Faults:

Nothing.

General Comments:

The Mazda3 provides the physical embodiment of what the French describe as the joy of living. The Mazda3 is a sheer pleasure in everyday driving, yielding even greater exhilaration when driven well with bravado. You would need to pay $20K more to get a car that handled better than the Mazda3, or even as well. This is almost the most fun that you can have with your clothes on. Well close anyway.

I have about 12K miles on my Mazda3 GT sedan, and loving every minute. This car is a superb value, crammed with worthwhile content that you just will not find with competitive entry-level economy cars. A perennial overachiever in a compact class full of diminished expectations. I cannot wipe the silly grin off my face when I’m driving this car.

The build quality is impeccable with even body gaps, and seamless paint. Interior and exterior styling provides the visual equivalent of the driving experience on steroids. The only gaffs in the interior are the flimsy sunvisors and cheap carpeting that look more at home on an entry-level compact car. Wait; this IS an entry-level compact car, but the point is that these are the only pedestrian pieces of the package. I honestly felt that these parts should have been upgraded in GT trim.

Amid all of the rich content such the bi-xenon lights, rain-sensing wipers, and tire pressure monitors, Mazda forgot a power trunk release which I felt was a curious omission.

If given the choice I would have passed on the red-orange dash backlighting which is a blatant pander to a silly BMW tradition. The red illumination is distracting on a BMW and it is no better on the Mazda.

Emulating BMW chassis dynamics on the other hand is all good and this is where the Mazda shines. Dialed in and direct with great brakes that provide loads of feedback.

The only other parts bin error lay with the choice of OEM rubber. The Mazda3 is shod with Goodyear Eagle RS-A tires that are simply dreadful. Short-lived and loud with marginal grip and ‘watch out’ performance on wet surfaces.

The Bose audio system is merely adequate, not exhibiting the same luster of the driving experience. For the bloated brand premium that Bose seems to think they bring to the party, it is all hype.

One piece of advice that I would offer strongly to any prospective purchaser is to avoid the entry-level ‘i’ in favor of the ‘s’ or ‘GT’ variants where you can get the car optioned out with inflatable curtains for side impact protection. The side pillars of this and any other compact car are far too close to the occupants to deform sufficiently in a side impact before occupants begin impacting hard surfaces with sad result. The inflatable curtains offer cheap insurance at the end of the day. Do not buy this or any compact without them.

Reliability of the car has been outstanding. I have not been back to the dealership since I bought this car. The Volvo S80 T6 that I traded in was 2.5 times the price of the Mazda and was never out of the shop for two contiguous months. Fact is that I spent more in repair orders over four years for the Volvo than the purchase price of the Mazda.

All-in-all, an unreserved recommendation that yields dividends every day you get behind the wheel.

Zoom, zoom.

Here, here.

Faults:

Wheel alignment went out. Car began pulling to the left.

LCD Information Panel died. Resulting in no visible clock, no visible radio channels, no indication of car stats (mileage/avg. speed), no outside temp. display.

Transmission flares between 1'st and 2'nd. Transmission to be replaced by the dealer.

Intermittent brake squeal while in reverse.

Windshield glass cracked. Uncertain on the cause.

General Comments:

We purchased the hatchback Mazda 3 Sport with all the bells and whistles (moon roof, leather, CD stacker, heated seats), and over all, it has been a great little car. Gets reasonably decent gas mileage, handles well and has lots of fun options.

We've been disappointed lately though in the volume of work we have had to have done to it. Fortunately, everything has been under warranty, but having numerous problems like this is annoying, to say the least, when having just purchased a brand new car.

We've been very happy with the service we receive at our local Mazda dealer, as they have been more than willing to help fix problems as they arise, and almost every time they return the car to us washed, vacuumed and with complimentary water.

Over all, I would recommend this car to others. It seems that our problems are not entirely normal, and the transmissions on these cars are "supposedly" usually very stable.

My only wish would be that they would have had a "three strikes = replacement" policy as I would love to have ours replaced with the new 2007 with Turbo. <grin>