2nd Mazdaspeed in Toronto and its Mine!

2nd Mazdaspeed in Toronto and its Mine!

Hey Guys
My week began with an unexpected call from Whitby Mazda from Durham, 40 mins east of Toronto. It was Wednesday when I received this phone call and the sales man told me that my car will be coming in either Friday/Saturday or Monday at the latest. I was told that I would receive my VIN # but the end of the week for sure too! I couldnt believe what I was hearing because after my deposit 5 month and 3 weeks ago, this is the call I was waiting for! This sounded soo true, and in the back of my mind I had a feeling it was true.

Thursday came, and the sales man says hes got good news. The Vin # was in his hands and he said that he would be getting the car tomorrow! Boy, I was I excited when I heard that. I felt like I wasnt prepared throughout my 5 months + wait. I was just pass-excited after expecting delivery back in October.

Friday morning, I received a call, and the salesman sounded really excited when he said hi. He told me the car arrived in their lot this morning and its looking great!
I was soo excited I had to believe him; he can tell me that the car is in his lot. Its must be true! He faxed me a rough copy of the invoice and talking about delivery take. He said that it would be ready anytime after tomorrow. SO, obviously, Ill take delivery tomorrow! Made an appointment for Saturday morning bright and early!

Saturday morning. 8:30am was the time I woke up to begin my 40 min drive to the dealership. Man, was this ever long! I couldnt wait to see my car for the first time in person. We even got lost on our way there, which made me really impatience. Finally, after calling up the dealership and getting the exactly location and directions I saw the Mazda logo in the distance. As we were waiting to turn in, there she was! Bright, shiny and sexy! Just sitting there waiting for its owner. =P
I met my salesman for the first time along with his sales pal, which really liked the car. I was surprised he knew a lot about the car which made me talk to the salesmans pal more than my own salesman. Anyway, they handed me the key to look over the car inside out.

I began my self-tour with the trunk. I opened it and there it was the full set-up of the Kenwood system. Cargo net was in place and they just dumped my spare tire tools on the floor of the trunk. Why? I checked underneath the trunk mat, and there was no place for you to securely for the tools in. As if they forgot to set a side a place for them! I had to just jam them underneath the trunk mat and hope its secure. I looked underneath the Kenwood system and everything looks like digi168s picture but in real life! =D

I unlocked the doors to the driver and the passengers with a 2nd touch to the keyless entry. First impression of the seats is the material chosen is awesome! Not even custom work would think of something like this. The pattern is real nice and after sitting in them, they are supportive enough for day-to-day activities. The 8 ways adjustable setting takes some time to look for the perfect setting. The steering wheel feels great; good size, but when set to the lowest setting, which I didnt find low, you could not see the upper part of the speedometer. The steering feel is stiff in a way, when taking turns. I expected more power steering in itbut its definitely a sporty feel. The leather on the wheel is nice, expect for the silver colour area at 9 and 3. It doesnt feel like leather to me. Although great looking. =)

Shifter and shift knob is low as mentioned, Im 59 and I find the shorten shifter has been really shortened. The shifter feels great, but with people with big hands and are used to large knobs, this knob takes time getting used to. Clutch is easy to handle, engages at middle, which is good. Neither too low nor high engagements. Brakes are not sensitive, but hold well! Gas pedal is not sensitive either, but I have a feeling and am dying to floor this puppy to see its capabilities. Its light and when you like doing easy, around town driving its nice.

Climate controls are no different with other protgs, and its nothing out of the ordinary because its simply brand new!

Head unit looks cool as you put the key in the ignition, as the motorizes its way to operation position. Fancy indeed. Looks hard to use, but it really isnt that difficult if youve ever owned an aftermarket deck. Lots of settings to tune to your desire!!! The sub is not overwhelming. Its not comparison to a 12 or a 10, simply because its only an 8 But it works well and produced enough bass for the average audiophile.

On with the drive
Today I did a total of 45 Km on my way home from the dealership and here is my first impression. I didnt know where the clutch engaged at, so I had to drive like it was my first time driving a manual car. Within 3 engages, youll know exactly where it engages. Easy. Shifter really needs to be pulled for it to suck into gear. If youre lazy, you can easily grind a gear. Theres something about this turbo. This is my first time driving a turbocharged car and every time I pull off from a top light, I think its the turbo that pulls my car. I engage at 1600rpm and like someone is putting more gas into the car w/o me stepping on the accelerator. It just pulls you. You actually notice the Tachometer hold at its RPM for about a second. Is this how a turbo car drives?
Suspension feels nice a firm. You know that theres something in the suspension components when you drive this car. Its firm, yet still absorbs the bumps nice. I didnt get a chance to pull any hard turns and I dont intend on doing so until Ive properly broken into this puppy.
This is one Great looking car; a lot of people looked at my car and stared on my way home. A Cop magnet for sure if youve never owned a bright colour car. This is my first.
Anyway, when I got home, I wanted to take a few pictures, I made a turn with the wheel turned fully to one side, and then I heard something like the tire rubbing against something. It only sounded like it, but Im not 100%, and I doubt its rub.

