Touring is **more** expensive than Mazda 3 5-door?, Ummm, what… the… heck??!?! Options

[popeye]

Not liking the new Mazda 3 design or the Touring I'd be at a loss for a new car. I like the previous MZ3 hatch design so much so that I still regret not buying one as it was my first choice before I went on the Elantra spree (cost was the major factor). If I had to replace the GT tomorrow, I'd get a low mileage MZ3 hatch and be done with it, but as it is I like the GT and it is paid for so stay it will. Good luck on you decision (I'd get the Mazda frankly).

[natesi]

Thanks man. My decision might likely be keeping my car. Taking the Elantra sedans (SE and GLS) for some test drives last weekend gave me a new appreciation for my 2002. They are cheap enough, that had I been "WOWed", it might have been worth upgrading. The Mazda3, however, is a lot more money -- new Elantras can be had around here for like $13K. I doubt I could get into a Mazda3 5-door for even 18K -- I'm guessing 19K would be more realistic. Even if I could, I'd probably wait until the "cash for clunkers" program is over. Dealerships are so busy selling cars at this moment, that they are starting to run out of inventory. Which gives people who want the best deal they can get (me) little bargaining room.

If I had to replace the GT tomorrow, I'd get a low mileage MZ3 hatch and be done with it, but as it is I like the GT and it is paid for so stay it will.

I love how you formed that sentence, "stay it will" -- sounds Yodda-esque.

= )

[natesi]

I took the car for a test drive. It's pretty sweet. I'd almost say "it rocks", but I have some gripes.

• The rear view mirror is too low and impedes vision out the front windshield. I raised it a LOT which helped, but it was still kinda low. Not sure why the hell they did that -- pretty freaking dumb. I guess worst case, a person could remount it higher but they would probably have the ugly old mount still attached to the glass.
• The head rest is beyond horrible -- I don't even have the words for how bad it is. Some combination of "deplorable" and "retarded" might hint in the right direction of what I'm looking for though. I saw someone on the Mazda3 forums complaining about this, and I thought they just were not use to the "forward" position that a lot of head rests have these days. But this is so bad it would probably cause neck problems. I'm not kidding -- extremely bad. Once again, not sure what they could possibly have been thinking. The only people it would probably work well for are those who like to drive "G'ed-up", "gangster", or "mack-daddy-like" -- with the seat reclined ridiculously far back. Somehow I can picture a lot of people who would buy this car driving it like that (lets face it, this car is going to appeal to a large percentage of what some people might call "douche bags"). Oh yeah, the reason why the seat felt so good last night was because someone had removed the head rest and reversed it!!! Yeah -- it makes a big difference. Obviously I'm not the only one who thinks it's completely jacked. I guess the good news is that you can reverse it, or a better solution would probably be to find a way to bend the posts to change the angle.
• The instrument cluster is "on" / lighted all the time. That's the ONLY way it works. As the years of use add up, it seems like the back lights would burn out prematurely to me -- then you wouldn't be able to see your gauges even in the day time. I guess I'm more a fan of keeping things simple.
• The "bose" stereo system was ridiculously bad. I mean, it's horrible beyond belief. No highs at all, real muddy mids, and NO lows. They didn't have a car without it that I could drive. But it's safe to say that the base stereo in the Elantra GLS is just as good sounding, if not beter. Seriously -- I'm not joking.
• Not sure how much I liked the raked windshield and a dashboard large enough to eat a Thanksgiving dinner off of. Felt really strange, but it seems that's the way everyone is building cars these days. *sigh*.

Other than that, like I said... I'd miss the heated mirrors and not having a USB jack for putting tons of songs on a memory stick. That honestly takes some pretty big points off, especially for a car at this price. Let's face it, if you're a Hyundai owner, you've probably come to expect a little value. And if you give up value and are willing to pay more, then fine -- but to pay more and not even get the same level of features that come standard on a stripped down Elantra is very sad (and aggravating)(and annoying)(Oh, and lame). I mean, my 2002 has heated mirrors for Chirst sake! And even most basic after market stereos will read USB sticks now. I mean, throw me a bone here Mazda. GRRRRR!!!!! Anger growing... Urge to KILL... rising. RiSinG... RISING!!!!

