From the April 2009 issue of Car and Driver.
Change! It was the hottest thing last year, and anyone selling it did good business in a soft market. Sure, the new Mazda 3 has more emotion, more refinement, and a bit more power, but otherwise it’s basically the same thrifty little corner darter as before. Summon the firing squad.
Hey, you said you want change. Cheat-grass-fueled flying landaulets—that’s change, brother. And while you’re waiting for the real change, watch as Mazda dares you to love nuanced change, change by inches.
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The 3 is Mazda’s lifeline, representing about 42 percent of the brand’s sales. No other model comes close. A snap, unscientific, non-peer-reviewed poll of known automotive writers finds a healthy number (okay, two) owning the old Mazda 3. Yes, our own greenbacks, earned writing car porn. Expressive lines, deft handling, and a price that required just a little stretch sealed at least a couple of sales among the stupendously jaded.
Change? We wished the old 3 were quieter and had gauges that were more legible. Otherwise, we had no big objections.
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Both the new sedan and wagon were to be sent to dealers in late March, with some increase to the base and option-pack prices for the standard 148-hp 2.0-liter and the upscale 167-hp 2.5. Entry should be in the mid-15s, with the extra-deluxe Grand Touring with the 2.5 like the one shown here starting at about $23,000. The GT comes with such delights as leather, rain-sensing wipers, 17-inch wheels, and swiveling xenon headlamps.
HIGHS: Loves to romp, upscale trim, gee-whiz mini nav, manual has six speeds.
Load it up as we have here with the Moonroof & Bose package and the Technology package of navigation, alarm, satellite radio, and pushbutton start, and you basically have a mini Mazda 6 for about $26,000.
Oh, where art thou, change? Right up front, with the new wide-mouth-bass look. With its jaunty cheek ducts and teardrop eyes, this is basically the RX-8’s face projected in IMAX. We expect this sort of cartooning from France, where 1950s funnyman Fernandel and his gaping maw inspired the current generation of Peugeots. Indeed, Mazda’s chief designer, Laurens van den Acker, hails from Holland, which is practically indistinguishable from France on old Axis maps.
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The former 3’s pleasing proportions are retained, down to the curt overhangs, chop-tail trunk, and tight-fitting wheels (designers call the unsightly empty space between tire and fender the “dead-cat zone”). But the slab sides are transformed, the new body churning with expansive front fenders and a steeply raked swage line spearing the door handles, plus a minuscule dead-cat zone. Silver-chrome pupils punctuate the red daggers of the taillights, which evoke Cat Woman more than Fernandel’s Don Camillo.
LOWS: Cabin noise, stiffer ride, snug back seat, options prick up the price.
Sculpted, skinned, and trimmed with more bravura, the 3’s new dash envelops the driver more thoroughly, the center console sloped and shaped to bulge its radio and climate-control knobs closer to you. Turn the radio’s volume knob, and the surrounding blue-toned light strips blip in response, jukebox style. Other mood lights tinge the center console and footwells with blue light. Everything looks and feels more expensive than it is.
The gauges are simple: fuel and odo in the center, with twin tubes housing the tach and speedo. A digital readout, colored red, reports climate settings, radio status, and the outside temperature, and when equipped with navigation, a small, three-by-five-inch color screen peers like a clerestory over the upper dash, just inches below the forward sightlines.
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The five buttons and single joystick controlling the nav cluster on the 3 o’clock steering-wheel spoke are an inspired piece of design efficiency. Compared with using a touch screen, entering addresses takes a few extra seconds of joystick thumbing as you scroll the alphabet, but the controls become friendly after only minutes and are intuitively operated while driving, if necessary. Plus, the scheme doesn’t require major dash reorganization if a nav system isn’t optioned.
