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Mike Sinclair31 Mar 2014
REVIEW

Mazda 3 SP25 2014 Review

At under $27,500 with safety add-ons, the mid-spec Mazda3 SP25 delivers significant bang for your bucks

Mazda3 SP25 sedan
Road Test

Muscular and refined, yet affordable, the SP25 is arguably the most attractive of all the new Mazda3 variants. Plenty of power, appropriate equipment levels and sharp pricing make this standout small car hard to go past.

What’s all the fuss about? Mazda’s top-selling 3, Australian private buyers’ favourite car, has been lauded before. Did you somehow expect the all-new version would arrive and, shazam, we’d find that the boffins from Hiroshima had dropped the ball?

Well, maybe…

You see, such an occurrence is not without precedent. Alas, in the auto world it simply doesn’t follow that ensuing generations of cars automatically improve. A smash hit in a number of markets, the second-generation Mazda3 provided big shoes for the number three 3 to fill.

What’s more, those Hiroshima boffins went ‘large’ in their talking up of the newest SkyActiv generation. They promised more refinement, better manners on the road and a swag of extra equipment. They promised increased efficiency, better performance and fit and finish that would rival the best in the class. They claimed their benchmarks were largely cars with prestige badges.

They were on a hiding to nothing… Which makes it all the more remarkable the new 3 has arrived pretty much as advertised.

We’ve written many, many thousands of words on the new 3. We’ve dissected it in prototype, preproduction and showroom spec. Yours truly even drove the car across Eastern Europe as part of a Hiroshima to Frankfurt publicity stunt. So I’m not about to regurgitate a spec sheet here...

This is more a brief opportunity for me to add my 3 thoughts to the carsales/motoring collective. In particular, regarding the 2.5-litre SP25 that in my mind has to be the pick of the 3 bunch.

At just under $27,500 with the optional ($1500) Safety Pack included, the SP25 represents significant car for your money. And probably as much car as 95 per cent of us ever need.

I drove the sedan variant for a few days and came away impressed. Indeed, in terms of road manners and general refinement, the 3 is up there with the best mass-market small cars on sale. There, I’ve said it…

You can spend $10,000 more on a Mazda3 but why would you? The SP25 as tested includes an excellent sat-nav system, decent audio and a cabin with fit and finishes that are near the top of the pack.

In ‘Safety’ trim, courtesy of the optional pack, you can also tick the blind-spot warning, Rear Cross Traffic Alert (a reversing camera is standard) and Smart City Brake Support (SCBS) boxes. The last item could also save you some heartache -- a radar-based low-speed autonomous braking system, SCBS will keep you from rear-ending the car in front (or worse!) up to around 30km/h.

The sedan variant of the 3 will likely account for around one third of all Mazda3s sold. Its styling is a touch more grown-up and will appeal to some buyers. There’s plenty of room for four and a boot that at 408 litres rivals large cars from not long ago (and is also bigger than the hatch’s cargo space). Spill the split-fold rear seat and you’ve got room to cart much larger items.

And comfort levels are high. Leather seat facings would be nice, but at this pricetag I’m happy with the technical cloth surfaces that are standard.

The seven-inch infotainment screen looks like it’s transplanted out of a Mercedes A-Class with a real ‘tablet’ look to it. The similarities between the Mazda’s HMI (human machine interface) and those of the prestige marques’ small car entrants suggest Mazda’s gone in the right direction.

The new 3 is significantly quieter than the previous generation. This was an area Mazda knew it had to improve. Our road test team in direct comparisons will likely still find it noisier than that benchmark German hatch, but the difference in those levels are unlikely to detract from your ownership experience.

Spec for spec, compared to the German, buy the Mazda and you’re going to pocket more than loose change. A couple of Gorillas should go part way to assuaging any concerns.

Perhaps the highlight of the SP25, however, is not the cabin or equipment list but the powertrain.

Driving a low-output 2.0-litre Mazda3 from Minsk to Frankfurt in late 2013, it was clear that the 3 needed a little more in the engineroom to deliver its best. In the 2.5-litre 138kW/250Nm four, Mazda’s engineers have hit a sweet spot.

Although almost double the capacity of some of the turbo fours with which it competes in the small car segment, the 2.5 is never coarse and in normal driving remains reasonably frugal. But it’s no miser.

The company claims an ADR Combined fuel economy figure of 6.5L/100km on the rolling road. Our testers have logged a number of local drives but have typically logged mileage in the 8s and 9s. In my short stint the car was in high single figures – indicative of the inner-city driving I was lumbered with during the stint.

Mazda maintains it would rather optimise the performance and efficiency of its direct-injected (relatively) large-capacity SkyActiv-G petrol fours than go down the more complex road of turbo or supercharged engines. In practice, the 2.5 works well, although personally I’m still a fan of the big torque (and economy potential) that the current crop of downsized turbo fours generate.

Mazda’s treading a similar proven path with its gearbox philosophy. Our tester was a conventional, though sweet-shifting six-speed manual. The automatic option in the SP25 is just that – a conventional, although optimised, epicyclic auto tranny. No time nor funds spent on building a new dual-clutch mousetrap here.

While I don’t believe Mazda will be able to stay on this simple-is-best road forever, for the time being the result is laudable.

Smooth and linear in its performance delivery, surprisingly quick and above all eminently civilised, the newest Mazda3 SP25 is deserved of significant praise.

It is very simply, a lot of car for the money.


Mazda3 SP25 price and spec:

Price: $27,390 (plus on-road costs) includes Safety Pack ($1500)
Engine: 2.5-litre fuel-injected four-cylinder petrol
Output: 138kW/250Nm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: 6.5L/100km (Combined)
CO2: 152g/km
Safety Rating: Five-star ANCAP

What we liked: Not so much:
>> Big-four performance >> Styling is not for all
>> Cabin ergos and general presentation >> Not the most economical of the crop
>> Good value equation
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Our team of independent expert car reviewers and journalistsMeet the team
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