From the October 2016 issue

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.

View Photos The 3’s infotainment-control knob makes easy the tasks that are infuriatingly complex in competitors. The tach and speed readout is a model of readability. GREG PAJO, JOHN PHILLIPS, MICHAEL SIMARI

In the 3 family, hatchbacks command a $500 premium over sedans. Since the hatch is the better-resolved shape to our eyes, and since it inflates cargo volume from 12 to 20 cubic feet, paying the upcharge is a no-brainer to us. Lower-tier i-trim cars have a 155-hp 2.0-liter four-cylinder and 16-inch wheels with comparatively squishy 60-series tires. We opted for the top-shelf s Grand Touring hatch, base price of $26,365. The s got us a 2.5-liter four that makes 184 horsepower and 185 pound-feet of torque, plus it includes 215/45 Dunlop SP Sport 5000s on 18-inch wheels.

A Grand Touring model also meant a lengthy list of standard legitimate luxury-car stuff: leather seats (heated in front), adaptive headlights, rain-sensing wipers, a head-up display, a rearview camera, blind-spot monitors, and a navigation/infotainment system that can be controlled either via a touchscreen or a knob between the front seats. Not to mention the sunroof, keyless entry and startup, and a Bose surround-sound system. Add in a $1750 Appearance package (lower-body trim and a spoiler) and a few other tidbits such as floor mats and a cargo mat, and we arrived at $28,510. That’s a hefty exchange rate for a compact car, not exactly the commonly accepted definition of sensible in a Kirkland Signature world.

“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:

MARC URBANO, MICHAEL SIMARI 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, $1814



July 13, 2016

40,757 miles: Test concludes after 18 months A car more reliable than its drivers.Key:Front bumper cover and grille replaced and hood repaired after the Mazda is turned into a parking chock for a 15-passenger van, $1814Test 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.

View Photos GREG PAJO, JOHN PHILLIPS, MICHAEL SIMARI

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.

View Photos 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. GREG PAJO, JOHN PHILLIPS, MICHAEL SIMARI

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

“The 2.5 isn’t as punchy down low as the VW Golf’s turbo, but it’s more fun to work.”

–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

“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

“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

“I hate the stupid Active Driving Display. Please let people close that thing, Mazda.”

–Zeb Sadiq

WHAT WE LIKE: The Mazda’s unflinching excellence, including the sweet shifter and clutch, talkative steering, outstanding ride/handling balance, and upscale feel. But mostly, those of us at the home office in Ann Arbor like having it back in our hands. Last summer, we sent the 3 out to Montana with John Phillips, and normally, when he migrates back to Michigan for 10Best Cars testing in the fall, he swaps cars. That didn’t happen this time—smitten with the Mazda, he sneaked it away for round two of his fling while the rest of us slept off our hangovers. We finally recovered it and brought it home as the season’s first snow was falling. With a set of Michelin X-Ice Xi3 winter tires, it’s been nearly indomitable—nearly. Aside from damage we’ve inflicted (more on that in a bit), the cost to run the 3 has been exceptionally low. We’ve yet to spend $400 for service over the course of more than 30,000 miles.

WHAT WE DON’T LIKE: Encountering unequivocal evidence of an unjust universe. Were success based on merit alone, the 3 would be the runaway bestseller in its class. Instead, it sells in mere fractions of the volumes its competitors enjoy, proof that a lot of people buy the wrong compact car.

View Photos GREG PAJO, JOHN PHILLIPS, MICHAEL SIMARI

WHAT WENT WRONG: The sportier front fascia of our optional Appearance package clashed with the slope and condition of Phillips’s rugged driveway, and the lower trim piece went missing. Replacing it cost us $471, bringing our total damages so far to $1895. During one of the winter’s few real snowfalls, this writer tried to remove the new trim piece with a Hail Mary down a deeply snowed-in road. I made it a lot farther than I expected, but still not quite far enough. The snow was so deep that my wife’s Jeep Wrangler was briefly stuck once or twice during the rescue op. It reminded me of a Garrison Keillor quote: “Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more-remote places.” On the upside, needing 90-plus minutes to make it the last half-mile home is an excellent excuse to not drive in to the office the following morning.