Cavils are few. The red-and-blue gauges are sufficiently legible in the day, but the illumination lacks enough adjustment and was either blazing or too dark at night. It was a chin dribble in the previous car that somehow didn’t get fixed. Also, the slot for the SD (secure digital) card containing the map software is behind a highly visible door next to the nav screen, a blot on the otherwise seamlessly executed dash.
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Utility definitely rates with buyers in this segment. Dimensionally, the passenger capsule is almost unchanged, putting it midpack, and the trunk, accessed through a lid that pivots up and forward on multi¬link hinges, stays the same at 12 cubic feet. The rear bench is snug and presses knees into the front seatbacks, as before, and the bench splits 70/30 and flops almost flat with a push of the seatback buttons. A center armrest with cup holders eases those long back-seat journeys you’ll never want to take.
The twin pipes out back are one way to distinguish the 2.5-liter model (the 2.0-liter has a single exhaust). The same port-injected, twin-cam 16-valve cast-aluminum engine as in the base Mazda 6 gains 0.2 liter and produces 167 horsepower, up 11. The old 3 was the scoot boy of its class; the new 3, surprisingly, not as much. We hit 60 mph in 7.7 seconds, 0.4 second slower than in our last Mazda 3 test [December 2006]. Here’s the thing: That car was 149 pounds lighter, and its five-speed manual delivered 60 mph with just a single upshift. Tighter ratio spacing in the new six-speed box means the stick moves twice en route to the all-important 60-mph benchmark. That always costs a few eye blinks.
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Still, the 3 is now in a dead heat with the Honda Civic, and both are still on the fleet end of the compact-sedan herd. With plenty of torque in the midrange, the 3 can sprint like a wide receiver through traffic. The extra gearbox ratio helps hold the line on fuel economy, though the city rating drops 1 mpg to 21. We saw 26 mpg overall, also down one from our last test car and its smaller engine.
We expect steering that draws a bead and an athletic suspension from the Zoom-Zoom crew, especially since only detail changes have been made over the previous car. Sure, the 3 suffers a less yielding ride around town, with a certain resonant hollowness to the ka-blunk! the Yokohamas make over pavement seams. Though Mazda has cut into the cabin noise, the freeway roar is still louder than the 3’s competitors. If you want creamy, buy a Corolla.
The 3 pays off around on-ramps, when beating a yellow light through a right turn, and wherever else it can be run hard and squeal-free at a corner. The front grabs with 10 fingers, the back end pushes and tucks, pushes and tucks as you gas it. We throttle-steered it around the skidpad for a 0.85-g performance, equal to the previous car’s and above average for the class.
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Except for a slightly heavy clutch, the controls do their business with a satisfying rightness to their feel. Even the shifter, lanky and loose in the previous 3, gets some tightening, though it occasionally stumbled on the path from fifth to sixth gear. The braking from 70 mph played out over a middling 176 feet, with a pedal that feels firm and trustworthy. Everything about the 3 feels solid and wellmade, especially for its price.
Folks with a BMW hankering and a Toyota budget are the ideal candidates for this chair. Go easy on the options, and you’re almost stealing it. The 3 still brooms away misgivings about front drive. This is change we can live with.
THE VERDICT: It definitely has the chops.
Counterpoint
The Mazda 3 continues to inch closer to becoming a German car, but the powers that be at Mazda don’t seem to be willing to let go of the Japanese styling. I for one wish they would. The faux futurism that pervades the interior design would make Sulu and Uhura feel right at home behind the wheel. Outside, the smiling-carp face is as off-putting as facing rotten soybeans at breakfast. I love the way the 3 drives, so I gave the looks some time to sink in. All I can say is at least the ugly is only skin deep. —Tony Quiroga
Mazda really stepped it up here. The 2.5-liter engine mated to a slick-shifting six-speed gives you lively acceleration. Add the 3’s taut handling and precise steering with good feedback, and you have a recipe that’s like lovin’ from the oven. I like the interior, with a fit and finish that’s much improved. A sure thing for those who can’t afford a BMW 3-series. —Morgan Segal
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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
