I know this isn't a super car. But I stopped in a dealer to check out .. They are trying to sell it below sticker.. I was thinking about having it as my daily driver.. Any thoughts? opinons? reviews?

Thanks


Post any favorite pics!

 

Its not a super car, but its super fun! I've had mine since April and its been nothing but good to me.

 

I owned one and the only knock on it is the gas mileage which can be below 20 MPG in city driving. They're very comfortable, have more power than any FWD car should have, and have tons of cargo room. I kind of miss mine.

 

Not a bad car. If you want to mod it the first thing I recommend is changing the intercooler to an FMIC kit. The Speed3 and 6 suffer from "heatsoak" because the intercooler is a top mount, which basically absorbs alot of the underhood heat created from the motor and turbo. Cobb does make a nice FMIC kit.

 

I'm getting extreamly great gas milage with mine. The lowest i've ever gotten was 23.5mpg and the highest i've ever seen was 29mpg, all city w/ some highway driving.

 

I enjoy mine quite a bit.

It is incredibly easy to drive at the track, very forgiving, and can surprise people in fast sports cars (not so much in the straights - power is decent but not nearly enough to hang on long straights). The steering feels nice compared to the Audi's I'm used to driving. Direct and responsive. Handling is fairly good, especially transitions. It is easy to recover from near disasters - full braking while not pointed straight - back end steps out and gets wiggly but no dramatics. In fact the backend wiggles around quite a bit under full braking while pointed straight. Traction in the front under throttle was better than I expected (running 235/45-17 RE01R), the LSD does it's job well - easy to modulate to get the car in the right place. Will be better with a suspension upgrade.

Stock brakes are quite effective, two very hard weekends at TWS on stock pads and rotors, and motul fluid. No fade. Carbotech pads going in for the next round.

The shifting is complete crap. It needs a tranny mount upgrade, maybe a shifter bushing upgrade as well. Pedal placement is poor for heel/toe, but that can be remedied with a larger gas pedal.

Power output is weird at times. It is not consistent. The engine management is way too complicated IMO. Most of the time it is good, but other times for no apparent reason it's a dog.

The stock top mount works fairly well once you are moving, the hood is designed to direct a lot of airflow. I had much worse heat soak in my Audi's.

If I cared about launching it I would be disappointed. 1-2 gears are torque limited. 1-2 gears are also torque limited based on steering angle. Backroads and the track this doesn't affect me.

Aftermarket is weak.

Overall a performance bargain.

'ring videos like these in a completely stock mazdaspeed3 were a good selling point for me.

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/06/16/m...d-at-the-ring/

http://jalopnik.com/cars/notag/mazda...ing-268840.php

 

I have driven one, and to be honest I was not a fan. The power has an extreme fall off in 3rd gear, the clutch is horrible and I hated the ergos *end rant*

 

The power falls off near 5500rpm, small turbo. Short shift for the best accel. Very similar to the 1.8t/2.0t audi/vw engines in that regard.

I dislike the clutch as well. Don't care as much about the ergos as I just wanted a cheap new car to dd and tear up on the backroads and track days.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am a huge van of value and I feel that even a FWD car can truly do the trick. The Mazda interior is great and the cars handling is very tidy as well. The utility is there and so isn't the option for xenons (I believe, I might be wrong) and that is huge for me. FWD or not I think this car is great. I am coming from an SRT-4 and let me tell you, if you can get over FWD and its bad rep there are very good cars to be had. Mazdaspeed3, Integra Type R, SRT-4, MKV GTI is another great car I thought I'd never like. I think it is only fair to make sure you look into and drive the MKV GTI before considering an MS3. Especially considering a S2 can get you 260+whp as well.

 

Your right. 3rd gear is the power gear in the speed3. 1st and 2nd are boost limited and have to be shifted the right way in order to maximize its potential.

An MKV GTI is a good car, but I don't think there's any comparison to a MS3, performance wise or even when it comes to ergos. The Speed3 GT comes with xenon/HID's headlights, LED tail lights, piano black interior trim, leather seats with alcantara inserts, alcantara door inserts, BOSE 6 speaker system, ipod interface, serius sat radio and some really amazing gauge back lighting all standard.

 

I LOVE VW, especially GTI's. I just sold my B5 S4 Avant. Been in an Audi for the past 8 years.

I actually wanted a LIGHT car with performance in mind, with a minimum of added crap. Wanted to try something opposite of my Audi's. I got the "sport" version of the MS3, it's basically as cheap as a car can get. The GT version was a waste IMO for my needs. The GT version still feels cheap to me after Audi - but cheap like it's trying not to be cheap. I want to time trial the thing. I was stoked that it does not have a sunroof! I wanted to get a taste of what I had in my bugeye wrx, simple, light, effective with mods.

I stopped looking at the GTI when I realized it lacked a proper LSD, and ultimately the performance numbers aren't there compared to the mazda. In hindsight, I should have stuck with what I really like (VAG)on a daily basis - but I forget all about that at the track or when I hit the backroads hard.

I almost got the Si sedan instead, it made my top 3 in the search for a cheap new car, after the '08 WRX dropped off. Mods to that k20 can make it pretty ferocious. But I love boost - and ultimately, stock for stock, dollar for dollar, the MS3 wins hands down. The power, the handling, lsd, the great stock braking (60-0 in 111 feet, little/no fade). It's a great chassis to develop. The look is...well it's a mazda hatch.

Looking back, I should have gotten a cheap track car and kept something nice as a dd - like my S4. Early 90's civic hatch with all the chassis/suspension upgrades plus an engine swap would be fun. Or a turbo'd miata.

 

Sure it does, the GTI has xenons as well and here is a S2 on the dyno. The car also handles very well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2zK2FCvAHE

 

Sure but putting the power down is another question.

 

No offense to the GTi crowd, but that's pretty weak for the mods. I put down 241whp completely stock. I'm @ 283whp right now, with 2 mods and a total of $450 spent. A better Volkswagen comparison for the MS3 would be an R32.

MS3 has a really advanced traction control. Most of us MS3 owners bypass it anyway with no drivetrain problems.

 

No it wouldn't be, the R32 is AWD and has a 250hp VR6. That car doesn't respond to mods for CRAP!

How about you compare to one of these, then wave bye bye cuz it won't be next you you for long it may not have nav but a much more serious performer.