Unusually delicious. The first test all-wheel drive Mazda 3
I’ll give you a little advice: if you are going to buy a “premium” all-wheel drive golf class sedan like the Audi A3 Quattro and Mercedes CLA250 4Matic, do not dare to do that. After all, the Mazda 3 AWD 2019 is much better than both of them and costs less than $ 25,000. And not only because the little Mazda has a much nicer interior than any of its actual competitors, but also because it drives better than almost every one of them and looks much nicer than any model of this segment allows. (I’m talking about a sedan, not a hunchback Mazda 3 hatchback).
In short, if you need a four-wheel drive, but you hate greedy and similar crossovers, or if you want to buy a golf-class sedan, but fear that your friends will think that you have come from a rental car, buy yourself a new Mazda 3. Clear? Fine! (It was easy).
But for those of you who are wondering what is so special about the Mazda 3 AWD, I’ll give you some additional information. In particular, I have to tell you about my friend John. Because each of us has a friend that looks like John, and John, in turn, looks like a Mazda.
John is a genius. A sort of certified high-quality supercomputer in human form. He understands most of the areas he knows better than experts. And he stumbles out of the blue three times a day. Mazda and John have a lot in common. You can watch how they do something, and assume that they do not notice you. But if you take the time and dig deeper, you will find out that there are amazing things behind this appearance.
For example, you might ask: Why does the Mazda 3 have two fuel gauges: one is analog, and the other is just ten centimeters from it, an electronic copy of this analog pointer. Or you can start scratching your head, having learned that Mazda has finally made support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto systems, while at the same time removing the touch display for which these systems were intended. You may be wondering why the engine, which was designed from time to time with an eye to economics – there is even a cylinder deactivation system on the four-cylinder unit! – can not provide lower fuel consumption than rivals with engines of more traditional design.
And then you come to this car and immediately forget all of the above. Sedan Mazda 3 simply attracts itself. Open the door, sit inside, flop into a chair located just like in a sports car: your legs are extended, the steering wheel is high – right in front of your nose, and your feet do not rest on the motor shield. The readability of the devices is perfect: snow-white numbers on a black background. And the visual difference between analog devices and electronic LED panels is so small that, we think, some owners will never even understand that the shooter and numbers actually do not physically exist.
Perfect order reigns everywhere. Everything you touch is soft and expensive, like in a car that is twice as big. The box lever is pleasant to the touch, and every movement takes place exactly as you expect.
On the go is still better. Although the steering and suffers from a lack of feedback, it is so accurate that it is not a sin to think that the mechanical component brought McLaren to mind. Steering wheel naturally poured in turns, which is especially important. The brake pedal initially seems to be “oak.” But then you understand that in other cars the reaction to the pedals is not linear, and not increasing.
But the 6-stage torque converter at least shifts gears smoothly and intuitively clear logic. It seems he understands when you want to gossip, and at the entrance to the turn drops a few gears down. He’s great allows you to squeeze all the juice out of the (old) 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine, which could be considered a drawback of the car, if it were not for the fact that the engine is very quiet, smooth and well tuned. By the way, at the same time, almost complete silence reigns in the cabin, no extraneous noise from the road or the wind penetrates into it, even at speeds beyond 150 km / h.
Of course, this is not the most powerful unit in the world: 186 hp The power and 252 Nm of torque are not enough to hang the Mazdaspeed badge on this car (as the US calls the hot versions of the Mazda, which we know as MPS – ed.). But this is the type of engine that has very pleasant and effective settings and which will bring joy from driving with gas pressed to the floor /