The As Yet Un-named Mazda 3

JimbbobW1977 said:

I don’t know why that posted the question twice!! Hopefully it will be covered under the paint warranty - but you watch they will try to not cover it with - you haven’t had your annual paint inspection sir, or your car hasn’t been serviced with us sir.. etc

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Paint warranty and surface corrosion is 3, perforation is 12. It's not perforated...yet so not expecting much but worth a shot.

It's a full main agent history car and always been serviced by the supplying dealer so there isn't a get out for them there.

As expected it's not covered.

To be fair to the dealer they were very polite about it..but simply put no holes, no warranty claim. But they did give me the time at least. Got called through to the service department to look at the underside, Had a nice chat with the service manager, looked round a similar age one to mine that was also on a ramp.

Basically they recommend cleaning the guards out and waxoyling, and as usual they the words "it's one of the cleanest ones we see" appeared in the conversation. So I have a plan, also the other 3 was actually a little worse than mine but white makes any flaws really obvious.

I'm sorry to hear that. Fingers crossed you're able to stop the rust in its tracks yourself.

What’s the plan?

Clean the rear arches out and pack in waxoyl and rust inhibitor.

Don't particularly want a tatty car but even if this doesn't stop the rust, the chances of this actually killing the car any time soon are slim to none. It's still got 5.5 years anti-perforation to run and I have a change of circumstances coming up that make it very attractive to stick with a paid for car that's proven reliable rather than going elsewhere due to a cosmetic flaw. That and I still really like the car and would probably regret selling.

Bilt Hamber sell a very good paint on rust inhibitor that changes the metal. Had to use it on rubbish Alfa Mito when he brake servo rusted through causing leaks into the cabin ( a Grande Punto inherited flaw)

I'll have a look when the weather breaks, if I did anything at the moment i'd be sealing water and salt in.

Will say I've been half looking at Focus ST estates, which I'd like in a nice restrained colour, really have no need for something that rapid but it would be cool.

We shall see, I could take the fuel costs with my mileage but insurance and tyres, and the 8 grand or so required on top of what mines worth makes it a bit of reach at the minute, do able but also doing the house up.

StevenRB45 said:

I'll have a look when the weather breaks, if I did anything at the moment i'd be sealing water and salt in.

Will say I've been half looking at Focus ST estates, which I'd like in a nice restrained colour, really have no need for something that rapid but it would be cool.

We shall see, I could take the fuel costs with my mileage but insurance and tyres, and the 8 grand or so required on top of what mines worth makes it a bit of reach at the minute, do able but also doing the house up.

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My last car a Focus MK3 2.0tdci I ran to 60k miles completely fault free - it was a great car to be honest.

I've already said buy a Focus ST3 estate :slayer:

Well little bit of end of winter maintenance...first this:


Must be the only manufacturer not to fit maintenance free batteries now but hey 2nd time I've topped it up in 4 years and it's the factory battery.

Second a bit of a wash though not polished and waxed.


She hasn't quite come through the winter unscathed, rear arches are showing evidence of streaks of rust (though no visible bubbles) the rear wheels are showing more bubbles around the valves and centres. Tbf it's had these issues for a while but the winter was very hard on it this year with the amount of salt that went down. Speaking of salt a gritter dented the drivers side passenger door with a particularly big bit of grit so it has a new little bullet hole dent.

But she's rapidly heading for 7..has done 66k and lives some where winter is hard work so unfortunately these things happen. Did take it out for a 70m round trip to cragside today to charge battery after top up..still runs cracking at least.

This is now a connected car....


Which means what exactly?...er well it has a device on the obd port which reads any fault codes and pass them to breakdown cover if serious, monitors battery level, driving style and location.

Do I expect it to do anything useful? Nah but it's free from work. But hey if it gets nicked I can go on my phone and it appears on a map..which could come in handy! That and if it's standing about it monitors the battery level every few hours so if it's likely to go flat it tells you and you can start it up/take it for a drive.

