The As Yet Un-named Mazda 3

So having done a 130 mile Sunday drive today I'm currently sat wondering if this car has any character.

A different question as to whether or not it is capable or reliable which it is on both counts. Had it 3 years in August covered just under 22k in that time been all over the country in it.
That's just from 2016 (facebook check ins!)


It is the car I drove to and from my wedding (my best man was too nervous to drive), went on my honeymoon and minimoon in.

It carried all the crap to and from the wedding venue, stacked to the roof and seats folded


Also a 1001 other things that you do with cars because that's why you have one. In that time I have amassed precisely 0 interesting stories or anecdotes about it. Not to say I don't like all the things I have posted about in previous posts it is just a master of blending into the background. Many many interesting things have happened around in or near it but would any of them have been worse for having happened in any other comparable car?..not so sure to be honest.

Not that I'm unhappy with it handles well, is quiet, comfortable, well equipped, got no plans on changing it e.t.c. e.t.c. but somehow don't think I'd miss this car unless it's replacement was worse. I had the Suzuki many more years did many other once in a life time things with it and I don't look back warmly at it...this may be more of the same.

By the same token it's never been required breakdown assistance or had an unscheduled trip to the garage and has barely deteriorated at all since I took delivery. Except one wing is getting resprayed due to a van doing this
.

Character is a tough property to call really. Personally, I don't consider mechanical issues as giving a car character. It's really tricky to put your finger on, lol!

I know! I was just thinking 10 years after this car has gone what would my memories of it be?

It's a very good steer and more modern cars should try including steering with feel and properly set up controls. It's just so capable that it asks nothing of you in most situations and as a result it's rare you feel involved or get involved with it. Only time I've had to drive it properly was travelling over the north Yorkshire moors at unreasonable speed in a thunderstorm but even that was pretty uneventful.

It's hard to lose in a car park (it's bright white and usually the only 3 there!) and has the weird blade runner interior among many other little things that are a bit out of the ordinary...it's just so competent that it does lack that little bit of fallibility or rough edges that can be endearing/make you appreciate the days it works.

My 1st car was a 2001 Daewoo Matiz, which I'd consider to be characterful: it's 796cc 3 pot made a not unpleasant sound, and it had visual character, even if I was a bit cutesy.

My parents old mk2 and my old mk2b had character. The front of the early car had quite a mean look to it close up, and they both had the lovely 1.2 8v FIRE.

I consider my Grande to have character: it's 1.4 8v FIRE is very enthusiastic and vocal, and you get the impression that all who designed it had a good time doing so with both the interior and exterior styling.

My parents old 2001 Renault Clio was a characterful looking car. Then you come to their 2006 mk2 Vauxhall Corsa: a perfectly nice car, inoffensive design inside and out, from what I understand, quite pleasant to drive, yet I don't think it has any character.

I think it's just when I think back what would I think of? Inside and out its more interesting than a focus or golf.

I guess a couple of examples would be in order. There's a an uphill tight radius 150 degree corner near me on a back road, it's surface dressed once a year then water runs down the inside so it's always got a washboard effect on the apex.

In my punto 55s doing 35 mph was an experience around it, you had to grip the wheel with both hands to stop it from jolting from your hands (no power assistance). You had to brace your knees against both doors and transmission tunnel not to fall out of the seat. The ripples in the road not only hammered at you through the steering but the floor and dash and if you were really motoring the inside wheel would start hopping as it unloaded. Sounds rubbish..but was a lot of fun and made you work, you'd get out of that car feeling like a driving god even if in reality you'd barely troubled the speed limit.

Same corner in the Mazda, steering tells you it's a poor road surface, but you don't need to do anything with that information. It just goes round, the suspension isolates the ruts and doesn't disturb the composure at all. Only time the information through the wheel has been anything other than "I got this just chill" was hitting a patch of diesel but even that was caught easily.

Another example would be travelling from the south coast to Tyne and Wear. Did that in a mk1 punto 60s with a mate. It was an endurance trial we still talk about now. We had to stop at Sheffield and go to Meadow Hall just because neither of us could face another 2.5 hours of that having just done 3. That moment when you go back to the car and the last thing you want to do is get back and sit another minute let alone 200 miles..but you get there and feel like its an achievement.

