I was driving home from work today and turned at a light. When I put the car in second, I felt a strong hesitation and heard popping or loud ticking noises at around 4-5K. I immediately got alarmed and let off on the gas. The car had been perfectly fine until then. I couldn't reproduce the event at all the rest of the way home. The tank is 3/4 full. I recently got new spark plugs from Mazda. I didn't get a CEL or anything. It pulls strong now and everything seems fine. I'm confused and worried.

I've done a search and have read things about wires and misfiring, but I would think the misfiring would bring up a CEL. I'm going to take it to Mazda on Thursday to see what's up with the car. Any other suggestions?

 

Must have been the famous second gear synchro gremlin, but you scared it off.

 

That is scary. I don't want anything to happen to the transmission....

 

Popping/ticking noises from the engine? Do you mean that happened when you got on the gas? If so, and since it didn't happen again, it could be bad gas--as in water in the gas.

 

If you were downshifting in to second aggresively going in to the turn the noise you heard might have been a backfire???

Has happened to others when dumping gas in a heavy downshift.

 

I thought backfire only happens in cars with modded exhaust

 

No downshifting. I started from a light, in first. Then went to second to continue accellerating (not hard, just normal driving). At around 4K in second, I heard the sound and felt the power loss.

 

I run stock and have had it happen a couple of times in 60K + miles of use. Have to really be pulling a hard downshift but it can be done with stock exhaust.