teknics

drive by wire is on just about everything these days, mazda didnt invent that.



Logicon...have you ever been in other cars? again not a mazda specific thing. plus for something to stop working 20years after it was built....should be EXPECTED. just for it to make it to 20 years is a marvel of the car industry....look at the early 90's fords and then compare their problems to ours their frames disappear and engine subframe fall out of the cars etc.



CPU..... ummm definitely not a mazda thing, everything in the world has a cpu in the auto industry....dunno what your point was there.



Electronic suspension....never knewe anyone had problems with it, did yours fail and your car blew up? i doubt it. now go drive an early cadillac with there oh so awesome air suspension, wait for THAT to blow up and you causing you to drag the gas tank on the road and potentially blow up. the air suspension blowing out isnt rare and especially not as rare as the mazda elec. suspension doing anything similar.



AWS... that was a fad back then, and now its coming back on brand new chevy trucks



twin scroll... this was succesful in doing what they needed...dunno where the problem is, just cause you dont enjoy stock doesnt mean it sucks.



sequential twin turbo.... the fd was a mistake.



so anyway lets look at some of the good they did?



Brought a rotary engine to the consumer market, one of the few companies who is willing to go out and slap turbos on their cars along with producing pretty good performance variants of regular cars in their lineup. They were the first ones with stored/readable check engine codes....something every car in the world has now. The brake systems, at least on the t2, are a work of art and do their job amazingly. the aerodynamics of the fc and fd, the drag coefficiency, is superb and in fact even the fc is leagues better then some brand new cars. How many parts on our cars are lightweight/aluminum yet still strong? The list just goes on and im too bored to type anymore.



i would like to blame mazda for hurricane katrina, the bush election, osama bin laden and the tsunami last year, i mean its as fitting as your complaints.



kevin.

RONIN FC

Um, nobody said Mazda invented any of it... So that eliminates the first 3.



Electronic suspention: So good, the Turbo II never got it.



AWS: Accelerated warmup system, nuff said. Not DTSS "rear steer".



Twin scroll: Gimmick. Its so good, the single stage S5 turbo is an upgrade



Sequential twin: equal to the twin scroll in over-engineering. gimmick



All complications with no benefit.

j9fd3s

some of the non us turbo's got the electric suspension, i agree thats kinda of a gimmick, but nissan one upped it with the active suspension q45 (i think it was a q45)



aws, it had to pass smog....



twin scroll/twin turbo/6ports etc etc; everytime you read a roadtest of a rotary car it says something about lack of low end, so mazda responds. i agree, with you here, i dont care if its got power under 2000rpms....



my mercedes, a 1990 190e, has a ton of stuff on it that makes no sense either. the center vents blow fresh air or a/c but not heat. it has 2 defrost buttons. the trans starts in 2nd gear, but has no overdrive, so its slow from a stop, and then revs like mad on the freeway (3500@65mph, about 500rpms more than an fc). not saying its a bad car, it does get 2mpg more than the fc, its quieter, has better a/c, and seats 4. just saying mazda isnt the only carmaker who does stupid stuff.

1988RedT2

Mazda bashers annoy me. While their cars do not always put up the best numbers in their class, Mazdas are always (IMO) rewarding to drive. I own what must surely be the least sporting of any vehicle type, yet I find a lot to like about my MPV. It handles rather nicely for a minivan and gives me the room I need for my family. Power could be better, but I'll take the 20+ mpg and save my heavy-footed romps for the T2 (or the Chevy II, if I ever get that beast put back together). I could have bought an Odyssey or a Caravan or a Quest, but I didn't. I bought a Mazda because it was the best product for the money.



Mazda bashers take note: The Mazda 3 is pretty much the undisputed leader in its class.



http://www.edmunds.com/new/research/mazda/mazda3.html

Rob x-7

I think you need to drive some other cars

1988RedT2

I drive a lot of cars. You mean minivans? Small cars that compete with the Mazda 3? Or just cars in general? I'm not arguing that a Mazda is better than a Ferarri, just that their cars are better drives than most of the other cars in their price class.



Granted, it's just my opinion. But it damn sure isn't an uninformed one.

RONIN FC

Honda Si 2.0l V-tec: 197 HP

Mazda 3 2.3l VVT: 160(overated?) HP

1988RedT2

Is that supposed to mean something? You're saying that a bigger horsepower number makes one car better than another? Seriously?

RONIN FC

Im stating, the feel or "drive" as you say is definately affected by power.

And, im comparing two engines with a comparable design.



I dont sweep things under the rug because I drive a particular car. If I did, I would just look like a fool once the facts were presented.

1988RedT2

Evaluating the "feel" of a car is a very subjective thing. Some people are going to attach a higher importance to straight-line acceleration. I'm not sure how impressed I would be with an engine that makes it's max. torque of 139 lb-ft. at 6100 rpm. The Mazda 2.3 delivers 150 lb-ft. at a more usable 4500 RPM.



And if we really want to talk about horsepower in a cheap small car, we should be talking about the Mazdaspeed 3. http://www.autoweb.com/content/shared/arti...cle_id_int/1179