and letter on instrument panel, difficult to see in bright sunlight"
Anonymous, AZ (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"The infotainment center has randomly reset itself while I am driving. It just randomly happens from time to time."
Anonymous, NY (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"Mazda replaced the display screen free of charge"
Anonymous, PA (2016 Mazda 3 Unsure 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"Even though the display screen has been replace, the display will randomly change radio stations at times."
Anonymous, CA (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"The infotainment system gets slower overtime. Not sure if it is due to software upgrade dealership did for me during past services; but it become so slow where it is not useful anymore. In the most current service, I was able to get the software upgrade and hope it works better moving forward, too early to tell."
Anthony K., AZ (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"Infotainment system would reboot numerous times. Dealer found defective SD card and replaced."
Mark B., GA (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"I was unable to start the car. The infotainment system and backup camera did not work. I assumed it was the batterty and had a jump start. I drove the car for about ut 15-20 kms. The next day I took the car to the Mazda dealer, they could fine nothing wrong and the infotainment system and backup camera worked. The system appeared to correct itself."
John M., BC (2016 Mazda 3 Sport 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"infotainment system constantly resets itself in mild to cold temperatures."
Anonymous, CO (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"The infotainment center has randomly reset itself while I am driving. It just randomly happens from time to time"
Anonymous, NY (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"When using bluetooth, and possibly other times, shortly after starting the car, usually within about 30 seconds to 3 minutes, the user interface will shut down and reboot. Music will stop, calls via bluetooth will revert back to the phone, nav displays will be gone, and the system acts as if you've just started the car and boots up normally. Usually only happens once, but sometimes two or three times in a row. Most prevalent in cold weather after sitting for 30 minutes or more."
Anonymous, CO (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"when car is reverse, the rear view display is occasionally either distorted or totally black which makes the reverse driving difficult. at Mazda dealership service (Richardson, TX) , technician could not find a solution to the problem and contacted Mazda Corporate. it has been 1 month and I have not heard back yet."
Ayhan C., TX (2016 Mazda 3 Sport 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"Pandora and Mazda seem to have a feud as they don't play well together"
Anonymous, (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"The Pandora app on the car regularly drops Pandora on my phone, freezes when I switch to a phone call, displays a notice that my Pandora station has been deleted, and occasionally crashes MazdaConnect altogether"
Anonymous, MA (2016 Mazda 3 Sport 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"iPod no longer playable. iPod is recognized but is not read by the system though the iPod works fine in another vehicle."
Anonymous, MA (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"When playing music from our iPod some of the buttons at the bottom of the screen become grayed out randomly. A recent update to the Infotainment system seems to have fixed the problem, but this has been updated before and the problem re-occurred, so we'll see how it goes this time."
John S., BC (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"recall problem"
Anonymous, CA (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"Recurring problems with infotainment system only resolved by complete replacement. Works great since"
Anonymous, (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"It was a problem with the Mazda Connect touch screen which made it inoperable. Was replaced by Mazda at no cost as it was a common defect which was covered by a warranty extension program for 2014-2016 Mazda3."
Anonymous, VA (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"Entainment/NAV died."
Anonymous, (2016 Mazda 3 Sport 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"GPS totally failed. Dealer replaced under warranty"
Terry W., TX (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"Live traffic is not functional"
Bret H., CA (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"Map chip would not load, so GPS would not display. Dealer replaced entire in-dash unit when a chip replacement did not solve the problem"
Carl G., MA (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"GPS didn't respond to voice commands. Was repaired under warranty"
Paul P., CA (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"GPS system rarely seems to know where it is or going. Continually tries to update/recalculate itself - still it rarely gets the directions right."
Fred R., MA (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"Was unable to connect to satellite so navigation feature was inoperable. Reported problem to dealer, They fixed it in one service call; either renewed or replaced antenna."
James P., MI (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"The GPS stopped working. The dealer fixed it. I got a new sim card and an up-graded display. The whole system was not starting up normally and would restart in the middle of a ride."
Anonymous, MD (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"Too (needlessly) complex. Not intuitive at all. One needs an electrical engineering degree or at least a few hours with the manuals to begin to feel at all confident with this item."
J M., NJ (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"Navigation would take many minutes to initialize or not initialize at all. Repaired under warranty."
Anonymous, MA (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"The electronics at intermittent times will not allow Iphones to play a music list. It seems to connect properly but does not allow the music to play. After repeated tries, my daughter is able to get the music list to play."
Anonymous, CA (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"Text messages between iPhone and radio have never worked. Have also had to remove my phone from the radio completely and set up again"
Michael M., AZ (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"Bluetooth pairing is a total crapshoot and often as not it sounds like a skipping cd. No idea how much of this is Mazda's fault vs Motorola's (which still has my phone on Android 6.0)"
Gabriel R., CA (2016 Mazda 3 Sport 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"Recurringly disconnects bluetooth. Also, when the phone is charging, car refuses to connect phone media by bluetooth."
Anonymous, CA (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"I use a smart phone and a tablet in car when driving long distances. the entertainment system is not compatible with Android Auto. I pair the smartphone and the tablet with the car's entertainment system. but each time, one is disconnected and I have to re-connect and select it from the menu before I can use it. it does not automatically connect both at the same time. and for some reason it seems that always the other one is connected rather than the one I want to use first."
Ayhan C., TX (2016 Mazda 3 Sport 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"blue tooth drops off"
Anonymous, AZ (2016 Mazda 3 Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)"Rear speakers never worked. Didn't notice at first because we rarely have backseat passengers and when they have they've almost never noticed or complained that they didn't get much sound. After owning the car for about 3 years, a backseat passenger said they couldn't hear the music well, so I went to the fade function and adjusted it to favor the back seat, and while the front got quieter, there was no sound from the back speakers at all. With the fade all the way back, there is no sound at all. They may never have functioned properly."
Anonymous, CO (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.5-L 4 Cyl)"Voice dialing only works occasionally. It responds it is learning voice"
Anonymous, IL (2016 Mazda 3 SV)"The voice command function on MazdaConnect disables the voice command function on my phone, making it impossible to use voice to set navigation destinations, dictate a text message, etc. The voice command works well within the MazdaConnect system, however"
Anonymous, MA (2016 Mazda 3 Sport 2.0-L 4 Cyl)
"Difficulty getting Android Auto to start up when I plug in the usb on my phone. BTW, I am answering all of these questions for my 2018 Mazda3, not 2016."
Anonymous, PA (2016 Mazda 3 Grand Touring 2.0-L 4 Cyl)