2017 Mazda3
Posted: Thu May 04, 2017 12:18 pm
On our first morning back in Cleveland, we picked up our brand new Mazda 3 Touring 2.5 hatchback with a 6 speed manual. I bought the car without ever driving one or even sitting in one, but I tend to trust Car and Driver’s reviews and I could tell from the pictures that I really liked the interior. We used it around Cleveland running errands for a week and then headed across the country with it to South Dakota. Since I wired the money the week before picking up the car, the dealer didn’t have to wait for funds verification and was able to get me an Ohio title before I left town a week later. This allowed me to stop in my legal county of residence in eastern South Dakota on my way to western South Dakota. I got my SD plates and registration (after paying my fees and sales tax) and the SD title will be mailed to me.
Fuel economy was somewhat important to me so I was excited when the first tank of just running around was over 33 mpg. Once we got out on the highway, the computer was sometimes reading above 40 for average fuel economy. So far, the best tank I have seen is only 38, but I blew it that day by spending almost an hour locked in cruise control before realizing that I hadn’t shifted to 6th gear. I think it is capable of getting over 40, but not in South Dakota. Speed limits jumped to 80 in SD and we had a brutal gusty cross wind for the first half of the state and then a strong headwind for the second half. The cross wind had my steering wheel turned into the wind which meant I spent a couple hundred miles scrubbing rubber off my tires. The gas mileage didn’t really change with the wind direction. Cross wind, head wind, I was getting only about 27 mpg at 80 mph. I suppose that’s not really all that bad for that speed and those wind conditions.
The performance on this little car is as good as I expected, but I think they tuned all the drama out of it. The steering wheel feels a little light to me and there is very little body roll so it never feels like I am pushing it in the curves. The engine pulls relatively evenly so it doesn’t feel very fast. I learned a long time ago that a peaky engine feels faster to me even when it isn’t. I have had some fun on some really twisty roads in the Black Hills and it started to feel more alive in that environment (along with challenging my downshifting skills). A couple days ago, I also took it up to 100 on the wide open freeway through the prairie and my wife never even noticed that we were going that fast.
I hate that all cars are taller now than they used to be. I think this car is too tall for its weight so it does get tossed more in the wind than it should. In its defense, we did have some nasty winds that one day. The wind effect also wasn’t bad enough to talk me out of taking advantage of that 80 mph speed limit, but it was two hands on the wheel most of the time.
Our model is relatively middle of the road, but it does have some really nice electronic features. It has the keyless feature where just having the transmitter in your pocket allows you to push a button on the door to unlock the car or push the button on the dash to start the car. It has a nice size touch screen with a really intuitive knob and a couple buttons comfortably located on the center console. I had to pay $400 to get the SD card with the navigation system, but it is a pretty decent system. Some of the functionality of the navigation system is locked out while driving. It won’t let you do things that require a lot of attention like entering a new address. This gets annoying when you have a passenger who can enter that data for you, but isn’t allowed because the car is trying to prevent distracted driving. The screen is a really nice size for the backup camera. The dual zone automatic temperature control works reasonably well, although I have had systems that seemed to be more set and forget. The blind spot warning provides an additional layer of safety against making a mistake, but it has sensed something that wasn’t actually there a couple of times. Kris is particularly happy that we got heated seats. I really would have liked to have had the adaptive cruise control, but that required getting the top of the line vehicle with two additional expensive packages on top of that. Since that was the only feature I really wanted in that upgrade (well, the heated steering wheel would have been nice), $7000 seemed a little steep for just adding cruise control that can match my speed to the car in front of me.
Besides the navigation system, I also purchased the Mazda all-weather floor mats. I then never got around to installing them before we had the carpeted ones covered in mud from our adventures in South Dakota, but they are in now and it is nice to have custom fit floor mats.
After two weeks of ownership, the car has over 2500 miles on it. It just might have more miles than the Nissan before we even get to Buffalo. I might also need to take it in for service somewhere along our road trip. It has a synthetic blend and a recommended service interval of 5000 miles (7500 miles if I go full synthetic).
Fuel economy was somewhat important to me so I was excited when the first tank of just running around was over 33 mpg. Once we got out on the highway, the computer was sometimes reading above 40 for average fuel economy. So far, the best tank I have seen is only 38, but I blew it that day by spending almost an hour locked in cruise control before realizing that I hadn’t shifted to 6th gear. I think it is capable of getting over 40, but not in South Dakota. Speed limits jumped to 80 in SD and we had a brutal gusty cross wind for the first half of the state and then a strong headwind for the second half. The cross wind had my steering wheel turned into the wind which meant I spent a couple hundred miles scrubbing rubber off my tires. The gas mileage didn’t really change with the wind direction. Cross wind, head wind, I was getting only about 27 mpg at 80 mph. I suppose that’s not really all that bad for that speed and those wind conditions.
The performance on this little car is as good as I expected, but I think they tuned all the drama out of it. The steering wheel feels a little light to me and there is very little body roll so it never feels like I am pushing it in the curves. The engine pulls relatively evenly so it doesn’t feel very fast. I learned a long time ago that a peaky engine feels faster to me even when it isn’t. I have had some fun on some really twisty roads in the Black Hills and it started to feel more alive in that environment (along with challenging my downshifting skills). A couple days ago, I also took it up to 100 on the wide open freeway through the prairie and my wife never even noticed that we were going that fast.
I hate that all cars are taller now than they used to be. I think this car is too tall for its weight so it does get tossed more in the wind than it should. In its defense, we did have some nasty winds that one day. The wind effect also wasn’t bad enough to talk me out of taking advantage of that 80 mph speed limit, but it was two hands on the wheel most of the time.
Our model is relatively middle of the road, but it does have some really nice electronic features. It has the keyless feature where just having the transmitter in your pocket allows you to push a button on the door to unlock the car or push the button on the dash to start the car. It has a nice size touch screen with a really intuitive knob and a couple buttons comfortably located on the center console. I had to pay $400 to get the SD card with the navigation system, but it is a pretty decent system. Some of the functionality of the navigation system is locked out while driving. It won’t let you do things that require a lot of attention like entering a new address. This gets annoying when you have a passenger who can enter that data for you, but isn’t allowed because the car is trying to prevent distracted driving. The screen is a really nice size for the backup camera. The dual zone automatic temperature control works reasonably well, although I have had systems that seemed to be more set and forget. The blind spot warning provides an additional layer of safety against making a mistake, but it has sensed something that wasn’t actually there a couple of times. Kris is particularly happy that we got heated seats. I really would have liked to have had the adaptive cruise control, but that required getting the top of the line vehicle with two additional expensive packages on top of that. Since that was the only feature I really wanted in that upgrade (well, the heated steering wheel would have been nice), $7000 seemed a little steep for just adding cruise control that can match my speed to the car in front of me.
Besides the navigation system, I also purchased the Mazda all-weather floor mats. I then never got around to installing them before we had the carpeted ones covered in mud from our adventures in South Dakota, but they are in now and it is nice to have custom fit floor mats.
After two weeks of ownership, the car has over 2500 miles on it. It just might have more miles than the Nissan before we even get to Buffalo. I might also need to take it in for service somewhere along our road trip. It has a synthetic blend and a recommended service interval of 5000 miles (7500 miles if I go full synthetic).