Did it in the Mazda..stopped once for a Starbucks..the story is remember when we sat for 5.5 hours in air-conditioned comfort while the world went by?

I see! My Grande is very capable, yet still has character, so I don't think you can base a cars' character on its capabilities, if that makes sense?

Yes and no.

I think it needs to have something relatable about it to have a character. Be it innate crapness or stories around it or a shared history. I guess the issue is when I think of it I think of just how capable it is. Which if it was a person would be like "dude what I like about you is your punctuality and your spelling". But it's the first car I've had I still look forward to driving even after this length of time.

It's not a festival of the predictable...it says hello followed by a noise like the windows welcome noise!, when you sit down for a start. Then zoom zoom when you start the engine. Then says goodbye when you switch off, oh and the dials are blank unless the engines on when they fade up like theatre lighting..oh and it does weird things with the ambient lights.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xb0P695CKtci5OsIMoKTAjOKec8tdRs-tg/view?usp=drivesdk

It's just after 20k miles you don't notice any of that, that's just how it is, or the nice gearbox, or the free spinning engine. Or the fact compared to its rivals it's got loads of kit and is a bit of a back road weapon (within reason it's a 1.6 lol).

Need to borrow the Citroen for a bit, that usually makes me wish I was driving this after about 10 minutes.

That's the thing though with modern cars - they are so capable of isolating that they can become forgetful.

Take the Mondeo - it has adaptive cruise control and it's automatic gear box.

I can get on the motorway in the morning, put the heated steering wheel/seat on, set adaptive cruise at 70, then just sit back.

I don't have to do anything other than steer.

You don't remember it, and you just watch the motorway pass by.

However, you know what? It's great though, as our roads are so congested, full of pot holes, idiot drivers it really is a blessing that cars are so capable today.

Imagine doing all the traffic, stop start, etc in the non assisted steering Punto today?

It would be tiring and stressful!

Don't think I ever put a pic up of the Mondeo..

Oh and if anyone wants my old Punto I notice it's up for sale again!

I sold it 60k miles it now up to 90k 4 years after I sold it

I just found my dream car... Search for yours via Auto Trader #DrivenByMe
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201611229981841

Nice, but I must admit, I do prefer the blue interior of mine.

puntofan01 said:

Nice, but I must admit, I do prefer the blue interior of mine.

Click to expand...

It was a nightmare to keep clean the seats would go blue after a while from jeans - I do like a light a light interior though the Mondeo is quite dark

I actually prefer darker interiors: the lower half of the dashboard in my parents old mk2 was a light grey, whereas in my old mk2, it was all dark grey, which I preferred. I must admit, I've always loved the blue velour armchairs in my Eleganza.

JimbbobW1977 said:

It was a nightmare to keep clean the seats would go blue after a while from jeans - I do like a light a light interior though the Mondeo is quite dark View attachment 178475

Click to expand...

See ford have upped their interior game was not a fan of the previous gen dashboards, the lower spec ones appeared to have the buttons from an old Nokia on the the centre console.

JimbbobW1977 said:

That's the thing though with modern cars - they are so capable of isolating that they can become forgetful.

Take the Mondeo - it has adaptive cruise control and it's automatic gear box.

I can get on the motorway in the morning, put the heated steering wheel/seat on, set adaptive cruise at 70, then just sit back.

I don't have to do anything other than steer.

You don't remember it, and you just watch the motorway pass by.

However, you know what? It's great though, as our roads are so congested, full of pot holes, idiot drivers it really is a blessing that cars are so capable today.

Imagine doing all the traffic, stop start, etc in the non assisted steering Punto today?

It would be tiring and stressful!

Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong I totally agree after 10 minutes back in my mk1 if I hadn't crashed I'd probably want to give it back.

The older ones were a different breed to the Grande Punto (sorry puntofan, I know you love your car but test drove a few then bought a Suzuki as in my opinion it did a better job of being a Punto than a Grande did). A Panda is probably the closest you can get now to the feel of a mk1 punto but the electric steering and fly by wire throttle mean it isn't quite there.

Nostalgia is nice for a while but I know which one I'd prefer to use day to day.