WHERE WE WENT: Since it returned from Montana, the 3 has been to the southern reaches of Indiana and into Pennsylvania for family gatherings, plus the daily trips to small-car nirvana. —Jared Gall

View Photos GREG PAJO, JOHN PHILLIPS, MICHAEL SIMARI

Months in Fleet: 14 months Current Mileage: 31,237 miles

Average Fuel Economy: 31 mpg Fuel Tank Size: 13.2 gal Fuel Range: 410 miles

Service: $367 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0 Damage and Destruction: $1895

WHAT WE LIKE: During our 22,200 miles and 11 months with the Mazda 3, we have come to a unanimous conclusion. When Mazda asks for us to return it, there will be blood.

Mazda PR person: “Shouldn’t you be done testing our car by now?”

C/D: “Who’s this? What car? Go away. Wrong number.”

The Mazda 3 is the essence of lightness and agility, yet it’s as solid as an I-beam. It responds almost telepathically to inputs, notably the gratifying shifter, a device that Volkswagen and BMW would be proud to have hatched. You can jump rudely in and out of the throttle without inducing driveline snatch. Tracking, even in strong crosswinds, is excellent, with fluid turn-in and an omnipresent sense of stability. In fact, this third-gen 3 has doubled its caster angle, which encourages the steering to track straight. On the original-equipment M&S tires, the ride/handling trade-off is just about perfect. NVH levels, for what is essentially an economy car, are extraordinarily low, although wind noise can be heard. At idle, you’ll sometimes glance at the tach to see if the engine is still ticking. The primary and secondary control relationships are bang-on. And the steering is light but pleasantly informative. On two occasions, this car covered 1000 miles in a single day without doing mental or physical damage to its pilot. Even the almond interior meets our approval—bright and optimistic while so far resisting grubbiness.

View Photos GREG PAJO, JOHN PHILLIPS, MICHAEL SIMARI

WHAT WE DON’T LIKE: Okay, here comes the nitpicking: The location of the 12-volt power outlet means the cord for your radar detector sometimes tries to strangle the shifter. We’d like to experiment with pads to see if we can get a slightly firmer brake pedal. The front seats could use a little more lateral bolstering. The Audi-like radio-volume control, just behind the shifter, is still not intuitive after 11 months of reaching for it. And the hood-release pull and fuel-flap release are side-by-side, meaning you’ll accidentally open the hood at every other fuel stop. And, uh, that’s about it.

The last time the entire C/D staff happily agreed as wholeheartedly as this, it was for free beer on Fridays.

WHAT WENT WRONG: Nothing went wrong. Well, a couple of radio-lockup issues were reported, but they seem to have vanished following a software update at the second service. The cost of the two services (at 9940 miles and 18,290 miles) set us back $287 total.

We can’t blame this on the Mazda 3, but one of our editors—a man whose love for this car borders on the obsessive—backed the thing into a post as solid as an aircraft carrier. He felt bad about it but at least didn’t spill his coffee. A new bumper cover set us back $1423.

View Photos GREG PAJO, JOHN PHILLIPS, MICHAEL SIMARI

WHERE WE WENT: Apart from one trip to Chicago, a quick blast to the Indy 500, and a lot of shorter jaunts throughout Michigan, the Mazda 3’s greatest adventure so far has been its tour in Montana, where it spent a happy summer with John Phillips on his Double-J Cat Ranch. In Big Sky country, it made a trip to the funky writers’ haven at the Murray Hotel in Livingston, Montana, and also carried Phillips’s mother-in-law and elderly aunt to Elkhorn Hot Springs, where both ladies refused to take a warming dip naked. Further, the car became lodged within an actual honest-to-God cattle drive, moving along Montana Highway 43, in Wise River, at a speed that matched whatever velocity suited the cowboys’ horses and their twin border collies, one of whom was carrying a softball. Later, the car’s wheel wells had to be hosed out.