Speaking of tire rub, when my mom sat in the MSP, as I was looking over the car, I notice that the rear wheel gap is very small! 1 finger width to be exact. Very Sweet for a production car. Upfront is a different storybut it isnt bad.

Well, to end off my LONG ASS story, this car is one Sweet ride. Great bang for the $ and theres no doubt that this car is worth waiting!! If you dont believe me on this one and you move on to something else, youre missing out.

Anyway, Id like to thank this board for all your contribution and inputs to all my questions. Special thanks to dpmmsp for your input on our earlier e-mails about checklist. I appreciate it! =D

68KMs on my car now and keeping warm in the garage. =D

-Limited Edition

congrats sounds great.. is there any chance we can meet up so I can take a look at it?

future titanium MSP owner

i live oshawa/whitby area and work in scarborough..

I can give you my cell # so we can chat and set up a time and location

Congratulations. thanks for the well detailed account. I look forward to comparing notes once i've driven mine.

Congratulations.

Congratulations! Perhaps a Winnipeg dealership will get one soon, and then I can see one in person. I've got a good feeling about it...

finally! sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

(drinks) CONGRATS(drinks)
Good notes .... here are a few comments on your comments..
-When you turn the wheel hard over in a parking lot or something, you do hear a noise a little like a rub ... but it doesn't "feel" like a rub .... and it seems to only happen when you are justing starting off .... when its warmed up I don't think its there.
-I'll look in the daylight tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure there is a place for the tools in the trunk. They showed them to me when I picked it up but I haven't looked since. Certainly mine aren't moving around in the trunk. They were under the mat and off to the right side (as you face the trunk). Is there a little compartment there? Like I say I'll confirm tomorrow.
- The little shifter doesn't take long to get used to, and is ssssooooooo smooth. Keep gloves in the car though. It stays ice cold long after the rest of the car has heated up on a cold day.
- The turbo thing I'm a little confused about. I don't think you'll be feeling much turbo effect under about 3,000rpm. Remember to be a good boy and not go much over 4,000 or 4,500 until its broken in ..... GOOD LUCK! I've past 1,000kms now and I'm getting a little braver and taking the revs over 5,000 and believe me, there you can feel the effect of the turbo
- The heater works very well and really pumps out heat. Because of the turbo, a nice side benefit is this car heats up really fast compared to others I've had.

So ..... I know you like the seat material ... it's way better than it looked in the photos isn't it? .......... time to pass judgement on the much discussed "spicy orange mica". Did it make you go WOW when you first saw it? Do you think you'll like driving a car that colour? Have you ever seen a nicer orange ..... or do you still have to get used to it?

Great to have you among us lucky ones .... I hope everyone on the board get similar Christmas presents very soon

Thanks for the Great Comments guy!

dpmmsp, you know exactly what i'm talking about when i mentioned about the 'rub' feel..i backed it into my driveway when i got home to take a few photos, and when i did it, i was like 'what the heck', is that rub i feel? 215's aren't That Wide!
And this is a production car, everything must be tested to perfection....oh well, i think i have to varrify this with myself just to make sure...i really doubt it's rub. No biggie.

Anyway, there's note in the spare tire well regards the LSD, ever read it? I just looked at, but didn't bother to read it! hahah!
Sound lazy? No, i read and looked over the entire manual!
The Mazdaspeed owner's manual and the regular protege manual. I looked over the Kenwood manual too....but didn't read the Green sticker in the spare..what does it say?

I just came back from the garage....i looked over my car for about an hour and i got a good idea what the kenwood system is capable of.
In my earlier post about this system isn't overwhelming...I TAKE THAT BACK!!
Once you get the perfect setting, it ROCKS ASS!
You just have to tune the sub to it's frequency, this and that blah blah..and you'll have it...treble settings/ mids...it's awesome!
It can sound just as good as a live concert/band!!!
Just takes a good hour to set everything up..
LOTS OF SETTINGS, that's for sure!!!

Btw, did any of you MSP owners get a headache, not knowing how to open the headdeck after pushing "SRC" on your deck before leaving your car? I couldn't open it up again for like 15 minutes and it seemed like a huge joke to me..
HOw on earth do you flip this ??
i pressed "SRC" on the remote and NOTHING!
key is in it's correct position..But no FLIP!??
HELLO?
how do i get it to flipp????
Then...
a simple push to the upper left corner..
TADA!


BIG SMILE ON MY FACE!!!

