My First New Car

volvoclearinghouse said:

In reply to crankwalk :

I think the 2018 is the last year for the manny tranny Cruze, regardless of engine.  

I was talking to a guy who worked in a Chevrolet service dept and he said he's seen a lot of them in for repairs.  Common rail diesel issues.  

Yeah I don't doubt they've had growing pains meeting US emissions standards since every modern diesel has. That being said I'm just glad they started offering the manual here with the diesel for at least a little while. I cross shopped them and TDI Jettas in 2011 when I bought my TDI and the VW won because I just hate automatics and thats all they offered in a Cruze diesel at the time.

volvoclearinghouse said:

RedGT said:

I love it.  I want it.  Have been eyeing these and it's what we'd be buying new, if my wife decides to buy new.  But there's a dark blue I love on a coworker's CX9 that doesn't seem to be offered on the 3.  :(

The 3 is available in dark blue.  In fact, there's one still in stock near me in that color, with the 6MT.  $17k....and I'm sure you can nick that down even more (I did)

https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/detail/749651686/overview/

"Deep Crystal Blue Mica"

Still 500 or so 2018 3 hatches with the 6MT in the country, even.  Scoop one up, it's a nice car.  

That does look like a fantastic deal.

Tell me more about "driving the map." My mom has a 2011 2.5L 6MT and she pulls ~37hwy, mostly dependent it seems on highway surface.

I looked online and found the BSFC (Brake Specific Fuel Consumption) "map" for my engine:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Base-20L-Mazda-SkyActiv-131-CR-engine-maps-of-BSFC-left-and-BTE-right-from_fig12_301242888

If you look at the left one, it tells you basically that the engine is using the least amount of fuel to make one unit of energy in the region between about 2000 and 2500 RPM, and about 7 to 9 bar BMEP (Brake Mean Effective Pressure).  BMEP is basically a measure of cylinder pressure.  My understanding is this increases with load.  7-9 bar is a medium-ish load.  12 bar seems to be about the maximum.  

But, you can also see that you don't need to be too accurate about it; the engine has a nice fat efficiency range in the 5 to 10 bar range, between 2000 and 3000 RPM.  

37 HWY on the 2.5 engine seems to be doing darn good.  But from what I've seen, the folks to opt to row their own do seem to get slightly better MPGs than the automatics for the people, regardless of the actual rating.  

Fantastic vehicle congrats. I bought a white manual 3 sport (identical to yours but for colors) in 2014 and loved it. I was driving 1,000 miles per week for work at the time and it seemed perfect 

....but had to sell it because the seat and my back wouldn’t get along. Being tall has some disadvantages, too. 

The fuel economy info is awesome. 

March 27, 2019, at approximately 6:35AM....

Time for oil change #2!  

Well done! Glad you're still enjoying the car. 

z31maniac said:

Well done! Glad you're still enjoying the car. 

Thanks.  Still loving it, loving the fuel economy (38 mpg average so far), loving the utility...

The wife still won't drive it, though.  C'est la vie.  She has her Suburban.    She does love that I can work more on the "cool cars" and less on the daily whip.

I may have mentioned it, I did sell the Volvo 240 wagon.  I had my '83 Mercedes 240D up for sale a few times, with no bites.  I drive it occasionally to keep the rotors from rusting.  May just hold onto it.  No logical reason; it's objectively terrible, but in an endearing sort of way.  

I'm with on not wanting to work on the daily. That's why I just let my Indy guy work on the 135i. 

My girlfriend works from home full-time, is also taking a full class load, add in the animals and keeping on top of the lawn and everything else............I don't have the desire to spend Saturday's in the garage rolling around on a dirty floor like I used to.

Still have my eye on these, glad it is serving you well.  Totally on board with the "don't work on the daily, especially the spouse's daily" aspect.  To that end we just moved her from a 170k mile Fiesta to a 100k mile Focus - nope, no new mazda3 for us right now - but hopefully that buys me another 3 or 4 years of not-having-to-fix-crap.

Knurled. said:

STM317 said:

Is manual required for this exercise? Next question: Why? I mean can you actually enjoy a manual on your lengthy daily commute or is it just cruising?

 

Some people have a visceral need to always be in the wrong gear at the wrong time.

I was recently reminded of this comment from this forum thread.  Somehow, despite being in the wrong gear for over 10,000 miles, I've managed to get better average fuel economy than the EPA highway number for the automatic-transmission-ed model.  

And, yes, I do still enjoy the manual, regardless of the traffic.  I have never even once, in the 7 months I've owned it, even wondered what the automatic would be like.  Because it would not be as much fun.  

Made a record run the other day, from my house to work.  45 miles one way, used less than a gallon of fuel:

"Quit stealing our cool cars!" 

-Pittsburgh 

In reply to pinchvalve :

Hey, if they wanted 'em, they shoulda bought 'em!

Drove in to work today with the following loaded into the 3:

• 100 lb propane tank (empty)
• (2) BBQ propane tanks (empty)
• (2) 5 gallon gasoline jerry cans (empty)
• 5 gallon diesel jerry can (empty)
• Normal crates and bags of tools + work gear

Who needs a van?  

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

I found that to be true with my FiST.   I too got 39.2 on the last tank.

1 YEAR UPDATE!

Hard to believe it's been 1 year to the day (well, yesterday) since the 3 arrived in my driveway, freshly shined and with 192 miles on its odometer.  So, what's happened in the course of the past 365 days?