Phillips drove the Mazda 3 back to Ann Arbor for our annual 10Best soirée, then home again to Montana—4000 miles in 10 days: “It passed those miles competently and in serenity, delivering 12-hour-per-day comfort. This is a charming automobile.”—John Phillips

Months in Fleet: 11 months Current Mileage: 22,193 miles

Average Fuel Economy: 31 mpg Fuel Tank Size: 13.2 gal Fuel Range: 410 miles

Service: $287 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0 Damage and Destruction: $1423

WHAT WE LIKE: Just about everything. After spending two consecutive weekends in the car, features editor Jeff Sabatini summed it up thusly: “I will gladly sign this out any day until we hit 40,000 miles. Stuff I like about the 3: Seat heaters that stay set where you left them after you turn the car off, the infotainment system’s clear and intuitive interface, great ergonomics, a shifter that moves almost telepathically, and steering and pedals that are perfectly balanced. This car is just so calm, so relaxing and enjoyable to drive, it’s almost meditative.”

View Photos GREG PAJO, JOHN PHILLIPS, MICHAEL SIMARI

WHAT WE DON’T LIKE: Given that laundry list of likes, our cons column is unsurprisingly shallow—both in terms of the number of items on it and the importance of those items. One driver thought the tires were a little loud, and another wished that the 12-volt power outlet were at the base of the center stack instead of in the bin at the back of the console, so that the cord for his radar detector didn’t interfere with the shifter.

WHAT WENT WRONG: Leaving a coffee shop one morning, one of us—who could pretty obviously claim to be insufficiently caffeinated—backed into a post. He reports seeing the post looming in the backup camera and turning his head to see where it was, which should tell you it wasn’t one of the young whippersnappers, who wouldn’t have thought to want more information than the technology was providing. The impact came in the moment between when his eyes left the camera and when they found the top of the post—now all too close to the rear window. A new bumper cover set us back $1423.

WHERE WE WENT: Nowhere. Aside from one trip to southern Indiana and two to western Michigan, the 3 has been stuck in an endless commuting loop (which still couldn’t stop our observed fuel economy from climbing by 1 mpg, to 29). It’s nothing against the 3, it’s just that our fleet is thick with more exciting road-trippers—BMW M3, Chevy Corvette, Porsche Cayman, Tesla Model S P85D. The 3 did go to the dealer once, for its first service at 9940 miles. Like the rest of the car, that was a low-key affair, just an oil change, tire rotation, and inspection, for $99.—Jared Gall

View Photos GREG PAJO, JOHN PHILLIPS, MICHAEL SIMARI

Months in Fleet: 6 months

Current Mileage: 11,499 miles Average Fuel Economy: 29 mpg

Fuel Tank Size: 13.2 gal Fuel Range: 380 miles

Service: $99 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0 Damage and Destruction: $1423

Our relationship with the Mazda 3 is taking a turn from casual use into full-on bender. We followed our first contact with an enthusiastic, “oh, yeah, that’s the stuff,” concluding that the car stood “as a strong threat to the Focus’s class-leading status.” Then we took another look, proving ourselves right and crowning the 3 king over our erstwhile small-car champ, the Ford Focus, and naming the Mazda to our 10Best list in 2014. Then we proclaimed it better than anything else in its segment in a five-way match-up and again awarded it a 10Best slot for 2015. Now, we’ve stocked up on Doritos and Klondike bars and are settling in for 40,000 miles.

View Photos GREG PAJO, JOHN PHILLIPS, MICHAEL SIMARI

Our last encounter with the 3 prompted a lengthy defense of how such a small car could possibly justify a $28,385 price tag. Satisfied with our case, we decided that our new long-term 3 should be even more expensive. So we started the same way that last test did, with a 3 s Grand Touring hatchback, base price $26,365. That includes the bigger, more-powerful engine—a 2.5-liter inline-four with 184 horsepower and 185 lb-ft—18-inch aluminum wheels, and a startling amount of full-scale luxury-car stuff: adaptive headlights, rain-sensing wipers, blind-spot monitors, a rearview camera, a head-up display, and a touch-screen navigation/infotainment system that can also be controlled by a knob between the front seats. To that we added the $1750 Appearance package, which swaps in sportier fascias and rockers and adds a spoiler atop the rear hatch. After floor mats, a cargo mat, and a couple of other port-installed tidbits, we arrived at $28,510.