So I figure this was is staying for a long time...unless the mot this month is a spectacular fail (unlikely).

Had one of those days today where you do nothing much but the company and the time rather than anything tangible make it special.




This thing is a van..living room..commuter scooter, back road blaster..e.t.c. does everything you could need it to without asking for anything in return.

Should be handy when my son arrives and covers it in snot..

Most boring update ever...and this is in a thread about a 1.6 focus class hatch.

However I liked it (possibly due to now having not slept for 36 hours and needing to fit a child seat)..now this car has 2 different seat mechanisms on the front seat, one a traditional winding wheel (driver's) the other a handle you pull and lean on the seat to get the angle like an old Uno.

No idea why it's like this...just is. But now having fitted an isofix childseat it seems to make sense. Say you need to fit a single seat, obvious choice is passenger side so the door opens on to the pavement. So you fit the isofix base..and discover the front bucket seats have heavily bolstered backs so you have no clearance to slide the child seat as required to lock it on to the base. You can slide the front seat into the dash..but then it'll never be back in the right place.

However open the passenger door..pull the handle.. back pops forward like a 3 door..pop your seat in..pull it again put it back..

Possibly serendipity..possibly utter genius..either way, 10x easier than fitting the same seat into the C3.

So another year...another mot, 2x rear droplinks, one was an advisory got both done for 72 quid.

Job done.

Glad to see the Mazda is serving you well!!

We got rid of the Audi A3 convertible we had - it was shocking how many things went wrong with it. It’s been replaced by the most unlikely car... a 2011 Citroen C3 Picasso Exclusive 1.6hdi 110. Great little car only done 29k miles well looked after

1 of mates in unfortunate enough to own a 2011 Seat Ibiza, and that's developed a lot of faults lately. 84k isn't a massive mileage these days!

puntofan01 said:

1 of mates in unfortunate enough to own a 2011 Seat Ibiza, and that's developed a lot of faults lately. 84k isn't a massive mileage these days!

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Volkswagen quality has taken a massive nose dive since the mid 2000’s I wouldn’t have one myself.

The quality has taken a massive dive, but the prices have skyrocketed!

JimbbobW1977 said:

Glad to see the Mazda is serving you well!!

We got rid of the Audi A3 convertible we had - it was shocking how many things went wrong with it. It’s been replaced by the most unlikely car... a 2011 Citroen C3 Picasso Exclusive 1.6hdi 110. Great little car only done 29k miles well looked after

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Quite an unlikely choice after an A3 cabrio! I do like those, not deathly dull like a Meriva and not a pretend 4x4 like a lot of rivals. Very much a does what it says on the tin car..

Since my last update situation has changed slighlty with this, nothing to do with the car itself it's still fine. But a new job means a bit more disposable cash so I'm debating the future of this.

Option A is Waxoyl it underneath, fit a nice DAB, Android auto head unit and keep it for the long haul..it's a free car at this point so why not but if I keep it much longer it's going to be pretty worthless as trade in.

Option B is fit the Head unit (this bit is none negotiable) and leave it as is.. it'll look tattier after 3 years but given it's only worth about 3.5k trade in now it being worth 20% less is neither here nor there once you get into the 2s and 1s.

Option C buy something shiny, something TBC..possibly an Octavia vrs, or the St estate..or a 165bhp Mazda 3 gen 3...

If it was ruined..C..as it is I have the health check from the service in July, literally everything except rear drop links is fine, loads on all 4 discs and pads, tyres are fine. The Suzuki felt like it was on the downslope at this point. This I've got no doubt it'll give another 3-5 years service with minimal work and double that with a bit more work.

But I kinda want something a little bit faster and the underside has more surface rust than I'd like..hmm ah well got time to think

I'd go for option A meself. If the 3 is still giving good service, why risk landing yourself with something problematic?