(rofl) That's funny about the stereo.. .. The exact same thing happened to me. When I went to pick up the car, Eddie (salesman) and I were sitting in it playing with the stereo. I pushed something and it flipped away and damned if we could get the bastard to flip back out. We did everything short of taking a crowbar to it ... then the mechanic with the same deck in his car comes along and "Oh ... press here" tada!!
Real men don't read manuals ... haven't you heard.
The only one I read cover to cover was for the stereo, and it wasn't much help. I'm going to have to get one of you car audio gurus to help me one day. I had the thing sort of set up the way I liked it, and today the stereo had a brainfart. I was trying to eject a disc (AC/DC believe it or not) and it stopped in mid-flip, turned off, and would do nothing. I removed the face plate and it flipped back so it had power. Put the face plate back on and after about 30 seconds it would do a half flip and stop again:mad: :mad: :mad: :
I ended up pushing the reset button and it immediately was happy again:wtf:
Now, though, I'm back to square one with the stereo settings(argh)
Is there any easy advice on where to set the front high pass filter vs the rear high pass filter vs the low pass filter? What the f*ck is a "Q" setting? I thought I was pretty good with stereos .... I have a great home set-up and my friends come to me when they need help with theirs .... but this thing makes me feel like(stupid) (scratch) (stupid)

I read all this discussion between you two and came to this conclusion:

I hate you guys

Jason H for you -----> (wiggle)
hehe..
trust me, being the first one getting the car has it's advantage and disadvantage....at least, when you get your car you know exactly how to operation the head deck!
MY goodness....

dpmmsp.(rofl)
real men have to read manuals! ESpecially when it comes to our MP919 head deck! This thing is soo screwed...GEEZ. How do they expect the 'average' buyer to work this things?? s***!
I guess they didn't build this car for the 'average' buyer..
i still haven't taken out my head deck...i'm afraid it might be too techincal that i'll break the motor or something...this head deck belongs in the 22nd century~!

dpmmsp, when you get the setting that you like it at, try sitting in the backseat with your head on the headrest ( again, what head rest?) close your eyes! It almost sounds like your at a live concert!
GOTTA LOVE THAT!

if only Kenwood went a step further and installed 7" wide screen montors in the back of the head rest! (boobs)

seriously, :wtf: is a 'Q' Setting??
HAHAHA!!

Limited, you forgot to respond to Dpm's Q about your reaction to the spicy orange...so be quick about it, all right?

AutoXer said:

Limited, you forgot to respond to Dpm's Q about your reaction to the spicy orange...so be quick about it, all right?

Click to expand...

quick and here it is..
My first reaction? Well it didn't really HIT me...i mean, i saw soo many photos of it throughout my 5 month + wait...so i knew exactly what i was expecting.....

Where does dpmmsp question me about my first impression about the Spicy Orange? i was sure i read every word he typed to me..

At the bottom in the little paragraph that has the word "orange" in it twice
That back seat thing sounds neat ... .... that's why we get a remote! ... I'd been wondering what I was supposed to do with it. The only problem would be explaining to the neighbours being mellow in the back seat of the car(smoke) with the music blaring at 2 in the morning.

The deck face comes off easy. When the deck is at 90 degrees and pauses, just grab the face and slide it off. It just clips back on after.

Regarding the (boobs) headrest monitor .... Kromer sells them if you want to put up the cash.

Jason ..... Sorry everyone hasn't got theirs yet....... don't hate us because we have beautiful cars

ahhh lucky guys.
i would love to find out how the ms compares to mp3 for driving feel (power differences not considered of course) hehe

alert: SMILEY OVERLOAD!!! too much happy in this thread, not enough happy in my garage

Congrats man, hope you are enjoying the car...

2nd day

hey guys..
well i couldn't sleep in this sunday morning..only because this 'orange' thing in my garage is sending me signals to drive her.
i'm over 100km and everything is running real nice. I do however noticed a few 'bum' sound in the rear suspension when i drop into a manhole.
I think it's normal..
can't be anything big.
most aftermarket suspenion set-ups sound like that..i don't know what makes that sound though.
For the first time, i believe i heard the stock BOV...i was in 3rd approaching a traffic light, it turned yellow on me, so i gave it some gas to about 3600rpm, shifted into 4th, and i heared like a hollow sound....i think that's the BOV.
COOL!

DId you acrually answer the orange question? Do you mean that it was exactly as you had seen in pictures or something? Just curious because you all know how paranoid I am about this color.

If I was driving any other car I wouldn't be, but laser blue is my favorite color, and if I'm trading her in....the orange will hopefully be as nice as you guys describe it.

enjoy!

Oh, got a Stereo question for you.

On the display, can you dislplay the song name/artist, spectrum analyser and the clock all on the same screen at once? This is how I have my Z828 all the time.

hey newf..
i don't have a good vobcaulary to to decribe this car. In basci english, under grey skies the sparkle and flakes don't shine. The orange under grey sky is a mute looking colour. Just a plain orange. It's similar to the Bettle Turbo S orange!

I did however see the car under the sun for a few minutes when it came out yesterday while taking delivery. The Orange looks awesome because all the flakes begin to appear and sparkle.
This is when it's a real head turn! I'm afriad people on the oppostie land might crash head on with someone else if they continue to stare at the Spicy Orange.

If you like getting attention...this is probably the best car you can do it in. All import tuners look and stare. It's annoying sometimes.



Regarding the stereo, you can program the song list and name with the head deck, however i don't have any programed CDs to see it scrolling. spectrum analyser is shown on the right hand side of the screen and takes up about 1/4 of the screen. I set the clock last night, but i haven't yet seen it! I don't know how to view it?
Anyway, the clock is a must, because if you haven' noticed already, the Mazdaspeed Protege does not come with an additional clock.