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Hatchbacks Volkswagen GTI Article Comments: 2006 Sport Compact Comparison Test 
274 messages, Last post on Aug 20, 2007 at 9:50 AM
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Article comments for 2006 Sport Compact Comparison Test - Here's the three-word definition we like: small, sporting, inexpensive. And because these cars are frequently the only transportation their owners have, reality says we should add a fourth: practical. (more)
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Replying to: eldaino (Jul 27, 2007 6:55 am) still waiting for you to explain how the mazdaspeed3 is a "way heavier" car than the gti! please tell us exactly how much a mazdaspeed3 and a gti weigh. would also like to know how the mazdaspeed3 is "heavier than most cars today" as you put it. which cars are you comparing to?
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Love my Si. If you know how to drive and anticipate in merging, and tricky traffic conditions, you'll not miss low-end low-torque. But I appreciate its nimble moves+high-RPM passing abilities, where it really counts. I know, because I do it every day. I don't care what happens in my low 1st or 2nd; that's not where real driving is done (stop light launches? -- sigh-- please remove your car keys, sit down at home, pop in 'Fast and Furious', and relive your teenage years.) Plus, a $19K Si + (Greddy or Comptech) >/= all the above cars at the same price; possibly lower. Maybe even pwnd j00! 
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Replying to: iomatic (Jul 27, 2007 10:45 am) 
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Replying to: iomatic (Jul 27, 2007 10:45 am) |
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Replying to: eldaino (Jul 27, 2007 7:02 am) How could you possibly know that is what they were thinking?? Lets be serious here. Did Mazda set out to be the most powerful, fastest vehicle in it's class. Yes, I think so. So, they found a way to do it. Not a matter of "no matter what". They engineered the vehicle to be the fastest, best handling in it's class. They did it. You cannot knock a company for doing that. I know you do not think the engine is well engineered, according to how you would engineer and engine. That is OK. You do not prefer how the power is delivered in the Speed3. That is OK as well. What is not OK, is that you assumed Mazda "did not know what they were doing". That is simply not true. |
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Replying to: eldaino (Jul 27, 2007 6:55 am) See, this is where I disagree. Yes, great HP of 197 at a whopping 7,800pms. But, no torque. Peak torque is only 139 at a staggering 6,100 rpm's. Where is the balance? A properly tuned performance vehicle should have some sort of balance, like say the GTI. Heck, the Mazda3 i model (2.0L) has a torque reading of 135 at 4,500 rpm's! Horsepower is only half the equation. The Mazdaspeed3 puts out 114.3 hp/ 1L and 121.7 tq/ 1L, whereas the Honda Civic Si puts out 98.5 hp/ 1L and (here is the huge difference, 69.5 tq/ 1L. Bottom line, Honda engineers this car to have great HP out of small displacement, but, suffers big time in torque. There is no excuse for having such little torque, even with their "coveted" VTech.
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Replying to: aviboy97 (Jul 28, 2007 1:53 pm) THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how you tune an engine. most sporting drivers like to run to redline anyway...if your redline is up at 8k, why the heck not? it may not be everyones 'thing' but neither is not having any real power below 3krpms or above 6. (or having a torque limiter for that matter.) is the mazda speed fast? yes. does it handle good? yes. but just likeyou said avi, horspower is only half the question. if anyone goes back and carefully reads my posts you will never find any sort of 'the si and gti are MUCH faster, or handle SO much better' in any of them. I reconize the accomplishments mazda has made with the car, but i don't like the approach, (which last time i checked, i can do that you know.  ) and still think that mazda decided for balls out power and torque before deciding how to get it down to the ground in the purest way. and in a real world setting guys...a couple points on the skid pad does not really win the handling wars. a lot of that has to do with YOUR driving. A lot of us are always talking about 'get out and DRIVE before you make and opinion' so why don't we do that? see how much a precoius .01 g's helps you out when you are actually trying to out gun someone on the twisties(hold all the 'i don't do that kind of juvinille crap' because it leaves wonder as to why you would buy ANY of these cars to begin with if you are not going to have some fun with it.) I don't hate the mazdaspeed; i just don't think its finely tuned the way vw and honda did with their vehciles. You know how easy it would have been for vw NOT to castrate the gti and get only about 20 horses less than the mazda? very. and this is running on the same 2.0 they have now. To me a finely tuned engine means extracting the most out of it...and since vw and honda are the types of companies to do this...they would never put a 2.3 turbo in any of their subcompacts...because they would be making too much power. i do agree with the tq arguments against the si...and being a vw owner, i like the fact that i can get a hatchback for 16k that has even more torque. but this is only useful in certain situations, just like the si's high hp is. and if we are going to be number whores...the si is still only slightly slower than the torqued out gti. bottom line is...i still feel the way that i feel about the speed 3. its not hate, its just not love...or really oodles of respect for that matter. i know its fast, i know it handles good, and just for reference, had vw or honda taken this route (hard to imagine as they never have) i would have been dissapointed in them too. |
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Replying to: bani (Jul 27, 2007 9:04 am) mazdaspeed 3 curb:3153lbs vw gti curb:3212 as it turns out...the gti is in fact heavier than the mazdaspeed. i thought somone already posted this, but to make your point i'm assuming, you wanted to hear it from me. Being an adult, i can admit that i was wrong, so its not bigge. BUT... it is significanlty heavier than say the si, which is about almost 400lbs lighter than the gti. so there you have it. there is a long list of cars that are lighter too, but we need not get into them. actually, this HELPS the gti's case more than anything; the last manual 4 door car and driver tested got a whooping 0-60 time of 6.2 seconds...only a tiny .4 seconds slower to 60 than the mazda speed. that is NOTHING guys. and its coming from the heavier, less powerful car. hi bani! still waiting for your reaction or thoughts on how you thought the mazda was making more torque below 3k rpms than the gti only to be proven wrong!  |
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actually i overlaid the dyno results from automobile magazine and got something unexpected. from 1000-2000rpm the ms3 and gti tq curves are 100% identical.  from 2000-2600rpm the gti deviates at most about 15tq, still roughly the same tq curves. after 2600rpm the gti flattens out at ~190tq while the ms3 continues to climb until around 3000rpm where it flattens out at 250tq. strictly speaking, the ms3 IS making more tq below 3000rpm than the gti, but the difference won't be obvious until 2600rpm-3000rpm. what's far more telling is the respective car's nurburgring times. 8:52 --- 139.529 km/h -- VW Golf GTI DSG, 200 PS/1421 kg (sport auto 11/05) 8:39.66 --- 140km/h -- Mazdaspeed3, 250 PS/1432kg (Mazda UK, 05/07) fwiw the mazdaspeed3's lap time is just a few seconds slower than the all time record for that class on the 'ring: 8:35.93 143.740 km/h – Opel Astra OPC, 240 PS/1355 kg, Manuel Reuter (mfr., oct,05) record holder compact class
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Have any of you driven any of these cars?
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