I was driving southbound on the 57 Fwy in the Anaheim area on Tuesday, June 12 around 3pm. The car in front of me braked and so did I... in the few seconds before impact, I thought to myself, "IT'S NOT STOPPING! IT'S NOT STOPPING!" I rear-ended the car in front of me because my brakes jerked and did not stop the vehicle in time. The first thing I told my insurance adjuster was that I was not speeding (going normal flow of traffic) nor was I tail-gating... the car ahead of me did not brake suddenly, and I felt that I SHOULD HAVE had enough time to stop without impact. I suggested to them that I felt my brakes failed and they stated that even if the cause of the incident was mechanical malfunction, the fault would still be placed on me so I never followed up on my claim that the brakes failed until the person that handled my financing at the dealership suggested I perform a search online for similar incidents. It seems I'm not the only one that dealt with this problem.

Additionally, I didn't feel the impact was that hard - since again, I was not speeding or tailgating - but the steering wheel airbag deployed making the degree of severity much more than it actually was. The repair tech explained to me that all the damage to my car was at the grill and body. None of the internal organs inside the cage were impacted at all. He explained that the reason why the airbag probably deployed is because there are 2 sensors at the very front of the car which will cause airbags to deploy when there is a direct straight hit to the front - even if impact was not severe.

My car is only a year old and I feel I should not have been involved in an accident that raised my insurance premium because my brakes did not function properly. It seems to me by just scanning other complains on this site, there are enough incidences of this type to cause Mazda to take notice.