Check engine light and airbag light on; strange noise when driving?

[katimirputin]

About a month ago my airbag light started going off randomly. It would go on sometimes when I started the car until I closed it, the next time it would be off. So the on and off of the light was pretty consistent. Then suddenly I was on the highway and the check engine light went off, and stayed on for two full weeks without turning of even once. I turn on my car one morning and both lights are completely gone. It's been about a week and neither have come back on even once, which is pretty freaky. I'm assuming it's having some type of sensor problem. When I bought this car second hand two years ago it had a whole bunch of electrical problems, like the night light on the passenger side would break every two weeks, radio stopped working all the time, it was a fuse thing. I realised one day it happened everytime I plugged something into that front plug thing. I havent used it since and I havent had to replace my front light in like 6 months. I'm sorry, I do know I know nothing about cars and that I sound sort of stupid. It's pretty frustrating that I know there's some issues with my car and whenever I mention it and get someone to look at it I'm told there's nothing actually wrong.

Another thing is that the car makes this strange loud fan-like noise when I'm going at a constant speed over 80km, and it will occasionally stall when idling. The problems worsen it seems when the weather gets colder.

Anyone else have the same issues? I brought my car to mechanic not very long ago and he told me nothing was wrong with it at all, except for the drivers window that needs a secret code of playing with all the other window buttons to get it up, and the shocks and ball joints that I got replaced.

It's a 2007 mazda3 btw.

[staax]

Have you ever replaced the battery? A bunch of electrical problems that don't really share any similarities can point to an aging battery.

I would first get the car checked for codes, and have your battery tested.

I believe Canadian Tire will do both of these for free for you. Electrical problems can be a PITA to diagnose... But start with the battery and checking the codes.

[katimirputin]

Have you ever replaced the battery? A bunch of electrical problems that don't really share any similarities can point to an aging battery.

I would first get the car checked for codes, and have your battery tested.

I believe Canadian Tire will do both of these for free for you. Electrical problems can be a PITA to diagnose... But start with the battery and checking the codes.

The battery was supposed to have been fine, it was the first thing I replaced new when I bought the car two years ago. I didn't know that about Canadian tire, I'll do that this weekend!

[Milan96]

The culprit could be anything from faulty wiring harnesses to a bad computer... Hopefully you have a good mechanic

[katimirputin]

Found the problem... an animal got in my engine and ate some wires to the air flow meter harness? . Got the codes read this morning, they read the coolant was low, but that wasn't the case. He thinks it's the thermostat but he wants me to drive it for a few days to see if the codes come back. Pretty cool. Darn animals.

[Superchargedx]

As far as the radio and lights going out from using the front outlet...... Very common to blow the "room" fuse when using shitty aftermarket chargers etc. They go in at an angle and causes a short that blows the fuse.

EThe stalling at idle is also common.... There is a procedure for cleaning the throttle body, clearing the kam(keep alive memory) and then doing a relearn procedure for the tbody. Basically carbon build up on the throttle plate confuses the PCM Bbecause the "idle" position of the plate has changed.

The coolant/engine light..... What code? If it is p0128, replace thermostat and there is a PCM update pertaining to that

[katimirputin]

As far as the radio and lights going out from using the front outlet...... Very common to blow the "room" fuse when using shitty aftermarket chargers etc. They go in at an angle and causes a short that blows the fuse.

EThe stalling at idle is also common.... There is a procedure for cleaning the throttle body, clearing the kam(keep alive memory) and then doing a relearn procedure for the tbody. Basically carbon build up on the throttle plate confuses the PCM Bbecause the "idle" position of the plate has changed.

The coolant/engine light..... What code? If it is p0128, replace thermostat and there is a PCM update pertaining to that

Finally had to the time to properly get it fixed.

I read another comment here on a different thread here, someone when they moved their steering wheel one way it made a grinding noise and it was fine the other way, I listened one day and it did just that which was the loud noise I was talking about. My wheel bearing was broken. So I got my coolant thing fixed, my thermostat replaced and my wheel alignment done along with the wheel bearing. It's beautiful, it's never been this smooth and quiet. Next thing is the throttle body I guess, all this ended up being pretty expensive with the eaten wires. Was driving on the highway for about 3 hours tonight, when I slowed down to idling speed my front lights were dimming and going back to normal every couple second while the engine roared and calmed with the lights, and tried to stall. That's never happened before. I'm pretty happy though, I was sure the engine was about to give up on me.