Mazda is an unusual car company. Its engineers just spent eight years developing a system called G-Vectoring Control that effectively trail-brakes for the driver, ever-so-slightly cutting engine torque on corner entry to transfer load onto the front wheels, thereby improving steering response.
They hope and expect that nobody will notice. When developing its new CX-9 crossover, Mazda made the smart decision on behalf of its buyers to install a turbocharged four instead of a V-6. Then it optimized that engine for the user profile of large-crossover buyers, sacrificing power at the top end—where few three-row pilots/parents will ever venture—for the low-end torque they’ll use in daily commuting.
Our long-term Mazda 3 predates G-Vectoring Control, and the car was powered by a naturally aspirated version of the CX-9’s turbocharged four. But it is obviously designed and engineered by the same clever people making similarly enlightened decisions. With its comprehensive small-car goodness and uncommonly luxurious feel for its class and price, the current 3 has piled up three 10Best trophies and four comparison-test wins. Long-term tests don’t usually have winners, but the Mazda could reasonably be described as one.
“THIS CAR IS SO CALM—SO RELAXING AND ENJOYABLE TO DRIVE WITHOUT MUCH EFFORT—IT’S ALMOST MEDITATIVE.” —JEFF SABATINI, FEATURES EDITOR
We wasted no time in adding to that cost. With just 6000 miles on the 3’s clock, one of its most fervent acolytes backed it into a pole. A new bumper cover cost us $1423. That this happened in a crowded coffee-shop parking lot gives his defense a solid foundation. That the pole was squarely center-screen on the 3’s rearview camera means the prosecution has a stout case as well. Then the price of our Appearance package swelled by $471 when the swish front splitter snagged on a steep driveway and departed the fascia.
And just as the odometer was turning to 40,000, our newest road warrior initiated himself by pulling up behind a 15-passenger church van that then shifted into reverse and tried to back over him. That chewed up the grille, the front bumper, and the hood. Luckily, the damage to the latter was minor, and no new metal was needed. But the incident still sucked $1814 out of our collection plate. If not for us, the 3 would have been an extremely cheap date. Our four regular service visits tallied $472 in oil changes, tire rotations, and air filters for the engine and cabin.
Service Timeline:
A car more reliable than its drivers.Key:
- Repairs
- Damage
- Maintenance
- Normal Wear
- Oil AdditionsJanuary 5, 2015
62 miles: Our Mazda 3 arrives in Ann Arbor
January 12, 2015
997 miles: Michelin X-Ice winter tires installed
March 17, 2015
4797 miles: Dunlop SP Sport 5000 all-season tires refitted
April 13, 2015
6012 miles: Rear bumper cover replaced after a driver backs into a pole, $1423June 4, 2015
9940 miles: The 3 reports 40 percent oil life remaining, but its manual says the max interval is 10,000 miles. The first service consists of an oil change and tire rotation, $99September 17, 2015
18,290 miles: Along with lube and a tire rotation, the dealer replaces the cabin and engine air filters, $187 Software updates address radio issues, $0October 7, 2015
21,011 miles: Winter tires fitted
February 8, 2016
30,330 miles: Oil change and tire rotation, $80February 17, 2016
30,560 miles: Dealer replaces the lower front valance that we tore off, $471March 28, 2016
33,014 miles: All-season tires reinstalled
July 7, 2016
40,697 miles: The fourth service calls for an oil change and a tire rotation, $106July 13, 2016
40,756 miles: Front bumper cover and grille replaced and hood repaired after the Mazda is turned into a parking chock for a 15-passenger van, $1814July 13, 2016
40,757 miles: Test concludes after 18 months
Low operating costs are mere garnish, though, the wedge of lime on a big, sweaty glass of ice-cold dynamic brilliance. This unassuming little hatchback is a true driver’s car, with lessons to teach about friction circles and load transfer. Nearly twice as much caster as you’ll find in most of its contemporaries suffuses the 3’s steering wheel with natural increases and ebbs in effort as cornering loads vary. And Mazda’s expert tuning of the strut-front and multilink-rear suspensions lets the driver feel the effects of different loads on each corner, your line tangibly tightening or slackening in response to throttle position. Yet the 3’s damping is forgiving enough that the uninitiated would never suspect that a true hot hatch lurks within, instead only seeing an exemplarily civilized compact car.
With a 7.4-second zero-to-60 time, the 2.5-liter four is never going to overwhelm the 3’s chassis. But its torquey, linear delivery encourages redline pull after redline pull, and the 6300-rpm fuel cutoff feels at least 1000 rpm too early. The light, precise shifter floats from gate to gate with minimal effort, one of the best of its dying breed. And even though the 3’s stay in Ann Arbor was heavy on commuter duty, we still saw an average of 31 mpg during its time here with us.
