OK I've had my Mazda for a little over a year now and thought I'd do a review of what its like to live with now my previous car was a 1.4 tdci fiesta so this Mazda was quite a step up in many ways. The interior is a nice place to be everything is nicely laid out with all the buttons in easy reach, the heated windscreen is very useful in the winter months and means you don't need to carry deicer all the time sometimes at all. The seats aswell as being heated are comfortable even on long journeys. The Bose system is quite good and it seems that they have capped how loud you can turn it up and while it is loud enough it isn't at the point where chavs who like to announce to the world what they are listening to
The engine is quite responsive and pulls quite nicely and is quite although I think the road noise masks it a bit But I plan on putting some sound deadening under the carpets the quieten the roar from the tyres.
The suspension is on the firm side but not overly so and coupled with the direct steering means you can maintain a brisk pace through the bends. The brake pedal however doesn't inspire me with a lot of confidence, it doesn't feels as sharp as I would like it to it feels as though there’s still a little bit of air in the lines. Hopefully when I change the discs and lines it’ll sort that out
For the most part I've not had any problems except for what I believe to be a traction control issue where the TCS light would come on and I'd notice a sudden loss in power and the whole car would shake if I was above 40mph, this has happened 3 times with me and I managed to get round it by turning it off and waiting a few seconds before starting. Strangely this hasn’t happened on my usual route along the A47 but elsewhere I took it to the dealer and they couldn't replicate it so weren't able to do anything about it.
My only gripe with the car is that it has seat belt patronizers they really annoy me to the point where I've nearly tried to reverse repeatedly into a tree till it shut up, I tried to get the dealer to turn it off but they refused to do it, hopefully I can get it disabled before I end up writing the car off. Now that may sound extreme but that’s how much the stupid things frustrate me. Overall though its a very very good car with family and friends complimenting on how nice it is inside and out but I do have quite a bit planned to do to the car not only with the stuff I've mentioned but a few more things aswell
