2009 Mazda6: Look Ma, No More Red Line!

The fact that the dealer offered to have the car detailed and then didn't have it clean when you stopped by to pick it up is ridiculous. At the very least they should be able to keep their word on a simple task such as cleaning a vehicle. After receiving service like this, I would never go back to that dealership again. I know it's a different class of vehicle, my BMW is washed and vacuumed by the dealer after each service is performed.

Ahh, that's the worst, when you Oldhamise your car.

As an aside I saw a 2010 6 with Nav and it had a different head unit. So it appears that Mazda changed suppliers for the Nav head unit. Possibly in response to issues like the red line?

When I had my X3, I got my tires replaced by my dealer. After about 3-4 months, I noticed they put the wrong sized tires on the back of it(rears were wider than the front, they put the front ones on the entire car). I called them, and they replaced the rear tires and gave me a full detailing, including shampooing the floormats for free. (Russel BMW)

With portable navi featuring text-to-speech under $100 isn't time EVERYBODY in the media get on car manufacturers' cases about the absurd pricing of built-in navi?

Car navi is over 20 years old. The technology has not changed much. The programming and hardware for GPS are done and paid for long ago. The only major expense today: the screen. Even then, a 7 inch capacitive touchscreen is less than $200. There is no reason for car navigation and all its inherent drawbacks (harder to update, not portable) to cost more than $300-400 per car. Heck, on luxury cars it should just be standard at this point.

Lousy customer service by Mazda here.

Lousy customer service by a dealer. Not Mazda.

I know many of you look at the dealer as an extension of Mazda but the relationship is a helluva lot more complicated than that. For instance I have been a Mazda owner for close to 15 years and have never experienced this sort of parts delay or lousy service. I have always received steller, professional service from my Mazda Dealer.

Bottom line not all dealers are created equal and if you aren't getting good service then it's time you voted with your wallet and chose another dealer.

In the case of the Navi screen failure I think this is more about supplier parts quality whihc is evident by the fact that Mazda changed Nav head units for the 2010.

I agree, the price of built in navi as option is RIDICULOUS..

Did you get the 15,000-mile service performed at the same time? I'm curious as to how much that was.

So along the lines of Air Force One, does any car that Mr. Oldham is driving become an Oldhamsmobile?

Man, look at the picture of that car, Oldham! Now you take out that B-pillar, and you've got you one sexy Mazda!

The supplier of the Navi is Denso along with a lot of other stuff for the 6 so I doubt they changed it because of the issue with the line. It was sorely in need of an update.

@blueguydotcom,

Even the screens are relatively inexpensive like you said. One of the major costs of nav systems is the mapping software. There are precious few companies that do it (read: less competition = more expensive) and the work is still very manual to update databases. I think Navteq has a fleet of Ford Escapes with GPS on the roof and laptops in the car with a team of two guys.

A large part of your $2000 for in-car nav comes from the comprehensive infotainment/audio upgrades that often come packaged. BMW charges $2100 for iDrive but that includes HD radio, Real-time traffic reporting, an 80 GB hard drive with music server software, Voice Command for the entire vehicle, programmable soft keys, and an different car control computer that can do all of iDrive's fun stuff - Bluetooth integration, BMW Assist services, vehicle customization, audio interface, etc. In the old days it might have just been nav, but now although the price has stayed the same the content in a lot of cars has increased as well.

@bimmer,

Actually, only two companies create the maps and they sell the info pretty darn cheaply. I was the product manager on a system with navi and it was silly how little everything cost us. The handheld unit was the expensive for us.

I have Navi in my 335i. There's not even 2 weeks worth of programming involved in the creation of the abilities you speak of. As BMW uses the same thing repeatedly over its entire model line with slight variations and over the lifespan of each model we're talking about very little programming effort stretched over 5+ years per car.

The price of Navigation is astoundingly ridiculous for what it provides. 2k is highway robbery. The screen is the expense. Everything else is cheap, easy and old technology. The APIs available for melding all this make this child's play for most developers. HDDs are cheap, bluetooth can be licensed for nearly nothing, voice software is well over a decade old, music software is basic. Really BMW has snowballed you if you buy that it's expensive to make a navi. It's got to be one of the biggest profit centers on a new luxury car.

Bkochuk: Post of the week. I'm calling it.

:D