Mazda3: New DD

[Ninjakris]

Figured I would do a little review of my new daily driver on here. I picked up a 2014 Mazda3 grand touring sport a couple months ago. 4 door sedan. It has a 2.5 4 cylinder engine that makes 184/184 or something like that. Its no viper by any means, but that's not why I bought it. It gets 29mpg city, and 38mpg Hwy on regular gas. I went with the 6 speed auto with paddle shifters. The car is surprisingly fun. There's a sport button that works. In manual mode, it will actually hold the gear I'm in and bounce off the rev limiter. It has nice black leather with red stitching, dual zone climate control, sunroof, heads up display, navigation, adaptive headlights, auto wipers... bla bla bla. You get the idea. The out the door price was just over 24K. I did a lot of researching and really nothing else compared for the price point. If I had to compare it to another car, it would be a 3 series BMW.

Pros:
-Real knobs for climate control
-Idrive style knob for infotainment, separate knob for volume with mute by simply pressing down on volume button
-HUD shows speed/navi directions, and what speed cruise control is set at
-gas mileage without all the hybrid stuff to worry about
-adaptive HID headlights are pretty cool, they move left/right/up/down as necessary.
-tech centric dash

Cons:
-doesn't show engine/coolant temp (just lights if engine is cold or hot)
-small for some people, but fine for me.
-no built in homelink
-no memory settings for different drivers (if you move the seat, you have to adjust the HUD or it wont be visible)

http://i1315.photobucket.com/albums/t589/Kristian_Ray/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zpsa01c5774.jpg (http://s1315.photobucket.com/user/Kristian_Ray/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zpsa01c5774.jpg.html)
http://i1315.photobucket.com/albums/t589/Kristian_Ray/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zps7b7c6ab8.jpg (http://s1315.photobucket.com/user/Kristian_Ray/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zps7b7c6ab8.jpg.html)
http://i1315.photobucket.com/albums/t589/Kristian_Ray/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zps48b9b6ac.jpg (http://s1315.photobucket.com/user/Kristian_Ray/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zps48b9b6ac.jpg.html)
http://i1315.photobucket.com/albums/t589/Kristian_Ray/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zps78f76a47.jpg (http://s1315.photobucket.com/user/Kristian_Ray/media/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zps78f76a47.jpg.html)

[C.J]

Looks like a great DD Kris...those Mazdas are easy to live with and should be easy to maintain too. How is the insurance on the Mazda 3?

BTW, did you decide on which classic car to give to your father in-law?

[Ninjakris]

Insurance is about $100/6 months more than the 2006 Subaru legacy it replaced. So not too bad really. As for the car for my father in law, not sure yet. We have our first kid coming in a couple months so that has taken most of our attention lately. I'm hoping he will meet me at mopars at the beach in a few weeks and get a better feel of what he likes and doesn't like.