Mazda 3 first drive with SkyActiv G engine

[punjabiplaya]

our friend just bought a '11 hatch. Stupid girl, I told her to wait a few months.
/shakes head
women

 

[draknon]

They are here now. Dealers in my area started getting 3's with the Skyactiv engine last week. I took one for a test drive and liked it quite a bit but I am buying a Veloster instead as it is cheaper and there are $1000 in rebates available to me.

 

[disappoint]

Turbo's are great...no doubt, but there are negatives like upfront cost and possible reliability issues down the line. In an economy car like this, I would definitely weigh that as an issue.

Direct injection looks like it may pose worse reliability issues than turbo in the long run.

 

[Arkaign]

Direct injection looks like it may pose worse reliability issues than turbo in the long run.

It seems that is mostly just Audi/VW having a crappy implementation of it. A lot of engines have had DI for a very very long time. It's being marketed more aggressively of late, but the first DI motors were invented in the 20s, were common on WW2 aircraft, and was a feature of the 1955 Mercedes 300SL. There are now heaps of cars that feature DI, and very few of them appear to have serious problems, aside from the notable issues with the Audis and to a certain extent with BMW and Porsche.

I love German cars, I'm a bit of a BMW fanboy to a point, but it's something to think about. It is interesting to see the differences in implementation. The Speed3 MZR setup (as well as Speed6) is apparently a superior implementation of DI, as the huge carbon problems seen on the german implementations seem to be far less common, and the vehicles are reliable over an impressively long period of time.

 

[alkemyst]

Almost no SkyActiv's will come with the manual that makes for 1 mpg less than the auto.

We were at the dealership today and tried to find a white on black 6spd skyactiv hatchback...

 

[CraigRT]

It still looks stupid...

 

[NutBucket]

There's very few available period. My bro-in-law just bought one. He found that most dealers sold whatever cars they got either before they got to the dealer (ie still at the port or in transit) or within a day or two of being on the lot.

 

[alkemyst]

It still looks stupid...

much like two of the same bikes more or less in a sig.