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Hatchbacks Mazda3 Mazda3 Owners: Meet the Members
124 messages, Last post on Apr 29, 2007 at 1:59 PM
You are in the Mazda3 Forum. Your Host is pf_flyer
| I own a 95 Honda Accord EX and just bought my wife a Red Mica Auto MZ3 Hatch with leather, MR, Xenon headlight options. Now I cant keep my hands off her Mazda and frankly now I am jealous. It drives so much sweeter than my Accord - acceleration, handling and cornering, I cant keep my hands off it! My wife has generously offered to share a little....and advised me to wash my Accord so that she perhaps wont have to share so much. I suspect I might not drive my Accord into the ground as I have repeatedly sworn over the last 10 years - perhaps I might get a MZ3 for myself....we'll see. I dont like the look of the new Accords and paying much above 20k for a car is not on the books for me. Lets see how this MZ holds up over time. | |
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I have a 2005 SP3 GT with leather tiptronic in Sunset Orange Mica. My wife has the 05 4dr auto. GS in Bright red with all the toys. We had 01 Protege ES GT in dark green and 01 B4000 Dual Sport prior. My brother had a 02 P5 in Yellow and now he too has a new SP3 GT 5spd in Black. So we are a Mazda family again. Oh and my niece bought an 01 Protege a week before our car went back....so more family to the Mazda fold....ZOOM ZOOM.... Now for the accessories...when I am done adding to my VROOM VROOM. Regards Scott.
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Replying to: ve3hzz (Jun 01, 2005 10:06 am) Any thoughts on the AC issue, or any issues that have come up with owning the Rally White? |
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it is beginning to get hot here in the south, this issue with the air conditioning scares me a bit You made a wise choice picking white!  How far down south is "here"? Up "here" the AC works fine, so plan a summer trip to Canada!
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Just make sure you do a test drive on a hot day so you can check out the AC performance. Does it cool as good or better than your G20 - seems reasonable that a brand new AC system should cool at least as good as one that is 8 years old . If you have any doubts - even a small ones - I would RUN RUN RUN away. This is one (of the many) issues that Mazda will not fix - so if the dealer tries to tell you to now worry because it is under warranty for 4 years / 50K miles they are not being honest.
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Replying to: z71bill (Jun 02, 2005 6:00 am) Yes, Bill, we've read about your air-conditioning woes on what, 20 or 30 Town Hall discussions now? Please, make good on your musings and trade the car for that Civic. Would you please list the rest of these "many" issues? I'd be interested in hearing them. My 2005 Mazda3s hatch, which I purchased new on April 7, has given me 2,300 miles of trouble-free service so far. The air conditioning works fine too. Since this is my first post on this particular discussion, I think I'll mention that we're a multi-Mazda family too. My wife's 2002 Protege5 just crossed 50,000 miles of trouble-free service. The car I traded for the new Mazda3 was a 2000 Protege ES, which had 91,100 miles on it. In those 91,100 miles, the only non-maintenance visit to the shop was for a set of front strut bushings at approximately 85,000 miles. And I'm pretty sure my -- shall we say -- "spirited" off-ramp excursions probably wore out the bushings. Meade
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Replying to: mdaffron (Jun 02, 2005 8:52 am)
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The list of problems you requested. 1. Defective AC system 2. Loud grinding sound coming from the rear brakes 3. Harsh shifting automatic tranny (1-2 gear) 4. Thumping / creaking sound coming from the front end over small bumps 5. Poor MPG 1 problem is "a" problem 2 problems are a "couple" of problems 3 problems are a "few" problems 4 or more problems are "many" What advise would you give to squirrely if - when he drives the Mazda3 he finds the AC to be very weak - should he just buy it anyway because YOUR AC works great? Or should he RUN RUN RUN? We all know that Mazda will not fix this defect - so I say RUN RUN RUN!
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No, that's my cat's name. 
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Replying to: z71bill (Jun 03, 2005 10:27 am) 2. Loud grinding sound coming from the rear brakes 3. Harsh shifting automatic tranny (1-2 gear) 4. Thumping / creaking sound coming from the front end over small bumps 5. Poor MPG My observations: 1. Mazda says it's operating normally and has tested the air to be coming out within specs. This is a toss-up between what Mazda says is "normal" and your expectations of what it "should" be. 2. There are only so many things that could cause your brakes to grind. Take your car to another dealer and find out what's doing this. 3. "Harsh"? In whose book? At best this is a hard thing to diagnose, if indeed it is a problem at all. When does it occur? Between first and second? Downshifts? Getting worse or always been like that? 4. When I bought my first Protege in 1991, the first winter I had it I noticed the front end would make a rubbery, creaky sound upon leaving the driveway in the morning -- but just once. Every other little bump, the car was silent. The dealership said it was a trait of the suspension during cold weather. My second Protege did it too. So did my 2000 Protege ES, and so does my wife's 2002 Protege5. So do many other Proteges -- this has been discussed ad nauseum each winter on the Protege discussions here on the Town Hall. If yours is doing it all the time, then maybe you do have a problem. If it's only doing it when you pull out of the driveway on a cold morning, and only then, then it's not a problem. 5. Poor MPG -- Again, there has to be a reason for this. For this and one or two of your other "problems" --- please --- find a reputable dealership. This is far from being "many problems," especially when at least one or two of them are potentially not problems at all and several are more esoteric than problematic. But even if I take your side and call them "problems," you've just described more problems in one year of owning one Mazda than I've had in 13 years of owning six. And I have yet to read of anyone else here being plagued to the level you are. So, my friend, I believe you are (well, your car is) the exception to the norm here. I don't know what to say, other than surmising that your car was built by drunk Japanese robots late on a Friday afternoon before the annual Robotics Derby, sponsored by Tsing-Tao Beer. Meade
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