Well, for starters, the odometer read 17,791 when I hopped in the driver's seat to go to work this morning.  

According to my Fuelie.com profile, it's averaged 37.4 mpg, which works out to a per-mile cost of about 6.6 cents for the gasoline. 

I've done 3 oil changes (every 5,000 miles), each one with a jug of Castrol Edge 0W-20 synthetic ($27), a Genuine Mazda oil filter ($9) and a new crush washer ($1).

Rotated the tires once (at the 10,000 mile oil change).

And...the car note's ~20% paid off.  

I've washed it a half a dozen times, and vacuumed it out nearly that often...speaking of which, it needs another date with the Shop Vac.  

Still very, very happy with the car overall.  It's a hoot to drive- possibly a little too much so.  I managed a very respectable 39.5 mpg on the last tank by simply dialing back my driving enthusiasm a few notches.  Handling, braking, bump dampening- all very very good.  I can't complain about acceleration- it's certainly adequate, and probably the fastest car I currently own.  Sometimes I get stuck in 2nd, not wanted to downshift into first from a roll, and it takes awhile for the 2.0 to find its sweet spot.  Chalk that up to my own laziness, or concern for the #1 synchro.  

 I will say, having learned how to drive this transmission, the 6 speed is a joy in stop and go traffic.  It's super easy to manage speeds in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gears, and navigate the rush hour with a minimum of use of the center pedal.  The hill hold feature _still_ feels like cheating to me, and taking off from any uphill grade is as easy as rolling downhill. 

My only real minor gripes are:

Cargo capacity- I have to fold the rear seats down to fit the recycling bins in the back- another 3" of behind the rear seats length and/or a less-angled rear glass would have been perfect... 

...And the infotainment system takes a minute to boot up sometimes.  It's also occasionally irritating to not be able to perform any touch-screen functions with the car in motion, and I've thought really hard about paying the dealer the $200 to upgrade to Android Auto.  

Neither of those things has really dulled my enthusiasm for the Mazda3, though.  I'm glad I bought it, and hope that at 10 years and 177,910 miles I'll be writing the same thing.  

I performed the android auto update on Elaine's Mazda3 with the official software sourced from the interwebs. Instructions were pretty detailed. Hers is just out of warranty though, so your situation is a little different. The new AA UI they just released is an improvement.

May I join your club??

First new car in nearly 40 years... we bought a 3 awd with the auto (wife's left knee has issues)  Picked it up almost a year to the day after you got yours....

22,511 miles on...and the first trouble has cropped up.

When going straight, or turning right, the left front wheel area makes a clicking/grinding/rubbing noise. It makes no noise when turning left. I got home, jacked the car up, and checked the front wheels. The left wheel has some amount of play in it, while the right wheel has no play. I'm guessing the wheel bearing on the left may be packing it in. Joy.

I have an appointment to bring the 3 in to the dealer tomorrow. The car is under warranty, and "wheel bearing" certainly seems like it ought to last more than 22,511 miles.

Goes without saying, I'm not happy. Hoping the dealer makes this right, quickly, and without any b-s.

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

These things happen. We got my girlfriend her '16 Honda Fit, in August of 2017. It was used but only had 11k miles on it. 

Within 3 weeks I had replaced the battery and the right front sway bar link. 

In reply to z31maniac :

I know, it's just disappointing. 

A little after 6AM, wife follows me out of the driveway in her Suburban- which is 20 years old, has 160,000 miles, and, as far as we can tell, still has the wheel bearings that GM put in it.  I motor on down to the Mazda dealer where I signed the papers on the car a little over a year ago.  We pull in- 7:10AM.  Service dept opens at 7:30.  We cruise next door to grab a chicken and biscuit and let the kids stretch their legs.  At 7:30 the kids were still picking at their food, so I told Mrs. VCH I'd just run next door and do the paperwork on the car and she could come pick me up whenever they were done.

I wait in line behind an older gentleman who has brought in a well-traveled previous gen 3, with a front facia held on with a bungee cord and a donut on the left front wheel.  The service manager gets him set up for an oil change service, a new tire, and a check on a "loud exhaust".  Now I'm up.

I greeted Karl, explained my trouble, he got me set up in the system and explained that there would be a $130 diagnostic fee, but that would of course be waived if it was determined to be a warranty repair.  Boilerplate stuff.  He asked me if I'd hit any large potholes or anything recently, yadda yadda, no, just driving normally.  After we're through with that I casually dropped, "So, since this is under warranty, do you have a loaner?"  Without hesitation he grabs a set of keys, takes my license and insurance info, and walks me out to a silver CX-5.  "Just make sure you fill it up with gas when you bring it back.  No charge."  

Go grab my stuff out of the Suburban, relay the good news about the loaner, and I headed off to work while the rest of the VCH's headed home.

So far, Dealership rating:  A+

In reply to oldeskewltoy :

Love the corolla!!! 

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

Glad to hear your having a good experience so far!

I still dont get the Point14 after reading the entire thread in one sitting.  Mazda 3+ .14 is pi but other than that.....

Help!

PS, i hope the dealer takes care of you too

Just got a call, the car's done.  Wheel bearing replaced.  They did try to upsell me on a cabin air filter and an alignment, passed on both.  Going to pick it up after work, and drop off this lovely CX-5.