Mazda 3 Review – Sport Nav 2-litre 165ps

The all-new Mazda 3 in Sport Nav trim is packed full of technology designed to save money and satisfy the gear lust of the even the fussiest gadget fiend. The Mazda 3 is available in hatchback and fastback (saloon) body shapes with a choice of petrol and diesel engines.

We drove the Mazda 3 hatchback with a 165ps (163hp) 2-litre engine in top-of-the-range Sport Nav trim that includes keyless entry and ignition, heated seats, automatic lights and wipers, a nine-speaker Bose audio system and a 7in multimedia system with satellite navigation, internet services and a number of audio inputs. Even standard models come with a wealth of desirable features, including Bluetooth phone pairing for hands-free communication, steering wheel-mounted controls plus USB ports for connecting and charging your mobile devices. Base models even get the 7in multimedia system, although satellite navigation is an optional extra. Only SE-L Nav and Sport Nav models get satnav as standard.

MAZDA 3 SKYACTIV TECHNOLOGY

In keeping with the Mazda CX-5 and Mazda6, the Mazda 3 is labelled SkyActiv, which means it has been designed with fuel efficiency and lower emissions in mind. This means the Mazda 3 has been built with light materials and its engines have high compression ratios, but for the driver SkyActiv mainly boils down to two technologies: i-Stop and i-Eloop.

i-Stop is an idle-stop system that cuts the engine to save fuel when the car is made safe, such as when you’re stopped at traffic lights. This feature is nothing new, but Mazda has designed its idle-stop system so that the engine is cut at the best point for a quick and efficient restart, and it certainly is quick. A slight press of the accelerator pedal and there’s only the briefest cough from the engine as it bursts back into life.

i-Eloop is designed to make the most of what would otherwise be wasted energy. It recovers electricity during deceleration and stores it in a capacitor so that it can be used to power the Mazda 3’s electrical systems.

Perhaps the neatest thing about i-Eloop for the driver is that you can view graphics of it in action on the 7in display. You can see the capacitor being charged whenever you lift your foot off the accelerator and watch its charge increase and decrease as you drive. This can be addictive, and you soon find any excuse to lift your right foot just to charge the capacitor. You can also view the fuel economy for your journey, or a particular stretch of it, and see how many extra miles of range i-Stop has given you.

To test the SkyActiv features we drove around a heavily congested town centre for 35 minutes, making good use of i-Stop. We didn’t match Mazda’s claimed urban fuel economy figure of 37.7mpg, though, getting 28.8mpg over the test period.

MAZDA 3 PERFORMANCE

Although our test car was a top-of-the-range Sport Nav model, it’s a family car, not a hardcore hot hatch masquerading as a school-run ferry. As such, acceleration is leisurely, and there’s no real shove until you reach around 3,500rpm. Our Mazda 3 was brisk rather than rapid, with the 165ps 2-litre engine propelling the car from 0-62mph in 8.2 seconds, the same figure quoted for the automatic Toyota GT86, but the Mazda 3’s acceleration didn’t feel as quick as the GT86’s.

The Mazda 3 held the road confidently, which was no mean feat in the flooded, wind-swept and cratered roads of our test environment. The Mazda 3 is fitted with many electronic driving aids and safety features such as traction control and dynamic stability control, which did a great job of keeping us on the road and off the pavement.

The Mazda 3 also gets Smart City Brake Support (SCBS), which is a neat system that brings the car to a halt at low speeds if the Mazda 3 spots a solid object in front of it that you haven’t. We’ve tested SCBS a few times now, and it really does work. However, SCBS depends on you not having a foot on a pedal, and we’re not sure how likely that is at the slow speeds at which the car must be travelling for it to work.

As is common with Mazda cars, the steering is extremely light, which makes parking at supermarkets and weaving your way through town laughably easy. The downside is that you do feel a bit disconnected from the road.

Sport Nav models are fitted with front and rear parking sensors, which certainly proved their worth due to the poor rear visibility. The rear windscreen is a high slit and little can be seen through it. Without the rear sensors we’d be worried about hitting bollards and other vehicles. Similarly, the front sensors are a boon when parking in a multi-storey car park or supermarket due to the Mazda 3’s long bonnet. We also found that the wide A pillars created infuriating blind spots that made pulling out of junctions riskier than we’d like.

Engine noise was more noticeable when driving at slower speeds, but it wasn’t particularly intrusive. It was hardly perceptible when cruising on the motorway at low revs, but this did make road and wind noise more noticeable.

Overall, the Mazda 3 is a charming car to drive. Given a twisting country road, it’s possible to feel a bit of excitement and have some fun, just as long as you remember to keep the revs high and don’t go higher than fourth gear. We really can’t emphasise the awfulness of the weather and our test environment enough. The conditions really would’ve taken the shine off many other cars, yet the Mazda 3 maintained its charisma throughout.