DEEP BREATH....

1...
2.....
3.......

OK.. OK.. anger subsiding....

Urge to kill.... waning.

Waning...

Wan...ing....

Gone.

Whew. That was a close one. Almost lost it there.


Now then... the ride: Well, the ride was just how I like it -- firm but not punishing. At no point did it knock the wind out of me like the Elantra SE. It cornered exceptionally well too. He told me to gun it half way through one of the 90 degree turns, so I did. WOW -- the car just planted it self, bit in, and pulled out like I never could have thought possible. I went back and tried the same thing with my car -- just for comparison: The front wheels simply began to "plow" / slide (even with ultra high performance all seasons Bridgestone RE90AS Pole Positions) and by the time my transmission decided it felt like shifting to 2nd gear and the engine FINALLY delivered power, the corner was over.

heh. Oh well, a sports car, she is not. Uh, at least I think my car is a "she". I never really looked under the rear bumper and checked.

= )

Anyhoo, I don't think I'll be joining the ranks of Mazda3 buyers any time soon -- unless something really horrible goes wrong with the Elantra I don't think I can stomach spending 20Gs on a car right now. However, I'm guessing the Mazda3 5-door hatch will be my next car, when ever that is -- unless Hyundai will pull their had out of their arse and bring the i30 hatch over, at a more competitive price, and hopefully with a smidgen more power. Which... as we all know, is highly unlikely.

= (


Thanks all,

-Nathan

[cclngthr]

I have no problem with the head rest, and I keep my seat upright. I prefer the forward rake to the headrest because it hurts to have my head tilted backwards at any degree. I have not seen other drivers/enthusiasts yet, but it depends on the driver.

The cluster lights are LED based and will not burn out as easily as a regular bulb. They are on all the time when the engine is running, and Hyundai did this with the Genesis and Azera.

I don't have the Bose system, which is preferred. The regular radio, to me sounds fine with the added sub. What I like however is the speed sensitive feature can be turned off; which annoyed me in the HD.

What I found annoying is the windshield does not have a sun screen tint on the top of the glass. A tint shop solved that problem for me.

The dash is large, but a lot of cars have that. The airbag on the passenger side is on topside of the dash, which shouldn't hit your face as easily if it blows. On the high end model, there is a navigation unit above the stock radio.

[natesi]

Good to know; thanks man. As far as the seat goes, I'm guessing that they changed it for 2010. Dunno for sure though.

[cclngthr]

I also find the Mazda to be easier to accept various mods than the newer Elantra to be. I can put an intake on the Mazda and the ECU will be able to accept it easier. Electrical mods are also easier to accept by the BCM to a certain degree.

Although an alarm is not available on the lower end models, I was able to put a Clifford alarm on, but care had to be done to keep it happy. I had to relay the power door locks to bypass the switch on the door which unlocks/locks the doors. It can be wired up so the alarm module pulses the door lock circuit, but the BCM can try to intercept it if it does not see power coming from its own circuit.

There is a OEM HID kit for the car as well as LED tail lights. A OEM performance exhaust is also available as well as a coil over kit. Aftermarket support is a lot higher on the car.

A lot of owners put Mazdaspeed parts on the car. Front/rear sway bars, exhaust, wheels/tires, suspension is often used as upgrades.

[Bobzilla]

Just because it's timing chain driven does not make it maintenance free. We replace enough chains/guides/tensioners on the honduh K-series to note that. Funny part, is they're dting befoer a normal T-belt maintenance on a honduh.

[cobas]

Hyundai almost never sells their cars for MSRP; there's always a rebate. So like your screen capture there shows, the Touring is about $1,500 less than the Mazda 3, give or take a couple of features back and forth (sunroof/moonroof, USB stereo, better engine, etc).