Our car’s simple but attractive two-tone leather interior—“Almond,” as Mazda calls this shade of beige, and black—looks so rich that your friends will assume the drinks are on you. Mazda’s interior-design mantra could be summed up as “excellent simplicity.” There’s nothing overtly showy about it, but everything is handsomely rendered in quality materials. Something as humble as the door pull is an elegant swoop of satin silver, with hardly a flat surface to be found. There’s a single analog gauge in the instrument panel, a centrally mounted tachometer. And what a perfect gauge it is, with a brushed-chrome bezel and needle, a red outline, and a digital speed readout tucked into the lower-right quadrant that displays in the sort of innocently simple digits you’d see on a Casio wristwatch. Flanking the tach are digital readouts for the gear indicator and odometer on the left, with a simple trip computer and fuel gauge on the right. The 3 only presents the important information, in stark black and white, with no intention to impress, only to quickly convey the numbers you need.
Likewise, you’ll find no thumbwheels, touchpads, or other gimmickry on the steering wheel, just the necessary buttons where you expect them to be. We’ve celebrated Audi’s haptics team, a faction of the design and engineering squads tasked with ensuring that the secondary controls in its cars have a common, high-quality feel. Mazda’s HVAC and infotainment-control knobs suggest that the company either employs such a squad or has a parts pipeline from Ingolstadt. The graphics on the seven-inch infotainment screen are crisp and easy to read, and the menu structure is logically organized—an increasingly rare state of affairs. The car’s single misstep was an infotainment hiccup early in its stay when the music from a USB-connected iPhone suddenly quit, in spite of the fact that the phone showed the song still playing. After disconnecting and reconnecting a couple of times, we gave up and switched to the radio, only to discover that it would only play from the speakers on the right side of the car. At this time, spoken directions from the navigation system also ceased. So we gave it the ol’ Microsoft—a quick shutdown and restart—and all was well. We heard of other owners having similar issues, but a software update at the next service banished the problem forever.
None of us ever shied away from putting a thousand miles on the 3 in a weekend. In its 18 months in our hands, the little Mazda wandered to Maryland, New York City, and the Indy 500, with drivers unfailingly returning with only positive things to say. After spending nearly four months with the Mazda on his Double J Cat Ranch in Darby, Montana, John Phillips called it “a little gem of conscientious engineering.”
Try as we may be contractually obligated to, we found precious little to complain about. Our car’s brake pedal was mushy enough that one staffer wondered if there was air in the system, and several others suggested we try swapping out the pads. Those of us who run radar detectors griped that the 12-volt power outlet is behind the shifter, causing power cords to get tangled on the stick. But mostly our critiques were acrobatic feats of reaching. When pressed to fill in the cons column, one staffer said he’d rearrange the cupholders so that the shallower receptacle was in front of the deeper one. “Yes,” he wrote, “it’s really that good.”
The most obvious criticism of our 3 is one that was never mentioned by any logbook scribbler: its $28,510 price, which is quite a sum for a car in this class. It speaks volumes to the 3’s excellence that every last staffer shrugged it off. Actually, Phillips did address the value question, but he called the 3 “one of the few cars on the market today that is worth more than it costs.” You can buy plenty of larger or more-powerful cars, or those with more-prestigious badges. But spend what you will, it’s hard to buy any more greatness than this.
The 3’s only bit of frippery is the ill-placed head-up display screen, a.k.a. active driving display, mounted on the top of the instrument binnacle. You can turn off the projector, but the plastic pane remains raised.
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Rants and Raves
“The calm, smooth quiet of the powertrain at freeway speeds is in the same league as that of a luxury car.”
–Eric Tingwall
–Eric Tingwall
“The 2.5 isn’t as punchy down low as the VW Golf’s turbo, but it’s more fun to work.”
–Mike Sutton
–Mike Sutton
“If I were forced to wed a machine in some dystopian future, I’d marry the infotainment knob. It feels better than the twirly widget of the same function in a Rolls-Royce Wraith.”
–Alexander Stoklosa
–Alexander Stoklosa
“This car is a little sweetie. It has good looks inside and out, and both the front and rear seats are plenty comfortable for long trips.”
–Jennifer Harrington
–Jennifer Harrington
“As it nears the end of its stay, the 3 still feels like a new car in almost every way. The ride is sublime, the interior has held up well, and the infotainment system is free of quirks.”
–Greg Fink
–Greg Fink
“I hate the stupid Active Driving Display. Please let people close that thing, Mazda.”
–Zeb Sadiq
–Zeb Sadiq
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