MAZDA 3 ACTIVE DISPLAY SYSTEM AND INSTRUMENT PANEL

Perhaps the most striking and practical feature of the Mazda 3 Sport Nav’s dashboard is the head-up display, or Active Display System to give it its official name, which pops up when you start the car. We’ve seen such systems before, but it’s still unusual to see a head-up display on a car at this price. Not only does it show your speed, it also shows you directions when you’re using the satnav system so that you don’t need to take your eyes off the road to look at the map. Indeed, the Active Driving Display is a real boon if you live in an area with a lot of speed cameras, as it means you can keep your eyes on the road and your mirrors rather than glued to the speedometer. Sadly, the Active Driving Display is only available on Sport Nav models.

The instrument panel is just as well designed, with a clear analogue rev counter inset with a digital speedometer. To either side of the rev counter are two LED screens that show fuel capacity and trip information, such as range, average speed and so on. You also get a shift indicator to ignore.

The inclusion of a head-up display really does elevate the Mazda 3 above its rivals. We’re massive fans of technology that gives you maximum assistance unobtrusively, and the Active Driving Display does exactly that, making your drive less stressful and you a better driver without fuss or fanfare. The Active Driving Display is perhaps the best excuse to invest in a Sport Nav model.

MAZDA 3 MULTIMEDIA SYSTEM

Although the head-up display is impressive, the Mazda 3’s 7in touchscreen audio and navigation system is surely the highlight of the Mazda 3’s cockpit. Not only does it let you play tracks from your mobile phone, route to a destination and let you make and receive calls, the system also lets you connect to a Wi-Fi network so that you can access live data on fuel prices, traffic and weather, among others.

The system is primarily controlled by the Media Commander rather than the touchscreen, as you can only control the screen by touch when the Mazda 3 is stationary or when you’re driving less than 5mph. The Media Commander is a rotary dial that can also be used as a four-way joystick, and it has a push button on top that you press to perform an action, such as selecting a radio station. You simply rotate the dial to cycle through menus and push it in a certain direction to switch screens or submenu. It’s a great device that works well.

The Media Commander is bordered by a number of buttons that let you jump to particular screens, such as the music and navigation screens, which is handy given the large number of screens and submenus into which you can delve.

The display is fairly easy to navigate, but it’ll take some time to learn where all the different menus and options are located, as there are many of them. We found the system a little confusing initially because some of the screens have different methods of control. The Settings screen, for example, has a horizontal list of sub menus that you scroll through by pushing the Media Commander left or right, while the Navigation and Applications screens required you to pop-up a horizontal row of icons that you could then scroll through. For the sake of consistency the Settings screen should have been operated in a similar manner to the other screens.

It’s also easy to get lost in a labyrinth of submenus, and we sometimes struggled to find particular screens and option lists again. We think owners will come to know the system inside-out, but not before expending much effort to make navigating its many screens and menus second nature.

It’s also worth noting that we had trouble viewing the screen in bright sunlight, which would’ve been maddening were it not for the navigation info on the Active Driving Display.

There’s little else to criticise, although we are worried by the touchscreen’s placement at the top of the dashboard. The screen doesn’t descend into the dashboard so that it’s hidden from view, but remains permanently on show, advertising its presence to any opportunist thieves. There’s no point robbing the display because it’d be useless on its own, but a potential thief might not know that. We had no problem with would-be satnav thieves during our loan of the Mazda 3, and this could just be an unfounded fear on our part. However, we’d much prefer the screen to be concealed when the car’s not in use.

The Mazda 3 has one of the best and most sophisticated multimedia systems we’ve used, but we still prefer Renault’s R-Link system, as seen in the Renault Zoe
and Renault Clio RS 200 EDC Lux. You can use the R-Link system when driving at speed, unlike the Mazda 3’s multimedia system, and we think it presents options and maps more clearly. We also found it easier to view in bright sunlight.

MAZDA 3 AUDIO

Our car was fitted with a nine-speaker Bose audio system that produced clear high-end and mid-range audio. Low-end sounds also possessed a great deal of clarity, but tended to boom with such ferocity that we had to reduce the bass setting on the audio system’s 3-band equaliser, which is something we’ve never done before. If you’re into your music, especially bass-heavy tunes, this is the audio system for you.

The car has a built-in CD player, but many drivers will prefer to stream audio from a phone or tablet via Bluetooth. You can also connect USB flash drives and mobile devices to one of the Mazda 3’s two USB ports and play music from them while they charge. We’re really impressed with Mazda’s decision to include two USB ports in addition to a 12V auxiliary input, as not only does it give you more music sources, it also means you charge multiple devices on long journeys.