I haven't driven either, but IMO they're just different compromises on the Handling-Practicality scale. Us that hang out here, we like our cars and we like Hyundai but we're gearheads and car enthusiasts first. Many of us would take the Mazda 3 for the fun-to-drive factor over the Touring. (You would, I would, Dave would, Colin and Anton already did, etc). Adding a stereo to the Mazda sounds doable - getting the Touring to handle and accelerate like the Mazda doesn't sound so easy.

With that said, the Touring is significantly larger in cargo volume, it gets 1mpg better, and although the maintenance will cost more, those are defrayed costs. Money today is worth more than money in 4-5 years. IMO, the longer warranty more than offsets those costs, especially since Hyundai's quality is now supposedly much better than Mazda's, at least in the JD Power surveys (both the 3-month one and the 3-year one). I don't know how the Touring and 3s sales compare specifically, but overall Hyundai sells over twice the cars Mazda sells and they seem to know what they're doing lately even if they're not doing us sporty-hatchback fans any favors

[sed]

chain vs belt is something that I haven't seen discussed on here before.

Just like HLAs vs MLA's

Sure, you don't have to REPLACE a chain at a regular interval, but you sure do have to ADJUST it.

To me, its much easier to pull a belt off and replace it, then try to keep tension on a chain every 30k miles.

There are valid arguments for both, but I really don't see a benefit of a chain over a belt

[Bobzilla]

^tHE OVERALL COST OF A Chain replacement is a lot higher than a belt replacement. My time with Suzuki told me that! Same with Honduh.

[cclngthr]

Hyundai almost never sells their cars for MSRP; there's always a rebate. So like your screen capture there shows, the Touring is about $1,500 less than the Mazda 3, give or take a couple of features back and forth (sunroof/moonroof, USB stereo, better engine, etc).

I don't think ANY dealer sells a car MSRP. Mazda took off $1500 off my car off the bat. What I had problems with was the trade. My HD had a altered cluster odometer reading, which cut the trade value 40%.

I haven't driven either, but IMO they're just different compromises on the Handling-Practicality scale. Us that hang out here, we like our cars and we like Hyundai but we're gearheads and car enthusiasts first. Many of us would take the Mazda 3 for the fun-to-drive factor over the Touring. (You would, I would, Dave would, Colin and Anton already did, etc). Adding a stereo to the Mazda sounds doable - getting the Touring to handle and accelerate like the Mazda doesn't sound so easy.

Power is due to the tuning. Mazda tunes the engine for power, which is a compromise for fuel mileage. The suspension is a European design from the European Focus (the European Focuses had different suspension system than USA cars had). The FD/HD suspension would have to be completely redesigned to get it to act like the MZ3.

Hyundai's quality is now supposedly much better than Mazda's, at least in the JD Power surveys (both the 3-month one and the 3-year one). I don't know how the Touring and 3s sales compare specifically, but overall Hyundai sells over twice the cars Mazda sells and they seem to know what they're doing lately even if they're not doing us sporty-hatchback fans any favors

What I generally go by instead of surveys, which tend to be skewed, are what is the amount of time a shop sees a particular brand of car. In my shop alone, which is busy, I don't see that many Mazdas in for a common problem. Granted, the Mazda has its issues with the MZ6 V6 with the automatic cooking, but that is a poor cooling problem, which the car is prone to have with a lot of power. The MZ3 atx can overheat, but the transmission failing because of it is not seen, both at independent shops and at the dealer. Now with Hyundai, there have been quite a few Hyundai's that have had more serious issues (which are known here) that plague owners.

[natesi]

Thanks all -- good conversations.

As for serious problems with Hyundais... I'm not really aware of any.

Other than a fuel regular issue when the car was fairly new, an exhaust manifold recall, and the ECU rehashed I haven't had any any think break. Oh and my turn signal doesn't cancel on left turns when it's over 85 degrees out, but I seem to be the only one with that issue.

The brakes suck because they are too small and continually warp and the auto transmission is wonky, but those items are not "broken".

Common issues for the Elantra when they get older are wheel bearings, TPS, and speed sensor. None of which I've had issues with on my early 2002 build (yet).