A couple of questions

Until last week I was a not particularly proud owner of a Toyota Yaris. It was a reliable point a to b car, and not much more. Then the driver of a Jeep decided to run it over. It was not a good day for me. The insurance company totaled my car on Saturday and I was on the hunt for a new car.

I drove a Toyota Corolla, a Honda fit, a Honda Civic, a Ford Fiesta, and a Mazda 2. While I liked the Mazda 2 the most with the Fit being a close second I was leaning towards picking up a Civic. Then I drove a Mazda 3 iSport automatic and if I am honest, it was the first car I have driven in a long time that I looked forward to driving again. The salesman offered to tempt me(16,995) and long story short I put money on it to hold it until the insurance money came through.

So I expect I will take the car home early next week. That leaves me with a few questions. A friend of mine (mx-5 owner) recommended the following:

1)clay bar and wax the car immediately.
2)Drive the first few thousand miles on secondary roads to vary the RPMs rather than highways.
3)Change the oil after the first 100 miles and then again after the first 3000.
4)get a performance alignment after the first few thousand miles.

Does this sound about right and would you add anything to the list?

1) Definitely
2) Yes
3) Eh, I beg to differ. I changed mine at 1,000.
4) Disagree. Unecessary.

5) lower it
6) tint it
7) rock it

Enjoy

munnin said:

1)clay bar and wax the car immediately.
2)Drive the first few thousand miles on secondary roads to vary the RPMs rather than highways.
3)Change the oil after the first 100 miles and then again after the first 3000.
4)get a performance alignment after the first few thousand miles.

Click to expand...

1) if you want to, but 100% needed
2) if the car has less than 25 miles on it, yes - this will help the engine break in better
3) same as number 2 - you are basically cleaning out the break-in gunk. do it yourself and use conventional oil to save on the cost
4) definitely - pay a little extra to get a lifetime alignment to, so you can go back every spring to make sure the numbers are still in line. make sure the mechanic knows what he's doing, and works hard to get the numbers to match left-right, and he doesn't just try to hit the "green" (just because the numbers are in the "green" doesnt mean it a good alignment)

thanks

Thanks for your input everyone.

1) I will definitely wax it and possibly clay bar it.
2) I am going to take the local curvy routes for a while.
3) I will change out the oil early.
4) The alignment suggestion was because my friend feels that some but not all cars get knocked out a little bit during shipping.

5) I will have to drive it through snow so I think wont lower it.
6) I might tint it.
7) I was too lame to rock it when I was young, and it would just look silly now.

BTW I know that lots of people find the styling on the 2010-11 questionable, yet the longer I look at it the more it makes me smile. At this point I find older 3 series a little too bland, while the big grin causes me to .... well grin.