The Mazda 3 can use the Aha app to play stream music from internet radio stations, and even use Facebook

If you have the Aha or Stitcher apps installed on your mobile device you’ll be able to use them with the Mazda 3’s audio system, giving you access to tens of thousands of internet radio stations. We tested the audio system with the Aha app. Although Aha lets you listen to many internet radio stations, you can only view presets on the Mazda 3’s screen; you can’t use the Mazda 3’s screen to find stations and add more presets. You can also search for restaurants, hotels and check the weather with Aha, which is great if you’re driving through an unknown area and need to eat or rest. The restaurant search was pretty good, and it gave the best restaurant at our location first, along with a rating.

There’s very little to complain about with the Mazda 3’s Bose audio system, other than tremendously heavy bass. We certainly recommend it as an option.

MAZDA 3 INTERIOR

The Mazda 3 has a very smart interior that’s comfortable, practical and more spacious than you’d expect. The driver’s seat in our car was electrically adjustable, a standard feature in 165ps Sport Nav models such as ours and a £1,000 option on other Sport Nav models. We much prefer electrically adjustable seats because they let you find exactly the right driving position for you, although at £1,000 it might be a luxury too far. Sadly, the front passenger’s seat must be adjusted mechanically.

The seats in our car were also covered in “light stone” leather, a £200 option on the 165ps model and £1,200 on other Sport Nav models. Although it’ll add to the cost of your car, we think the light stone leather seats are a worthwhile upgrade because they brighten an otherwise dark interior and break up the monotony of the black and silver trim.

Mazda has a gift for installing comfortable seats, and the Mazda 3 is no exception. There are three rear seats, but if the middle seat is unoccupied the rear passengers can make use of a wide arm rest that also provides them with cupholders. We could sit behind the driver’s seat and have enough room for our legs to stretch out a little.

Heated seats are fitted to all Mazda 3 SE-L and Sport Nav models. They proved their worth in the depths of a particularly harsh British winter, and although it’s better to have heated seats than not we still think it’s a feature better suited to countries with colder climates than ours.

A great and indispensable feature that is common on even the most basic Mazda car is a multifunction steering wheel. The Mazda 3’s steering wheel has controls for altering volume, changing tracks, issuing voice commands, operating the phone, activating cruise control and triggering the speed limiter. Curiously, we found ourselves using the volume control by the media commander rather than the steering wheel’s controls, which is odd given the amount of whinging we do if a car doesn’t have volume controls on the wheel. Thanks to this comprehensive selection of controls you can keep your eyes on the road rather than the centre console.

MAZDA 3 STORAGE SPACE

As you’d expect from a family hatchback, the Mazda 3 has ample storage space, including a storage bin in the driver’s arm rest, a large glove box and multiple drinks holders. There’s even a ledge in front of the gear stick that’s a handy location for your glasses or phone.

However, one of the most impressive and, for us, surprising aspects of the Mazda 3 hatchback is the amount of boot space you get. With the rear seats upright, the Mazda 3’s boot has a 364-litre capacity, which sounds like nothing, yet because of the slanted rear seats you get enough room for a couple of cases and possibly a few extra bags. You’ll certainly have no trouble getting the family shopping in there.

When we lowered the fold-flat rear seats to make use of the greater 1263-litre capacity, we found we could slide our 5ft 2in-long bundle of camera track straight in to it, which we really didn’t expect. Of course, a larger car such as the Mazda6 Sports Tourer
or the excellent Mazda CX-5 would be a better buy if you need to ferry large, bulky items regularly, but we reckon the Mazda 3 would suit most families’ needs.

CONCLUSION

The 165ps 2-litre Sport Nav hatchback that we drove is in insurance group 22E, although the range starts off in group 13E with the 1.5-litre SE model. The on-the-road price of our car at the time of testing was £23,050, but you can get the 100ps 1.5-litre model for an on-the-road price of £16,695. That isn’t bad considering the kit you get as standard, but you should go for one of the 2-litre petrol engines or the 150ps diesel engine. We think you should get at least the SE-L Nav trim, but it’s well worth going for the Sport Nav trim, if only for the head-up display.

A Mazda 3 with the 120ps 2-litre petrol engine would be appear to be the best option, and it’s the model that’s expected to sell the best. We’d still recommend paying more for the 150ps diesel or 165ps petrol engine, though. The 120ps petrol engine doesn’t have the grunt we demand regardless of gear, which makes pulling out of junctions and even gentle overtaking riskier than we’d like. Once you get to 5th gear there’s very little push left at all.

We think the 150ps diesel is the better engine for most people. It has similar performance to the 165ps 2-litre petrol engine but should provide much better fuel economy. Even so, there’s a lot of fun to be had with the 165ps petrol engine.

We didn’t expect to like the SkyActiv Mazda 3 and tried hard to find fault with it, yet our few complaints are mere nitpicking. With its multiple USB ports, internet connectivity, head-up display and excellent keyless entry and ignition system the Mazda 3 genuinely feels like a 21st century car. Its generous amounts of space and comfort make it a great family hatchback. We certainly prefer it over the non-RS Renault Clio models, and would possibly choose it over the iconic Ford Focus. Get in contact with your nearest Mazda dealer to book a test drive.