Mazda CX-5 2018

Safety complaints filed by owners in the first three years, per 1,000 sold.

0.45 per 1,000

1.0 times this nameplate’s own median · from 62 complaints filed in the first three years, of 349 ever. 95% lower bound 0.34.

Against its own model years

The model year carries far more information than the badge, so this is the comparison that matters.

Model year	Per 1,000	Complaints
2013	1.09	67
2014	1.48	132
2015	0.72	76
2016	1.67	187
2017	0.26	31
2018	0.45	62
2019	0.26	40
2020	0.20	30
2021	0.55	87
2022	0.19	30
2023	0.29	44

What owners describe

Phrases over-represented in these complaints compared with the same component on every other vehicle. Counts are complaints containing the phrase.

Engine 179 complaints

cylinder	115	64%
head	112	62%
cylinder head	97	54%
cracked	73	41%
cracked cylinder	48	27%
crack	22	12%

Unknown Or Other 58 complaints

ghost	16	28%
infotainment	16	28%
infotainment system	14	25%
touch	14	25%
ghost touch	11	19%
touch screen	11	19%

When it breaks

66% of reported failures happened before 30,000 miles (median 14,700 miles, from 83 complaints that recorded one).

Failures cluster early, which is the signature of how the car was built rather than of wear. A low-mileage example has not yet passed the risk window.

What NHTSA did

No NHTSA investigation covers this model year.

That is not a clean bill of health, and not a criticism of the agency: investigations open for many reasons and complaint volume is only one of them.

What owners and forums say

Not built yet. This panel is meant to carry community sentiment beside the filed-complaint data, so the two can be compared. Showing something weaker here would defeat its purpose.

Check this yourself

Example records behind this page:

11067125 · 11073954 · 11085069 · 11089977 · 11114293 · 11122060

Limits of this figure. It counts safety complaints filed with the federal government, which is a floor on failures and not a census: problems that only cost money are under-reported. Complaint rates also reflect how likely a brand’s owners are to file, which cannot be separated from how often the car fails. Sales are calendar-year and the denominator for this nameplate is automated checks only, not verified against an external source.