I think the Mazda 3 is more fun and in some respects more solidly engineered/built than many of its competitors, but it does have some downsides too.
A/C in the 3 is weak and hardly able to keep up in hot climates. You may want to choose lighter colors for the paint and interior, or look into tint. I've never been to KY, but I imagine temps get up to the 90s in the summer. Maybe Mazda resolved this with the current generation, but all of the 3s in my family had barely adequate A/C from the factory.
Mazda has also cut a few corners in materials that are mostly apparent on the interior. My mom's '08 already has frayed seat belts, frayed seat fabric, and wear to the carpet. She is not hard on interiors, but the car is already showing wear from normal day to day use that you would expect to see on a 10+ year old car. On the other hand though, most of the plastics in the car look/feel nice and seem to be put together well, it's just the fabrics that are lacking. I haven't seen other cars in the class with significantly better looking interiors, and most are worse.
The third issue, and probably the biggest that I have noticed with the 3, is Mazda's horrendous dealer network. A Mazda dealer that can stay open more than a few months without a name change, or being absorbed into some other 3rd tier brand's dealer, or just becoming a used car lot is an anomaly. The dealer where my sister bought her 3 new in 2006 closed down shortly afterwards, and there were no alternates in a reasonable distance. Before the dealer closed for good she did stock up on filters for the car and luckily it hasn't really needed much aside from routine maintenance. My mom took her 3 in to the dealer for its very first oil change...and they left the oil cap off, on a brand new car. Oil sprayed everywhere under the hood, and who knows what kind of dirt got into the engine. The dealer only offered another oil change and replacing the oil cap they lost. Mazda USA offered a $100 gift card towards Mazda accessories. I think offering an extended warranty to cover any damage caused by the gross incompetence would have been better, but they weren't having any of that. My mom had planned on never going back to the dealer for anything, but then received a recall notice for the power steering system, so she took the car in since the next closest dealer was an hour and a half away. Guess what...they botched the power steering recall too! The car ended up having the recall performed a second time at the dealer an hour and a half away. It now goes to an independent shop that specializes in Japanese cars and has a good reputation. Mazda is a good brand with an extremely slimy and incompetent dealer network that should probably stick to selling used cars, but wants a new car brand to look legit.
Aside from these issues though, they are great cars. Wonderful driving dynamics compared to most run of the mill compacts, responsive engines and transmissions, good build quality, reliable, and useful/sensible designs. If they had a decent dealer network and good A/C they'd be hard to beat.
A/C in the 3 is weak and hardly able to keep up in hot climates. You may want to choose lighter colors for the paint and interior, or look into tint. I've never been to KY, but I imagine temps get up to the 90s in the summer. Maybe Mazda resolved this with the current generation, but all of the 3s in my family had barely adequate A/C from the factory.
Mazda has also cut a few corners in materials that are mostly apparent on the interior. My mom's '08 already has frayed seat belts, frayed seat fabric, and wear to the carpet. She is not hard on interiors, but the car is already showing wear from normal day to day use that you would expect to see on a 10+ year old car. On the other hand though, most of the plastics in the car look/feel nice and seem to be put together well, it's just the fabrics that are lacking. I haven't seen other cars in the class with significantly better looking interiors, and most are worse.
The third issue, and probably the biggest that I have noticed with the 3, is Mazda's horrendous dealer network. A Mazda dealer that can stay open more than a few months without a name change, or being absorbed into some other 3rd tier brand's dealer, or just becoming a used car lot is an anomaly. The dealer where my sister bought her 3 new in 2006 closed down shortly afterwards, and there were no alternates in a reasonable distance. Before the dealer closed for good she did stock up on filters for the car and luckily it hasn't really needed much aside from routine maintenance. My mom took her 3 in to the dealer for its very first oil change...and they left the oil cap off, on a brand new car. Oil sprayed everywhere under the hood, and who knows what kind of dirt got into the engine. The dealer only offered another oil change and replacing the oil cap they lost. Mazda USA offered a $100 gift card towards Mazda accessories. I think offering an extended warranty to cover any damage caused by the gross incompetence would have been better, but they weren't having any of that. My mom had planned on never going back to the dealer for anything, but then received a recall notice for the power steering system, so she took the car in since the next closest dealer was an hour and a half away. Guess what...they botched the power steering recall too! The car ended up having the recall performed a second time at the dealer an hour and a half away. It now goes to an independent shop that specializes in Japanese cars and has a good reputation. Mazda is a good brand with an extremely slimy and incompetent dealer network that should probably stick to selling used cars, but wants a new car brand to look legit.
Aside from these issues though, they are great cars. Wonderful driving dynamics compared to most run of the mill compacts, responsive engines and transmissions, good build quality, reliable, and useful/sensible designs. If they had a decent dealer network and good A/C they'd be hard to beat.