Radio No Go

No sooner were the break-in miles complete than our 3 headed to Chicago, cursed territory where our long-term cars have been broken into, rear-ended, and driven into the paths of marauding Lincoln Navigators. This trip was comparatively painless, but not entirely. On the return, the 3 ceased playing music from a connected iPhone, although the phone still showed the music progressing. So the driver switched to the radio, which would only play through the speakers on the right side of the car. At this time, the nav system stopped giving spoken instructions. A quick cycling of the ignition solved this occurrence of the problem, but we’re concerned that a few lines of broken code are hiding somewhere in the labyrinth.

View Photos GREG PAJO, JOHN PHILLIPS, MICHAEL SIMARI

While that episode was a first, the rest of our experience thus far has followed the script established by previous encounters. The strong engine pulled the car through the quarter-mile in 15.6 seconds at 91 mph on its first outing to the test track, hitting 60 mph in 7.4 seconds along the way. From past experience, we already know the Mazda’s quick, communicative steering and delightful handling balance deliver lateral thrills beyond its skidpad figure, but, along with our top-speed venue, our skidpad has been blanketed with snow since the 3’s arrival, and so those tests have yet to be completed. (A previous example of this car pulled 0.84 g’s, however.) Winter is unlikely to last the duration of our 3’s stay, but it seems probable that our infatuation with the little Mazda will.—Jared Gall

Months in Fleet: 1 month

Current Mileage: 2019 miles Average Fuel Economy: 28 mpg

Fuel Tank Size: 13.2 gal Fuel Range: 370 miles

Service: $0 Normal Wear: $0 Repair: $0

Specifications VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door hatchback

PRICE AS TESTED: $28,510 (base price: $26,365)

ENGINE TYPE: DOHC 16-valve inline-4, aluminum block and head, direct fuel injection

Displacement: 152 cu in, 2488 cc

Power: 184 hp @ 5700 rpm

Torque: 185 lb-ft @ 3250 rpm

TRANSMISSION: 6-speed manual

DIMENSIONS:

Wheelbase: 106.3 in

Length: 175.6 in

Width: 70.7 in Height: 57.3 in

Passenger/cargo volume: 96.4/20.2 cu ft

Curb weight: 3020 lb

PERFORMANCE: NEW

Zero to 60 mph: 7.4 sec

Zero to 100 mph: 19.0 sec

Zero to 120 mph: 32.8 sec

Rolling start, 5-60 mph: 7.5 sec

Top gear, 30-50 mph: 12.1 sec

Top gear, 50-70 mph: 11.4 sec

Standing ¼-mile: 15.6 sec @ 91 mph

Top speed (mfr's est): 130 mph

Braking, 70-0 mph: 165 ft

Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.83 g

PERFORMANCE: 40,000 MILES

Zero to 60 mph: 7.2 sec

Zero to 100 mph: 19.1 sec

Zero to 120 mph: 33.0 sec

Rolling start, 5-60 mph: 7.8 sec

Top gear, 30-50 mph: 12.2 sec

Top gear, 50-70 mph: 10.8 sec

Standing ¼-mile: 15.6 sec @ 91 mph

Top speed (gov limited): 131 mph

Braking, 70-0 mph: 174 ft

Roadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.83 g

FUEL ECONOMY:

EPA combined/city/hwy: 29/26/35 mpg

C/D observed: 31 mpg

WARRANTY:

3 years/36,000 miles bumper to bumper;

5 years/60,000 miles powertrain;

5 years/unlimited miles corrosion protection;

5 years/60,000 miles roadsided assistance

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