The Mondeo is American designed and to be honest isn't to bad at all.

A badge means nothing to me, main thing is going to be comfort, build and reliability. This is why I went Ford again.

My Focus treated me very well in this regard. The Mondeo is also very good.

It may not have Audi 'perceived' quality, however reading the Audi Forums I'm in a better place.

I have no rattles, Volvo like seats and limo like dead deadening, it is a very good car.

JimbbobW1977 said:

The Mondeo is American designed and to be honest isn't to bad at all.

A badge means nothing to me, main thing is going to be comfort, build and reliability. This is why I went Ford again.

My Focus treated me very well in this regard. The Mondeo is also very good.

It may not have Audi 'perceived' quality, however reading the Audi Forums I'm in a better place.

I have no rattles, Volvo like seats and limo like dead deadening, it is a very good car.

Click to expand...

If you pick your car on ability first then badge second then it does open a lot of options up and they can be a bit cheaper if out of demand.

To a point if it does the job ably and reliably that's worth far more than any badge.

Having driven the Citroen for a couple of hours yesterday, which to be fair to it isn't a terrible car it's just very average in most respects and pretty bad in others while being entirely usable and doing the job.

While familiarity might dull certain aspects you do realise what the difference is between "it does the job" and being likeable. In that manual transmission adds nothing to the party, I suspect it would be nicer to drive if it was an auto. It's just the combination of weird clutch action, below par gear shift feel and a turbo diesel that needs you to constantly stoke it with the gearbox to get it to move/keep it quiet. It'd be better with a 6 speed auto programmed to keep it in its 1800-3k rpm usable power band. Also it would suit how we use that car more, it's not fun (or capable long distance due to rock hard suspension, poor nvh and no steering feel) to begin with so it just gets used to commute and to go shopping.

Going back to my Mazda, I'd miss the manual, because it has a lovely shift action and although you can just leave it in gear there's a reward if you work the box in both speed and tactile feedback.

I bought this not a golf or focus partly because of the rarity but mostly because I do need a car of this size but I spend most of my time on B and C roads and enjoy driving them at reasonable speed. I traded some long distance comfort (you can still hold a normal conversation at 80..kmh naturally) against say a 6 speed golf. Maybe a little low speed ride comfort against a Focus (though having driven both it's a wafer thin margin) for the abilities this car has to just latch on to even terribly pick marked road and go that for a cooking hatch is amazing to me. But my 1st car did have 135 section tyres..

Ah PSA I had the unfortunate pleasure of trying the new 308 the other day. It was very basic but I just didn't like it.

The 5 speed box has a better action than old unit in the Citroen you have.

It was a 1.6 e-hdi - it was impossible to drive in 4th gear at 30 mph the whole car shudders.

The infotainment system was very basic looking (no touchscreen model)

I'm sure the higher spec models are probably better, I wanted to look but I just couldn't.

JimbbobW1977 said:

Ah PSA I had the unfortunate pleasure of trying the new 308 the other day. It was very basic but I just didn't like it.

The 5 speed box has a better action than old unit in the Citroen you have.

It was a 1.6 e-hdi - it was impossible to drive in 4th gear at 30 mph the whole car shudders.

The infotainment system was very basic looking (no touchscreen model)

I'm sure the higher spec models are probably better, I wanted to look but I just couldn't.

Click to expand...

Tbf it was probably a nice car...it's the effect of the PSA 1560cc. Anything it's fitted to immediately feels terrible.

Experiments in just how much horsepower stickers add continue...

It's a misconception it needs to be a sticker for speed parts the Edinburgh zoo sticker added 10bhp so is actually 5bhp more effective than an illest sticker...

Haven't test driven it since installing the one on the left but expecting at least 20bhp. As it's both tribal style and an obscure videogame reference..

Car rolled over 60k today which means I've had it for 24k miles. Little bored so thought I'd work out what it cost me in that time.

Purchase price £8400 - one Suzuki swift
Insurance x 3 years = £1110
24000 miles of vpower = £3240
Brakes and tyres = £600
Road tax = £435
Servicing = £850

So...£14,635 for 3 years use including the service it's having this month and the tax that's due in september.

On the flipside it's still worth between 4 and 4.5k so about 10 grand all told.